Book 'Em
Crime Magazine's Review of
True-Crime Books
by Anneli Rufus
(Vol. 27, 08/09/08)
Identity theft is one of those menaces lurking
ever-present, but never real until it happens to you. We speculate around the
water-cooler about what a pain in the behind it would be, but heck, it's not
serial murder, after all. It's not a violent crime. Well, it happened to a
relative of mine this year not once, but twice. A disabled senior, Ella had
not one but two credit cards stolen by someone she was paying to help her with
daily tasks and who used the cards to spend thousands of dollars at trendy
hair salons, clothing stores, a casino, and Toys R Us. "How could this happen?"
Ella asked me in one of many calls shortly after the fraud was first discovered.
"I'm a businesswoman," she said. "I'm supposed to be too smart for this." Rather
than feeling gradually better as the weeks passed after the crime was first
discovered, Ella felt worse and worse. Law enforcement made only the feeblest
attempt to pursue the perpetrator, then apparently gave up. Ella feared that the
perpetrator was stalking her, would break into her house, would physically harm
her. Six months after the crime, she still lies awake many nights, plagued by
such thoughts. Nonviolent crimes torment their victims too. As Joe Roubicek
writes in one of the books in this month's column, seniors are tragically
fragile and they're growing ever older, becoming an ever-larger sector of the
U.S. population. We read true-crime books for entertainment, for enlightenment
but also for edification, because "one day," Roubicek warns, "we will all be in
the same boat."
Dangerous Women: Why Mothers, Daughters, and Sisters Become Stalkers, Molesters,
and Murderers, by Larry A. Harris (Prometheus Books, 2008): An
Arizona mother took explicit snapshots of herself engaging in sex acts with her
preteen daughter and son, then sent these to her incarcerated fiancι thinking
"it would make him love me more." A girl who grew up parentless in a Kansas City
housing project embraced the local gang as a surrogate family, and by age 24 was
responsible for some 50 shootings and six murders. Over three dozen fascinating,
heartbreaking cases recounted by a longtime clinical and forensic psychologist
reveal a rising crime trend that no one can afford to ignore. Within the 1990s,
Harris writes, the rate of criminal offenses by American girls under 18 rose by
157 percent, half the rate of offenses by boys.
Financial Abuse of the Eldery: A Detective's Case Files of Exploitation Crimes,
by Joe Roubicek (Lulu, 2008): We're always being reminded that the average
life-expectancy among Americans is rising higher and higher. We speculate about
how this will affect the health-care industry and Social Security. What flies
mostly under the radar to the tune of millions of cases every year, according
to Roubicek, a former Fort Lauderdale detective who handled over a thousand of
them and writes with the righteous clarity of a crusader is fraud and
exploitation perpetrated against the frail elderly. In chapters drawn from the
author's own career, we meet seniors with short-term memory loss whose
"caregivers" bullied them, extorted them, and persuaded them to sign over their
assets and write 10 paychecks a day. To anyone who reads this, seniors will
suddenly become much less invisible.
California Justice: Shootings, Lynchings, and Assassinations in the Golden State,
by David Kulczyk (Word Dancer Press, 2008): Were you to conduct a worldwide poll
asking which of the 50 states bred the most spectacular crimes, California would
stand a good chance of winning. But in this omnibus of outlaws that begins
during the Gold Rush in 1850, Sacramento journalist Kulczyk examines a tradition
that began long before the media-circus cases that cemented this dubious
reputation. A key theme in this book is vigilantism. Well into the 20th century,
Wild West criminals escaped the scenes of their crimes to dissolve into some
distant population. By the rules of "California justice," Kulczyk tells us,
"those who didn't leave were hanged, beaten, or shot."
Serial Killers: Up Close and Personal, by Jack Levin (Prometheus
Books, 2008): As a criminologist specializing in extreme violence, Levin has
interviewed some of the most ruthless figures in recent American history. Part
true-crime collection and part memoir, this engagingly intimate volume recounts
some of these interviews and details Levin's other connections with high-profile
cases. Eerie if-only-someone-had-seen-this-before observations permeate chapters
on such figures as "Hillside Strangler" Ken Bianchi and DC Sniper John Allen
Muhammed: A family friend told Levin that, as a boy, Jeffrey Dahmer had "the
epitome of the wicked stepmother." Levin's work has come at great personal cost,
he writes: "I am still sickened when I allow myself to think of the most ghastly
crime scenes. ... To this day, it remains difficult to get a good night's
sleep."
Norfolk Mayhem & Murder: Classic Cases Revisited, by Maurice Morson
(Wharncliffe Books, 2008): Black-and-white archival photographs and incredibly
detailed narratives of 19th- and very early 20th-century crimes make this
compact compendium perfect for the fireside on a long rainy night. A retired
high-ranking Norfolk police officer and the author of other true-crime books,
Morson conjures earnestly and passionately the sense and sensibility of the eras
about which he writes, giving a real feel for manners and customs long-vanished.
This book belongs to a series of local true-crimers from the same British
publisher. Others in the series include
Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths Around Portsmouth,
Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Suffolk,
Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Cumbria,
Kent Murder & Mayhem,
Warwickshire's Murderous Women, and
Yorkshire Hangmen. These would be interesting gifts for travelers or for
readers who have roots in these areas.
(Vol. 26, 01/06/08)
Another year begins, and with
it the crime statistics for each city restart at zero. Sadly, by the time 2008
was only four hours old, two homicides had already occurred in Oakland, Calif.,
where 2007 had been a dangerous if not quite record-breaking year. Whether
true-crime books evoke, for you, a strange faraway realm or whether they evoke
people and places that are all too close to home, here are a few new ones for a
new year.
