Book Em Archives
Crime Magazines Review of
True-Crime Books
2004
by Anneli Rufus
(Vol. 17, 8/15/2004)
Who says true crime isn't the best beach-reading? Summer
sunshine makes us feel warm and comforted and safe, in which case a crime book
provides the same bracing jolt that high-contrast frisson as an ice-cold
drink. And reading about crimes committed in faraway places deepens their
summertime appeal even further: Whether you're actually on vacation or not,
reading about an Irish art heist or Bolivian drug trafficking broadens your
perspectives and makes you feel as if you've actually been somewhere. Crime and
criminals are different elsewhere. Now's as good a time as any to find
out how and why.
The Irish Game, by Matthew
Hart (Walker, 2004): Art heists are among the most high-profile crimes,
conceived and carried out by only the most calculating, ambitious, and confident
breed of criminals. And the risks involved are beyond ridiculous, as revealed in
this look into art theft and art thieves, starting with an account of the 1974
theft of a Vermeer from an Irish estate. Hart's detailed descriptions of
saviors, schemers, and amazing stakes are appealing, but only up to a point at
times the saga seems better suited to a long magazine article than a full-length
book.
Marching Powder, by Rusty
Young and Thomas Mc Fadden (St. Martin's, 2004): Lured by a provocative entry in
a travel guidebook, backpacking English-teacher Young took a guided tour of San
Pedro prison in La Paz, Bolivia, where he met and befriended a charismatic
inmate: Liverpudlian drug-smuggler McFadden. Based on Young's observations after
wangling a pass to stay three months in La Paz with his new pal, this book is an
inside story of a city within a city, where prisoners maintain a complex corrupt
society, running businesses, living with their wives and children, and
manufacturing cocaine.
The Encyclopedia of Mass Murder,
by Brian Lane and Wilfred Gregg (Carroll & Graf, 2004): Delivering exactly what
its title promises, with no frills unless you count a passel of photographs,
including pictures of corpses the authors provide capsule accounts of over 200
mostly famous cases from around the world. Familiar entries include Richard
Speck and the Columbine High School massacre, but stories of bloody multi-victim
crimes in Japan, India, and tiny English villages widen the true-crime horizon.
Death's Acre, by Bill Bass
and Jon Jefferson (Putnam, 2003): Patricia Cornwell, whose bestselling mystery
novels have helped turn forensic detection into a trendy dinner-table topic,
wrote the foreword to this study of a Tennessee hillside, dubbed the Body Farm,
where corpses decompose under various conditions in shallow graves, submerged
in water, locked in car trunks to help forensic-scientist Bass refine his
techniques. Anecdotes recounting Bass's past cases make a nice mix with the
serious chemistry, biology, and entomology.
A Million Little Pieces, by
James Frey (Anchor, 2004): After regaining consciousness in a major Midwestern
drug-rehab facility, 26-year-old Frey began the grueling process of facing his
past head-on. "I am an addict and a criminal," he reminds us repeatedly in this
gutbustingly honest memoir which bares a fugitive's soul and is all the more
devastating for its literary appeal. Wanted in three states for assault with a
deadly weapon and various drug-related charges, Frey struggled to rebuild his
body while deciding how to atone for his crimes.
(Vol. 16, 1/05/2004)
Actual crime statistics
aside, some cities just stand out as the world's most crime ridden. It's a
matter of ambience, history, and reputation. London is a top contender: Of all
the world's metropolises, England's capital resounds with the echoes of
countless famous cases both fictional and true: from Jack the Ripper to Jack
Sipes who killed poor Nancy in Dickens' Oliver Twist and beyond.
Perhaps it is the city's enormous size, its countless dark lanes. Perhaps it's
the moody lure of the river. Perhaps it's the fog. Rivers and fog lend
themselves to the hiding of corpses and to criminals' hasty escapes. In which
case, what makes Los Angeles, of all places, London's American equivalent? The
never-ending Southern California sun hides nothing, and the L.A. River is just a
trickle, too shallow even to swallow a gun. Perhaps it's the heat. Perhaps it's
a Wild West wildness. Perhaps it's Hollywood, thanks to the likes of Raymond
Chandler and James Ellroy. In any case, the true-crime genre takes us back to
the beaches and freeways of Tinsel Town again and again.
