A Gallery of Rogues: Portraits in True Crime

by Michael Kurland

Contains profiles of more than five hundred lawmen, con artists, and criminals, photographs of criminals and crime scenes, and entries on such topics as kidnapping, the Miranda law, and capital punishment

Genres: True Crime, Reference, Nonfiction, History

432 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

aka Jennifer Plum

Michael Kurland has written many non-fiction books on a vast array of topics, including How to Solve a Murder, as well as many novels. Twice a finalist for the Edgar Award (once for The Infernal Device) given by the Mystery Writers of America, Kurland is perhaps best known for his novels about Professor Moriarty. He lives in Petaluma, California.

Reviews

[Lisa Barton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm morbidly fascinated with historical violent crimes, especially psychological profiles of serial killers and studies of unsolved cases.

A Gallery of Rogues reads like an encyclopedia, full of murder cases, solved and unsolved, legalese, criminal lingo and bios of serial killers and gangsters. It's not something one enjoys for the writing style. It's very factual and almost totally dry save for the dry humor the author, Michael Kurland, uses periodically.

So if you're not mordibly fascinated by the subject matter, you'll be bored to tears.

One thing I would have appreciated is if Kurland had gotten more into the psychological histories. Especially of some of the lesser known cases.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an easy to read reference of the bad boys and girls through modern history. There is no in depth coverage but it does provide a short description of what these rascals were like.