Vanished at Sea, by Tina Dirmann (St. Martin's, 2008): Thomas and
Jackie Hawks "weren't rich," the author reminds us. The longtime probation
officer and homemaker just worked hard and saved prudently in order to afford,
in their middle years, a 55-foot yacht in which to cruise the world. But the
arrival of a grandchild convinced them to sell the boat and become landlubbers
again. Dirmann's absorbing account of what happened when the Hawkses put their
trust in a would-be buyer, a former TV child-actor who had turned into something
far more sinister, will make you grateful just to have your feet on terra firma.
Simon Says, by Kathryn Eastburn (Da Capo, 2008): As in Vanished
at Sea, the victims featured in this shocking and ultimately very sad book
were also a retired couple, so much in love. A few days after Carl and JoAnna
Dutcher and their 15-year-old grandson Tony were brutally slain on a remote
Colorado mountainside, an unlikely killer confessed: mild-mannered, 15-year-old
Isaac Grimes, Tony's former best friend. He said he'd been buffaloed into the
crime by an equally unlikely mastermind: high-school senior Simon Sue, a skinny
kid who had recruited Grimes and other boys into a Guyana-based (but imaginary)
paramilitary junta.
Dance With the Devil, by David Bagby (Key Porter, 2007): When the
corpse of promising young doctor Andrew Bagby was found in a Pennsylvania park,
his parents were devastated but also instantly suspicious of Shirley Turner, a
fellow doctor with whom Andrew had recently broken up. This is really two books
in one: It's a true-crime narrative detailing Kate and David Bagby's relentless
pursuit of justice as Turner fled to Canada and fended off extradition. But it
is also an honest, earnest and often painfully intimate blow-by-blow account of
grief and loss. As such, reading it might make the loved ones of other murder
victims feel at least a little less alone.
The Vienna Woods Killer, by John Leake (Granta, 2007): When
prostitutes started turning up strangled by their own stockings around Los
Angeles in 1991, investigators could hardly imagine yet that this was part
of a killing spree begun halfway around the world, and that the killer might be
one of Austria's most popular reporters. Having murdered a girl some 16 years
earlier, Jack Unterweger had been released from prison when do-gooder activists
declared him a literary genius. As a free man again, Unterweger became a
"celebrity journalist" ... while returning secretly to his killing ways, as
Leake reveals in a work whose self-conscious stylism 91 chapters, most barely
more than a page long sometimes gets in its own way.
Facing Down Evil, by Clint Van Zandt (Berkley, 2007): After 9/11,
Van Zandt muses, "all anybody seemed to want to talk about were security issues.
Anyway, it's all anybody seemed to want to talk about to me." That's
because he spent 25 years as the FBI's chief hostage negotiator, a career he
details here with an almost aw-shucks humility that is all the more endearing as
you read about his quick wits and courage in one hair-raising hostage situation
after another. Van Zandt disarmed hostage-takers by using psychological
engineering, which sometimes means saying things like: "Yeah, buddy, but you've
only killed three people so far, and who's to say those three didn't deserve
it?"
(Vol. 25, 09/19/07)
When a single crime inspires not one but three books and that crime
doesn't involve celebrities then you have to wonder what it is about such
a case that strikes such a compelling chord. Does it contain universal elements
to which nearly everyone can relate? Or is its perverse appeal quite the
opposite that this particular crime is a window into a world we can barely
fathom? Psychotherapist Felix Polk's October 2002 murder at the hands of his
wife Susan appeals on both levels at once. The Polk family home was on a quiet,
leafy street in a quiet, leafy suburb: the American dream, Northern California
style, complete with pool. Yet Susan Polk, the mother of Felix Polk's three
sons, was also his former patient: a seriously disturbed teenager for whom,
30-some years ago, he left his first wife. The case has spawned three worthy
volumes, all published since Susan's 2006 conviction. They join an interesting
crop of new releases, including Dr. David Kirschner's breakthrough study on the
"Adopted Child Syndrome."
Mind Games, by Carlton Smith (St. Martin's, 2007): In October 2002, a
housewife murdered her husband behind the couple's sprawling suburban San
Francisco Bay Area home. Neither husband nor wife had been famous, yet this
crime has since spawned than three books this year. (Another is reviewed below.)
From the prolific and satisfyingly detail-oriented Smith, quick-paced Mind
Games is the latest in a growing library of works about psychiatrist Felix
Polk: In the '70s, he shattered professional protocol by sleeping with and then
marrying one of his disturbed teenage patients. The couple had three boys.
Thirty years later, Susan Polk would viciously stab her husband to death.
Seduced by Madness, by Carol Pogash (Morrow, 2007): Local journalist
Pogash lavishes much care on the early days of Felix Polk's dalliances in
Berkeley with the woman who would later bear him three sons, slay him, and
display glaring evidence of mental illness when representing herself in the
courtroom. For Pogash, the Polk story is a sad testament to the excesses and
experiments that characterized California culture in the '60s and '70s. Insiders
shared intriguing theories with the author: For instance, Felix Polk's best
friend suggested that Felix loved Susan so much as to let her kill him,
as a perverse form of suicide.
Aftermath, Inc., by Gil Reavill (Gotham, 2007): As a true-crime and
disaster reporter for Maxim, Reavill amassed quite a vocabulary for
describing the shocking and nauseating. To research this book, he tagged along
with technicians who work for a Midwestern biohazard-cleanup company that
restores and sanitizes homicide scenes. Much can be learned about chemistry and
etymology from this account of what happens "after CSI goes home," though it's
told in language that's anything but text bookish. That's a plus or minus
depending on your taste. Sample lines: "The spinal fluid from the deceased had
rectified into a glaze-brown varnish on the floor" ... "a roiling, boiling,
yellow-beige 'maggot mass' of insect larvae, mostly meaty blowfly young'uns" ...