Ready for the People: My Most Chilling Cases as a
Prosecutor, by Marissa N. Batt (Arcade, 2003):
During the 25 years she has spent trying cases "for the people" in Los Angeles's
Criminal Courts Building, the warmly witty but always clear-eyed author has
watched the justice system change considerably (during one trial early in her
career, a male judge asked Batt to absent herself from the courtroom because he
deemed her curly hair "too distracting") while in many ways staying the same.
The cases recounted in this collection are uneven in terms of their intrinsic
interest, but Batt redeems even the least interesting ones with her disarming
personal honesty and knack for dead-on dialogue. Batt reproduces conversation,
especially when it takes the form of African-American slang, with an unerring
ear.
Homicide Special, by Miles
Corwin (Henry Holt, 2003): A typical journalism-school assignment is the
"ride-along", in which students ride along with beat cops for a few hours to get
an inside view of police work mostly routine tedium punctuated by the
occasional flash of adrenaline-inducing excitement. Corwin carries the
"ride-along" to book length, documenting the months he spent accompanying an
L.A. homicide squad through investigations of crimes, including the murder of a
Russian prostitute and the mysterious deaths murder or suicide? of a mother
and daughter found tied together under a boat in Los Angeles Harbor. The
background information Corwin provides for each of the cops a former grocery
clerk, an ex-law student, a cousin of Willie Mays is engaging, and true-crime
fans will feel right at home in the settings he conjures.
True Vampires, by Sondra
London (Feral House, 2003): The author's prodigious research, culled from recent
news reports from throughout the world press, does not make the stories she
recounts any less intriguing or any less readable. America has no monopoly on
real-world killers with a taste for human blood, as the author reveals in her
meticulous coverage of dozens of international cannibals, including India's
Arulraj Sabbah, Russia's Nikolai "Iron Teeth" Dzhumagayalev, Germany's Manuela
and Daniel Ruda, and thirsty Paris mortician Nicolas Claux. More familiar
homegrown vampires included here run the gamut from Rod Ferrell to Jeff Dahmer
to Ottis Toole. London's clean, low-key style lends cool power to these
grotesque tales.
On the Trail of Bonnie and Clyde: Then and Now,
edited by Winston G. Ramsey (After the Battle, 2003): Certain criminals, like
certain athletes and actors, acquire keen legions of well, fans, though not in
the sense of being the criminals' admirers or imitators but in the word's
original sense: They're fanatics, who for whatever reason can't get enough of
that wrongdoer and his or her crime. Sometimes it's all about an evocative time
and place; sometimes it's the perpetrator's irresistible charisma that creates
an antihero. Certainly this has been the case with bank-robbers and lovers Clyde
Barrow and Bonnie Parker, photos of whose bullet-riddled corpses are among
hundreds of illustrations in this unique and comprehensive new coffee-table book
compiled by a true fanatic. Ramsey's devotion to the case is all the more
astounding, as he is based in Britain.
FBI's Ten Most Wanted, by
Dary Matera (Harper Torch, 2003): A book such as this one telling "the
chilling stories behind the FBI's historic list of notorious criminals," as its
cover-blurb promises is bound to be rendered out-of-date sooner or later. (But
never soon enough, unfortunately.) All-too-familiar criminals profiled here
include cop-killer Eugene Webb, pedophiliac aerospace engineer Richard Goldberg,
international terrorist Osama Bin Laden, and seven more. By the time the book
hit the stores, two of those seven Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph and drug king
James Springette had already been captured. Matera's discussions of rewards
offered, and his inclusion of passages in the victims' own words, are to be
commended, though these are faint glimmers amid otherwise none-too-skilful
prose.
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