Chapter 1 discusses the definition of homicide and how human psychology and behavior plays a role. Chapter 2 shows that homicide is not something that predominantly happens between people who know each other, such as family members. Murders of relatives are actually rare in comparison to murders of nonrelatives. Chapter 3 is a cross-cultural analysis of ethnographic materials which show that the circumstances in which infanticide is allegedly practiced in any particular society are almost invariably circumstances in which the child of inappropriate paternity, is of poor phenotypic quality, or is unlikely to survive for other reasons. Chapter 4 uses contemporary Canadian data on infanticides and other filicides to deter demographic predictors of the risk that a parent will kill his/her child, predicting and verifying the relevance of maternal age, maternal marital status, and child's age. Chapter 5 focuses on parricide. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 discuss the predominant variety of homicide involving unrelated men. Chapter 9 examines marital homicide. Chapters 10 and 11investigate the revenge motive for homicide. Chapter 12 reviews theories on geographic and temporal variability in homicide rates. References and index