"my pity for the dead was always underpinned by a craven sense of relish."
Clearly.
Murder in Old Kentucky, by Keven McQueen (McClanahan, 2005): A bloated,
headless corpse discovered in a cane field. A Depression-era school shooter who
vanished into thin air. Two teenagers raped and set afire two days before
Christmas in 1881 by killers who later described themselves as having wanted "to
have a little fun." An instructor in Eastern Kentucky University's department of
English and theater, McQueen injects saucy wit into these accounts of 19th- and
early 20th-century Bluegrass brutality. But he also adroitly makes each case
relevant to modern times: For instance, in his chapter about redheaded John Vonderheide, who was hanged for killing an African-American girl, McQueen
reveals that his research has yielded innumerable newspaper articles about
"black mobs lynching blacks, blacks lynching whites, whites lynching whites for
committing crimes against blacks, and multiracial mobs lynching white and black
suspected killers. Obviously the effects of lynching on race relations were more
complex than we might think."
Jack of Jumps, by David Seabrook (Granta, 2007): In a London lovers'
lane, a prostitute's half-naked corpse was discovered just after dawn on a June
morning in 1959. It had been posed against a tree. Thus began a crime wave that
spanned the next six years, during which eight sex workers were killed and
countless clues led to ... nothing. Arguably Britain's most notorious
unsolved-murder spree since Jack the Ripper, this chilling chapter in London's
history gets a brooding, emotional and highly stylized treatment here as
Seabrook recreates the victims' last days and hours and depicts a seedy, sad
postwar, pre-Beatles Britain beset with fog and smog and dashed hopes. Seabrook
interviewed dozens of surviving witnesses, law-enforcement officers and
acquaintances of the dead, but his densely self-conscious phrasing sometimes
stalls the narrative.
Adoption: Uncharted Waters, by Dr. David Kirschner (Juneau Press, 2006):
Clinical psychologist Kirschner noticed early on in his practice that "an
inordinately high percentage of the children and teenagers referred to him were
adopted" and had developed rich fantasy lives that included elaborate themes of
loss, abandonment, and rejection. In extreme cases, the split, false, secret
self of adopted children evolves into a malignancy Kirschner terms the "Adopted
Child Syndrome" that has produced serial killers such as David Berkowitz (Son of
Sam), Joel Rifkin, who murdered 17 women, Steve Catlin, a serial wife and mother
killer, Jeremy Strohmeyer, the "casino killer," and parricides Patrick DeGelleke,
Matthew Heikkila, and Patrick Niiramen. Each adopted killer was obsessed with
fantasies of his birth mother, each was raised with secrets and lies, and each
was blocked and frustrated in his search for his birth parents by a closed
adoption system.
(Vol. 24, 05/13/07)
Within 24 hours of the Virginia Tech massacre,
reporters began contacting me because I once authored a book about loners and
they wanted me to comment on the headlines popping up around the world: "Students
and teachers portray gunman as insecure loner,"
trumpeted the Los Angeles Times. "Hate-Filled
Loner Wrote Violent Plays," offered Germany's
Spiegel Online. "Killer was 'twisted'
loner," charged the Herald in Dickson,
Tennessee. "Virginia gunman was troubled 'loner,'"
the Irish Times declared. "A loner at his
breaking point," mused the St. Catharines Standard
in Ontario, Canada. "Loner Cho's
lethal brain snap," quipped the Brisbane Times,
displaying classic Aussie concision. "Bloodlust of
Loner Who Left Hate-Filled Note About His Classmates,"
blared Scotland's Glasgow Daily Record.
"Loner left dark impressions,"
ventured the St. Petersburg Times a nice
impressionistic touch, I thought, as these things go. As I told the reporters,
the accurate word for guys such as Cho who seek companionship but are shunned
in Cho's case, because he
was a maladjusted, mentally ill stalker is lonely.
But he wasn't a loner, because loners are alone by
choice, savoring solitude a la Henry David Thoreau and Beatrix Potter (and, for
that matter, Barry Bonds). Violent crimes tend to happen because someone didn't
get what he or she wanted from others love,
attention, friendship, respect. Yet loners want nothing from others except to be
left alone. This is one of the last remaining minority-stereotypes, and the
media still get it wrong. We can only hope that the increasing rise of true
crime as a topic of interest among readers and TV viewers might be on its way
toward correcting this.
Cause of Death, by Stephen D. Cohle, MD and Tobin T. Buhk
(Prometheus, 2007): This collaborative effort of high-school teacher Buhk and
Kent County, Michigan chief medical examiner Cohle is an inside look into the
latter's fascinating work. True-crime fans will
appreciate the jargon for instance, a brain sliced
into cross-sections for examination purposes is said to have been "bread-loafed."
Also intriguing are the visceral, visual details: "Like
raindrops, drops of blood fall from Gale's left ear
and strike the steel table. Tap. Tap. Tap." Close-up
color photos of lethal wounds leave nothing to the imagination.
Autopsy, edited by Richard A. Prayson (Cleveland Clinic, 2007): If
the Cohle/Buhk book whetted your appetite for that silent, scientific world of
cold steel and corpses, this slim volume with contributions from numerous
doctors and medical students examines it further. Though much of this material
concerns illness-related or accidental deaths, it applies to crime victims as
well. Particularly interesting is its coverage of the ethical aspects of
autopsying: For instance, how firmly should families be pressed to give consent?
How should body parts be disposed? How do practitioners of various religions
feel about postmortem surgery?
