Amazon has removed the self-published e-book purportedly written by notorious killer Paul Bernardo. This title has quickly become the number one bestseller on the site’s war fiction section before it quietly disappeared.
There has been no public comment from Amazon regarding the book suddenly becoming not available. The number of copies it was selling was staggering, but it resulted in an angry backlash from thousands of Canadian customers, who said they would no longer do business with Amazon.
Bernardo is currently serving a life sentence for the brutal murders of Ontario teenagers Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French in the early 1990s. The media coverage of this specific case was one of the first times in a modern era that everyone knew about. Similar to how the OJ Simpson trial was predated the beginning of 24 hour news cycle.
The Correctional Service of Canada has stated that the book has nothing to do with Bernardo’s “specific” crimes, but was at a loss about how he self-published the book. Federal inmates do not have access to the internet or email.
It is very likely that Bernardo wrote the book by hand and had a proxy self-publish it on his behalf. This is important to note because if Bernardo was the one who did it, the Federal government would be entitled to a large portion of the revenue.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
