Thanks to the grisly antics of Hannibal Lecter and Patrick Bateman, the popular image of the psychopath is of the suave predator with a fondness for power tools and fava beans. Professor Kevin Dutton, research psychologist at Oxford, argues that not all psychopaths are monsters and that those who can keep their more antisocial impulses from bleeding into everyday life can be very successful human beings. This isn't entirely revelatory – Bret Easton Ellis didn't set American Psycho on Wall Street by chance – yet Dutton's round-up of research goes deeper than the cliche of the cold-hearted soldier or the ruthless banker. It's not just dry experimental data: Dutton makes an uneasy trip to Broadmoor to meet "the chianti-swilling unworried unwell", as well as undergoing a Clockwork Orange-like procedure in order to view the world through a psychopath's eyes. There is an issue with Dutton's overly matey style, which can make the book seem like Top Gear hooked up to electrodes, but Andy McNab cameos aside, this book knows how to get under the skin, no chainsaw required.