Under the Knife, by Diane Fanning (St. Martin's,
2007): Dean Faiello was a popular figure in New York's
gay scene; "men approached him with the subtlety of
mating sharks," Fanning writes of this con-man who
although legally certified to perform laser
procedures such as tattoo removal pushed the
envelope beyond legal limits and began claiming that he was a certified
dermatologist. When a patient went into seizures during a minor procedure at his
clinic, Faiello panicked, fearing that if he took her to the hospital his bogus
credentials would be exposed. He hid Maria Cruz's
body, and thus begins this sad story of a homicidal poseur.
Killer Dad, by Robert Scott (Pinnacle, 2007): The ever-prolific
Scott returns with this chilling account of Colorado churchgoer Mike Blagg, who
reported his wife and six-year-old daughter missing just days before his 10th
wedding anniversary. The apparently grieving widower slipped out of town when,
nearly a year later, Jennifer Blagg's body was
discovered in a landfill. In transcribing Blagg's
conversations with 911 operators and law-enforcement officers, Scott does his
usual sturdy job of spotlighting the deceitful fumbling of a heartless killer
posing as an ordinary citizen, the proverbial guy-next-door.
Sadistic Killers, by Carol Anne Davis (Summersdale, 2007): Detailing
dozens of examples of almost unimaginable cruelty, this omnibus from the author
of
Women Who Kill and
Children Who Kill will disabuse you of ever feeling safe again, with
anyone, anywhere. From mother-of-three Jean Powell, who with young accomplices
in 1992 tortured a learning-disabled teenage girl for a week
yanking out two of her teeth with pliers before killing her
to Paul Beart, who in 2001 used his bare hands to rip his victim's
skin apart as she begged for her life, these are visions of hell on earth.
Gangsters of Harlem by Ron Chepesiuk (Barricade Books, 2007): Ron
Chepesiuk provides a comprehensive look at the underworld of the Big Apple's
most famous neighborhood. Founded by the Dutch in 1626, Harlem was a highly
fashionable white neighborhood in the late 1890s. During the early twentieth
century, East Harlem became the base for the Morello-Terranova gang, one of the
first Italian-American crime families. By the 1930s, two-thirds of the city's
African-Americans were living in Harlem. As Harlem changed, it spawned such
legendary gangsters as Stephanie "Queenie" St. Claire, the woman who refused to
be cowed by mobster Dutch Schulz, and Bumpy Johnson, the "Original Gangster,"
who made his legendary mark on organized crime as the middleman between the
Italian American mob and the Harlem community. By the 1970s, big-time drug
traffickers like Frank "Black Caesar" Matthews, "The Untouchable" Leroy Nicky
Barnes, and Frank "Superfly" Lucas had taken over the organized crime turf in
Harlem. The book chronicles Harlem's crime history through a series of profiles
of the neighborhood's major gangsters. [Editor's note: An excerpt of this book,
entitled "Black Caesar,"
appears on Crime Magazine.]
(Vol. 23, 01/01/07)
Like Truman Capote's In
Cold Blood in 1965 and Normal Mailer's Executioner's Song in 1979,
John Grisham's The Innocent Man has brought a noted fiction writer to the
true-crime genre. And for good reason: "Not in my most creative moment could I
conjure up a story as rich and layered as Ron's [Williamson]," Grisham said
about his new book that immediately hit the top of the bestseller lists upon its
release in the fall of 2006. Over the last two decades book publishers have come to
realize what TV network executives have known all along: true-crime books sell.
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, by John
Grisham (Doubleday, 2006): Wrongful convictions plague the U.S. justice system
like an epidemic in every part of the United States and at all judicial levels.
Corrupt cops, prosecutors willing to use perjured testimony to "clear" thorny
cases, incompetent or deceitful experts using junk science at trial, and biased,
unscrupulous judges all play their parts in this national scandal. Grisham found
all of these elements and more in the 1986 capital convictions of Ron Williamson
and Dennis Fritz in the rape and murder of an Ada, Okla., cocktail waitress.
Such Good Boys, by Tina Dirmann (St. Martin's, 2006): Within this
story of one Southern California murder are wrapped many tragedies. Single mom
Jane Bautista grew paranoid and psychotic, abusing her two young sons in full
view of family, neighbors, and friends for years yet somehow this
household-in-crisis slipped through the cracks until 20-year-old Jason Bautista
decided that the only way to staunch his pain was by killing his mom and
throwing her corpse into a ravine. It's one of those sagas in which everyone's a
victim.
The Mammoth Book of True Crime: New Edition, by Colin Wilson
(Carroll & Graf, 1998): A handy companion for beachside, bedside or bathroom
reading, this hefty work by the always-reliable Wilson includes over 70 chapters
detailing hundreds of crimes dating back over a century: some well-known, but
also many obscure surprises. You could pick it up and open it at random,
anywhere, and find yourself immersed in Wilson's distinctive commentary with its
psychological insights. He feels that today's trends in crime spring largely
from the cheapening and commercialization of sex.
Murderers' Row, by Robin Odell and Wilfred Gregg (Sutton, $16.95):
Also hefty, offering lots of blood for your buck, is this international
alphabetical omnibus of murders: from homicidal nurse Beverley Allitt to
furniture salesman William Ziegler, who slaughtered his own family. A South
African bomber, a Russian cannibal, a French doctor who slew dozens of Jews whom
he had promised to help escape the Nazis: Written in an engagingly
conversational style, each of these 500-plus thumbnails is so thought-provoking
that you'll find yourself Googling name after name to learn more.
