World Famous Unsolved Crimes

by Colin Wilson, Damon Wilson

The twentieth century has come to a close without closing the books on some of its darkest crimes, such as the Lord Lucan murder, the disppearance of Jimmy Hoffa, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the coma of Sunny von Bulow. Time and again, Kirk Wilson comes closer than any other investigator to exposing the gritty, shocking truth. And in a specially extended edition of this award-winning book, renowned true-crime expert Colin Wilson adds a new introductory chapter with his own slant on how and why these crimes continue to haunt us. “An accomplished amateur sleuth’s handbook ... a solid fix for crime addicts ... thought through with Holmesian passion.”—Kirkus Review

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

186 pages, Paperback

First published May 10, 1992

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.

Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.

Reviews

[Charli Huston · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit boring in parts. There are more interesting things that could have been covered but weren’t. The black dahlia could have been a big chapter instead of 2 pages etc.

[Claire · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing. Some cases are explored well, others meerly glossed over (especially in the last chapters) and his conclusions are dubious to say the least! There are also a lot of contradictions, such as in 'The New Orleans Axeman', most of the victims he actually mentions are male and yet, "What was his motive? Almost certainly, he was a sadist who wanted to attack women, not men." So perhaps in a mere three page investigation of the case, some evidence for this theory may have been advisable? This book does make me want to go and read about some of the more interesting cases... but in a properly referenced, well argued format!

[keys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good toilet book.