Crime Classification Manual: Second Edition,
by John E. Douglas, Ann W. Burgess, Allen G. Gurgess, and Robert K. Ressler (Jossey-Bass,
2006): This landmark reference work illuminates definitions used throughout the
criminal-justice system, with crime-scene details, typical forensic findings,
and actual examples to illustrate each. For instance, "erotomania-motivated
murder" is defined here as "motivated by an offender-victim relationship based
on the offender's fixation," with John Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman cited
as an example. "Extremist homicide" is "motivated by ideas based on a particular
political, economic, religious, or social system." Examples of perpetrators
include Hizballah and the KKK.
I'll Do My Own Damn Killin', by Gary W. Sleeper (Barricade, $22):
Sporting an under bite, Lester Ben "Cowboy Benny" Binion wore "the look of a
slightly perplexed bulldog" but perplexed he was not. A horse trader in his
youth, then a bootlegger and gambler, Binion was the acclaimed kingpin of
mid-20th-century Dallas's underworld. Feuding between Southwestern crime bosses
fuels this energetic history, authored by a Texas lawyer, of a time and place
when .38 Colt Superautomatics and nitroglycerin bombs were the punch line to
every argument.
(Vol. 22, 8/12/2006)
It was only a matter of time before celebrity culture and true crime merged
into full-overlap mode. Sure, history had a few precedents Fatty Arbuckle's
celebrated murder case, for instance, and the stabbing of Lana Turner's lover by
Turner's teenage daughter, Cheryl Crane. But ever since O.J., the two realms
have been plunging headlong toward that place in time where it seems that every
third bit of breathless gossip to hit the headlines and the blogosphere is about
some star being nabbed for DUI, assault, or worse. Ask Mel Gibson. Given that
both power and cash corrupt, it's inevitable. Celebrities become criminals;
criminals become celebrities and it's spilling over onto the bookshelves now
too. For readers who love both Entertainment Tonight and America's
Most Wanted, that's a dream come true.
Notorious C.O.P.,
by Derrick Parker with Matt Diehl (St. Martin's, 2006):
His mother, a devout Jehovah's Witness, prayed for him; even his NYPD colleagues
thought 20-omething Parker was nuts to work undercover narcotics in the Bronx.
It was a career that spanned more than 20 years, during which Parker gained fame
as New York's "hip-hop cop," working cases involving top stars from the day
Busta Rhymes was robbed of a $70,000 necklace and $50,000 bracelet right up to
the murders of Biggie Smalls and Jam Master Jay. Celebrity gossip, gore, and
crime mix it up in this punchy memoir by a man who sympathizes with the
struggles that fuel gangsta rap but laments "this vicious cycle ... grinding
away toward oblivion."
Booked,
by Giacomo Papi (Seven Stories, 2006): Celebrity culture
intersects with crime yet again as an Italian journalist proffers and analyzes
"the last 150 years through mug shots." These genuine post-arrest photos feature
many faces that are famous solely through their connection with crime Charles
Manson, for instance, and Timothy McVeigh, and Saddam Hussein. But sure to
interest most readers are the dozens of faces famous in other realms but caught,
quite literally, in the act. Not just Hugh Grant but Eminem (concealed weapon),
Albert A. Gore III (marijuana possession), Bill Gates (traffic violation), and
many other athletes, performers, and public figures. Papi's hyper-wry,
take-no-sides commentary will seem too sarcastic to some readers, crime victims
in particular.
Tracker,
by Dr. Maurice Godwin with Fred Rosen (Thunder's Mouth, 2006):
Serial killers are both good news and bad news. They're bad news because,
obviously, they're killers. The upside, faint as it is, is that these perps
follow patterns. Discerning those patterns gives smart investigators a better
chance of success. Godwin and Rosen tell by showing, using dozens of interesting
true cases to illustrate the techniques used in psycho-geographic profiling, a
scientific approach that allows users to actually predict criminals' future
behavior.
The Officer's Wife,
by Michael Fleeman (St. Martin's, 2006): Everyone
said they were storybook sweethearts, but Michelle Theer had a secret. After
arranging for her U.S. Air Force pilot husband to be murdered right before her
eyes, she pretended to be the classic grieving wife. Meanwhile, she was
auctioning off his prized possessions on eBay, continuing her double life with
the lover she'd met online, and as investigators drew closer fleeing the
Fayetteville, N.C., area and trying to hide her identity with plastic surgery.
Naturally she was deft at outthinking her pursuers: Theer was a professional
psychologist. Fleeman capably paces this tale of infidelity in extremis,
detailing the particular poignancy of a serviceman being killed not at war but
right at home.
In Plain Sight,
by Tom Smart and Lee Benson (Chicago Review, 2006): With
the help of Deseret Morning News columnist Benson, Elizabeth Smart's
uncle gives a new insiderish dimension to the story of her 2002 abduction and
its weird aftermath a story that has received so much media play that the
talented and beautiful teenage victim is now world-famous in her own right.
Smart describes family dynamics and strategies while narrating search efforts
and cross-cutting to the couple who would later be identified as Elizabeth's
captors. It's truly a blow-by-blow account, and readers not yet saturated with
Smartiana will welcome its exhaustive level of detail.
(Vol. 21, 4/18/2006)
If these last few years have proven anything,
it's that eventually, cold cases can start to simmer again and be solved. How
many of us had long since given up on the idea of Wichita's vicious BTK being
identified, much less arrested? Yet in 2005, that's exactly what happened.
Dennis Rader had been there all along, raising his kids and going to the local
church. Of course, Rader's capture can't bring his victims back to life. And now
another family is shattered by his crimes: his own. Meanwhile, task forces
around the United States and abroad continue to locate and arrest suspects with
terrorist ties. It's heartening to know that justice can indeed be served but
at the same time it's terrifying to be reminded yet again by books such as the
new ones in this column that the truly heinous can thrive right beside us,
among us, sometimes for as long as they choose.
The Hangman's Record, by Steve
Fielding (Chancery House, 1994; 1995; and 2005): For slitting children's
throats, for bludgeoning a rival with a red-hot poker, for beating a recluse to
death and dispatching a husband with strychnine over a thousand killers ended
up on Britain's gallows before capital punishment was abolished there in 1964.
Fielding's astoundingly detailed encyclopedia-style series spans nearly 100
years and runs to three illustrated volumes. (Volume I covers 1868-1899; Volume
II covers 1900-1929; Volume III covers 1930-1964.) Offering capsules of the
crimes, each book includes indexes not only for the names of perpetrators, but
also by methods of murder drowning, blunt instrument, starvation, billhook,
etc. These indexes give insight into how the face of mayhem changes over time,
yet in some ways stays eerily the same.
Deadly Masquerade, by Donita
Woodruff (New Horizon, 2005): When she met a handsome Hollywood insider after
moving west with two small kids, Woodruff fell hard. Visual-effects master David
was everything the lonely woman could have wished for: tender, attentive, and
fabulously rich, with connections all over the world. They married, but by then
Woodruff was already suspicious of Valerie, an exotic figure whom David had
first introduced as an old friend, then admitted was a former lover whose
sex-changed operation he had financed. Further revelations followed, as the
author embarked on daring detective work of her own and discovered deception,
dark secrets, and a murder that some hoped would never be solved.
The BTK Murders, by Carlton Smith
(St. Martin's, 2006): Many believed that he would never be caught the Kansas
maniac whose nickname sprang from a penchant for binding, torturing, and
killing. Maintaining his lethal secrecy over a span of murders between 1974 and
1991, the mysterious figure seemed to disappear, but then resumed his habit of
sending taunting missives to the local press in 2004. Last year, he was finally
caught. With the trademark accessibility and warmth that make his many books so
eminently readable, Carlton Smith goes step-by-step with the trackers
including a persistent local law professor who identified and captured local
census worker and Cub Scout leader Dennis Rader, now serving 10consecutive life
terms with no chance of parole.
Under the Bridge,
by Rebecca
Godfrey (Simon & Schuster, 2005): Kids killing kids it's one of the most
incomprehensible types of crimes, yet we're seeing more and more headlines
evincing that such crimes are on the rise. In this movingly and sometimes
lyrically written account of a 14-year-old girl unpopular but desperate for
friends beaten to death by her own classmates in beautiful coastal British
Columbia, Godfrey gets under the skins of all involved to reveal a chilling new
nihilism among suburban teens. The young killers were attractive, talented,
bright. Some were even in love. Yet somehow, one crisp night, none of that
seemed to matter enough to keep them from snuffing out one life and splintering
their own.
Monster Slayer, by Robert Scott
(Kensington, 2005): New Mexico's Navajo country is colorful and, to the passing
tourist who views it through a windshield, serene red sand studded with
jutting mesas under bright blue skies as far as the eye can see. With the
authentic renderings of local atmosphere that mark his books, Scott gives a
closer look at a region riven just under its beautiful surface by boredom,
economic hardship, alcoholism, and racial prejudice. Irascible, restless young
ne'er-do-well Robert Fry tried to fill his empty days with role-playing games
but petty greed and anti-Navajo racism turned the Dungeons & Dragons fan into a
rapist and murderer who is now on New Mexico's Death Row. If you ever want an
example of pointless crimes that didn't have to happen, Scott captures them here
in bittersweet detail.
Editor's Special Mention:
Drug Lords: The Rise and Fall of
the Cali Cartel -- The Richest, Most Powerful Crime Syndicate in History by
Ron Chepesiuk (Milo Books, 2005): An inside look at how the biggest ever
undercover operation by anti-drug forces from around the world brought down the
world's most powerful drug trafficking operation, the Cali cartel. For more than
20 years, the Cali cartel pumped thousands of tons of cocaine across the world,
laundered billions of dollars in illegal profits and was responsible for murders
assassinations and corruption at the highest levels of government. At the height
of its success, it is estimated that the Cali cartel controlled over 70 percent
of the cocaine sold worldwide, with an annual turnover of $8 billion.
(Vol. 20, 8/14/2005)
When I first started reading about crime as a kid in the
'70s it went without saying that the villains of all those true stories I read
were men. From the In Cold Blood killers to Richard Speck to Son of Sam
to Charles Starkweather (who was executed, creepily enough, on my birthday)
all, obviously, men. Sure, a few exceptions sneaked out: Susan Atkins, Myra
Hindley, Mary Bell. Distaff killers loomed all the more perverse for their
scarcity. As a teenager, I was already so sick of seeing books and articles and
made-for-TV movies about Lizzie Borden that I couldn't stand to see her name
anymore and still can't. But what a difference a few decades make.
America's Most Wanted frequently features all-female specials, drawing upon
an ever-widening span of jealous wives, overwhelmed moms and other women who
went too far. The new breed of true-crime books tells us even more about them,
reminding us that more now than ever, "murderer" is a gender-neutral noun.
A Wife's Revenge, by Eric Francis (St. Martin's,
2005): She was a gorgeous blonde ex-stripper and devoted mother to Jeffrey
Wright's two young kids, but that didn't help Susan Wright keep her husband from
veering back again and again to his prenuptial cocaine use and playboy ways.
Luring him into a kinky-sex encounter, she took advantage of his being tied hand
and foot to the bed and, straddling him, stabbed her husband nearly 200 times.
Her attempt to bury him in the couple's Houston backyard proved ineffectual.
This compact retelling of the tale examines how, at her high-profile trial,
Susan Wright cast herself as a victim of domestic abuse and cast her attack on
Jeffrey as self-defense.
Poisoned Love, by Caitlin Rother (Pinnacle, 2005):
She was a gorgeous blonde toxicologist who graduated summa cum laude from San
Diego State University, but Kristin Rossum was also a crystal-meth addict who,
while having an affair with her boss at the county Medical Examiner's office
where she worked, decided she was married to the wrong man. After Rossum's young
husband who made a point of never touching drugs died of an overdose, it was
discovered that the lethal chemicals had been taken from her workplace. Driven
by well-drawn characters and a dynamic investigation, this absorbing page-turner
was authored by a journalist who was once herself married to an addict.
Rattlesnake Romeo, by Joy Wellman (Pinnacle, 2005):
When churchgoing Tampa real-estate agent Vicki Lyn Robinson went missing,
suspicion fell on her 15-year-old daughter, Valessa, who was also missing
because she was fleeing cross-country in a stolen vehicle with her boyfriend
and his best friend. Having stabbed Vicki to death in her own kitchen for trying
to halt the couple's romance, the trio stuffed her corpse into a plastic garbage
can and hit the road. What resonates throughout this saga of a shattered family
is how airheadedly shallow, selfish, and stubborn the killers reveal themselves
to be. Valessa was a spoiled kid whose mom wouldn't let her have what she wanted
for which everyone ended up paying the highest price.
The Restless Sleep, by Stacy Horn (Viking, 2005):
The NYPD's cold-case files yield long-ago crimes, all the more chilling for
having been largely forgotten. A chance encounter with a detective while
delivering cupcakes to a 9/11 command center led to Horn's fascination with the
achingly strange world of yellowed clippings and families that never found
closure. This quirkily personal account of her months as an insider with the
cold-case squad brings back to vivid life the investigators as well as the
victims for whom they strive to find justice, including a kicked-to-death teen,
a drug-dealing couple killed by their colleagues, and a young small-town wife
who went out drinking one night in 1951 and ended up buried in a pink chiffon
dress.
15 Years to Life, by Anthony Papa with Jennifer
Wynn (Feral House, 2004): After being promised $500 to deliver four-and-a-half
ounces of cocaine, first-time-offender Papa got caught in the act and, thanks to
New York's draconian drug laws, drew the titular sentence in Sing Sing. There,
he learned to paint and this new hobby turned into an obsession that not only
freed Papa from the suicidal impulses that life behind bars had spurred in him,
but also freed him from prison itself. After some of his works won prison art
shows and were exhibited in the chic Whitney Gallery, journalists took up Papa's
cause. Well-wishers joined his clemency campaign, and Papa was released after 12
years. Blockish prose doesn't entirely hamstring this survival saga that does
its best to lambaste the War on Drugs.
(Vol. 19, 6/12/2005)
They say that when the temperature goes up, so do passions
and the crime rate. Whether or not this is true, something about warm weather
welcomes true-crime reading. Is it because shivering over graphic autopsy
photographs and crime-scene descriptions and characterizations of cold-blooded
killers has the salubrious effect of cooling our blood as we read? Is it
because reading the best true-crime books renders us frozen with fear, sitting
stock-still and barely breathing? This season's newest and best are sure to find
themselves packed away in luggage destined for many a summer vacation though
by the same token, this season's best lend a murderous tinge to such potential
destinations as Los Angeles, West Palm Beach, Lubbock, and Mexico's Yucatan
Peninsula.
The Badge, by Jack Webb
(Thunder's Mouth, 2005): Originally published in 1958, this collection of true
tales comprises those deemed too violent to transform into episodes of Webb's
then-famous TV show, Dragnet he was both its creator and star.
Featuring murders, mutilations and drug busts described in pared-down,
hardboiled narratives, this new edition features an introduction by James Ellroy,
who credits the original edition with turning him into a true-crime writer:
"This book taught me. This book gave me heroes and fiends. This book gave me the
Los Angeles Police Department."
Couples Who Kill, by Carol
Anne Davis (Allison & Busby, 2005): As she previously did in
Women Who Kill
and
Children Who Kill, one of Britain's most bracing true-crime writers
recounts sickening events in clear, unruffled prose through which shines a
passionate sympathy for all victims of violence, especially young ones. Among
dozens of duos not necessarily romantically inclined on both sides of the
Atlantic included here are Ian Brady and Myra Hindley; Rose and Fred West;
Leonard Lake and Charles Ng; a Mexican brother-sister pagan sex cult and
self-styled German "vampires" Daniel and Manuela Ruda. Davis does not flinch at
revealing the goriest details.
No One Can Hurt Him Anymore,
by Carol J. Rothgeb and Scott H. Cupp (Pinnacle, 2005): After the naked body of
10-year-old Andrew "A.J." Schwarz was discovered floating in a backyard swimming
pool in a suburb of West Palm Beach, Fla., investigators closed in on the boy's
stepmother. The deeper they dug, the more horrifying details they uncovered of
physical and mental abuse that Jessica Schwarz had been inflicting on A.J. for
years, right under his father's nose. This page-turner is easy to read, though
it's hard to stomach the mental images of a boy being beaten and humiliated so
mercilessly that, as the authors put it, only in death could he find peace.
Tracks to Murder, by
Jonathan Goodman (Kent State, 2005): Recounting a journey across America and
back, this travel-narrative/memoir by one of Britain's leading true-crime
historians who achieved this status after years spent producing and writing
scripts for a TV crime show manages to be mellow and even folksy while
spotlighting some of this country's most infamous crimes. Goodman mixes
historical fact with personal observation as he visits the scenes of the Fatty
Arbuckle scandal, the Leopold-and-Loeb case, the Gerald Ford assassination
attempt, and many more.
Trail of Blood, by Wanda
Evans with James Dunn (New Horizon, 2005): Late one night, Jim Dunn received a
mysterious phone call that changed his life. The young caller claimed to be his
24-year-old son Scott's girlfriend, and she said Scott was missing. Suspicious,
then increasingly panicked, Dunn began searching in vain for Scott. Evidence of
foul play arose, including bloodstains all over Scott's apartment, and the woman
who had telephoned Dunn was clearly keeping secrets, but a body was never found.
Good Housekeeping reporter Evans brings realism and sensitivity to this
heartbreaking story of a bereft father's plight.
True Story, by Michael
Finkel (Harper Collins, 2005): Truth and lies mean a lot to Finkel, who was
fired from his prestigious staff-writing position at The New York Times
Magazine after mixing fakery with facts in a major article. His shame
surrounding that incident is a backdrop to this compelling book, which tells the
scarcely believable but (Finkel assures us) completely true tale of how a young
Oregon husband and father named Christian Longo, after murdering his wife and
three kids, went on the run to Mexico and stole Finkel's identity. The two men,
each a liar in his own way, struck up a correspondence, which Finkel details
here as one of several narratives he straddles at once rather skillfully.
(Vol. 18, 1/31/2005)
As revealed in this latest
roundup, the last 10 years have seen more than their share of crimes at home and
abroad, violent and victimless, creative and crass, desperate and deliberate. It
all makes for fascinating reading, and these new books about relatively recent
crimes offer insight to strange realms and secret societies that remain very
much alive, if mostly unseen, right under our noses.
Paper Fan, by Terry Gould
(Thunder's Mouth, 2004): The author's search for elusive Chinese triad gangster
Steven Wong, aka "Paper Fan," takes on an almost novelistic quality as its
twists and turns span decades and continents, encompassing dozens of
stranger-than-fiction characters as well as both tragedy and comedy. Mystery
goes into the mix as well: Canadian child-model-turned-reporter Gould begins the
book by describing the grave in a Vancouver cemetery where Wong's ashes
allegedly lie, yet probably do not. The gangster is said to have died in a
traffic accident in the Philippines in 1992, but strong evidence supports the
theory that Wong faked his death in order to avoid being imprisoned for heroin
trafficking. Gould's relentless and tireless search for the truth in Canada and
throughout much of Asia makes for a tale that is as much travelog as true crime.
Murder on the Rails, by Lt.
William G. Palmini Jr. and Tanya Chalupa (New Horizon, 2004): Most of us know
very little about the real lives of the homeless, and many of us don't want to
know. But in this work detailing a series of brutal killings in boxcars and rail
yards, veteran police officer Palmini and journalist Chalupa expose a sinister
underworld little known among the general populace: Some 5,000 strong, The
Freight Train Riders of America (FTRA) is a nationwide gang of transients whose
violent exploits include throwing men off moving locomotives just to watch them
die. Palmini entered this hornet's nest when he began investigating the 1995
death of a homeless Vietnam vet found bludgeoned along the rails near San
Francisco Bay.
September Sacrifice, by Mark
Horner (Pinnacle, 2004): Born and bred in Malaysia, bank teller Girly Chew
immigrated to Albuquerque, where she lived with a man whom she believed was a
Swiss physician and DNA expert with powerful connections in the realms of
science and politics. In fact, Chew's husband was a psychopath and a longtime
scammer from Texas, not Switzerland whose usual MO was bilking middle-aged
and older women out of their fortunes by injecting them with a fake anti-aging
serum. When 36-year-old Chew vanished from her apartment under mysterious
circumstances in 1999 after becoming estranged from him, he became the prime
suspect in a case whose real tragedy as Horner relates energetically is how
easily the false doctor lured gullible innocents into his web by telling wild,
outrageous lies.
Over the Edge, by Michael
Fleeman (St. Martin's, 2004): Art dealer Peter Bregna used his cell phone to
call 911 from a sheer cliff-edge in California's gorgeous Sierra Nevada
mountains just a few minutes after his pickup truck careened over it in 1998.
The truck flew over the cliff, flipped, and landed upside-down far down the
slope. Bregna's dead wife, Rinetta, was found dangling from the seatbelt on the
passenger side inside the overturned vehicle. Bregna's tale of a tragic driving
accident raised suspicions among rescue workers who wondered how he had managed
to emerge from the wreck at all, much less to have escaped practically
uninjured. Thenceforth his claims continued to unravel at a rapid pace,
revealing a troubled man who simply couldn't bear to be alone. He had so
resented his wife's extensive work-related travels as a tour guide in Europe
that he killed her, dooming himself to solitude of the worst and most enduring
kind.
Best American Crime Writing 2004 Edition,
edited by Otto Penzler and Thomas H. Cook (Pantheon, 2004): Always an engaging
anthology, the BACW series continues in this latest edition to offer compelling
articles by an impressive array of top-flight writers. Among the nearly two
dozen contributors this year are Scott Turow, James Ellroy, Jon Krakauer and
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., reporting on such disparate crimes as the ongoing Ciudad
Juarez factory-girl massacre; a New York professor accused of hoarding kiddie
porn; the still-unsolved "boy in the box" murder that continues to haunt an
ex-cop decades later; and the Kennedy piece about the Michael Skakel/Martha
Moxley case. For any true-crime aficionado who savors good writing and
good stories, this is a volume to keep on the shelf and dip into whenever life
seems dull.
Book 'Em Archives
