Obsessed with True Crime discussion
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True crime read 2022-2023: Post reviews here!
The Forever Witness: How Genetic Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes5 stars and a heart
I don't think my review would be a spoiler but just in case I'm going to advise not to read further if you think it might be.
As a geneology enthusiast and one that has done the Ancestry DNA test, I found this book fascinating. It will go down as one of the best books I read in 2022. A 30+ year unsolved murder was solved using DNA results to match the killer with relatives that did the DNA test and from there determining who they were related to that could be a killer. The book moves along quickly and does not get bogged down in minutiae. The author does a good job of simplifying the science so that it is understandable to the lay person. You also feel like you get to know the people involved in the case. It was frustrating that so many cold cases could be solved but privacy rules have now changed so it is not so easy to do. Which brings up an interesting question...would you be ok with law enforcement searching your genetic history because someone else's DNA came up as a relative of yours?
Who Killed Christopher Goodman? Based on a True Crime by Allan Wolf3 solid stars
I read this in a day; it was very good and moved right along. I was surprised to see a TC story made into a young adult novel but it focused interestingly on all these different points of view, all people who knew the victim. At the very end he thumbnails the real crime and it turns out that except for changing the names and using some composite characters, the murder of Christopher Goodman is just about identical to the murder of Edward Disney. Recommended!
Language of Evil, by Robert Beattie2 stars
This was just OK; somehow it didn't hold my attention very well. I learned not very much about the family and their issues, but I came away with a heaping helping of the suspect's self-assured wordy blather. I shudder to think what it would be like to take an English course from this smug bastidge. No wonder his wife left him.
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In other words, just keep reading and post your reviews here!"
I wonder what tha..."
Personally I'm not reading much. Gotten too much into gaming and watching TC and History on YouTube.
Born to Kill, by Glenn Shirley5 stars!
A very good, very tense, very concise read about the search for Billy Cook and the Mosser family that covered an enormous area of the USA and finally ended in Mexico. Gave a clear picture of what kind of person Billy Cook was and why he did what he did. The courtroom scenes focused on essentials and didn't belabor what we already knew about the case after following Cook all over the country in those hijacked cars. It would be hard to improve upon the writing quality. Well worth seeking out.
Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixtiesby Dianne Lake
5 stars
a really good inside look at how Charles Manson's cult functioned and the evilness of his ways. written by a previous member of his cult. this is the type of book you want to erase your memory so that you can read it again
Eva wrote: "Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixtiesby Dianne Lake
5 stars
a really good inside look at how Charles Manson's cult functio..."
TY for posting! I really want to read this one...
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson3 stars
This was a good read about a nasty war crime that killed over a thousand people. I found it dragged here and there but I learned a great deal about life on the U-boats of the Great War, Woodrow Wilson's love life (!?) and the political underpinnings of the sinking of the Lusitania. Sometimes Larson lost me in a welter of nautical terms, but the sinking of the ship was moving and terrifying, along with the attempts to find all the victims and put together the pieces afterwards.
The Decision to Kill: A True Crime Story of a Teenage Killer and the Mother Who Loved Him by Lisa Ghiglieri4 stars
The first one hundred pages I was sure this was going to be a 5-star book. This is about an adopted son who killed his adoptive father. The rest of the book is about the mother and how she coped with her husband's death and her son being in prison. I am subtracting one star because a lot of the story is told through the letters the mother and son wrote to each other, which got to be a little too long and mostly were repetitive. Then it got really interesting in the last 50 pages or so, but I won't give away any spoilers. I have to say, this is one of the few true crime stories where I had a lot of compassion for everyone involved, including the killer. He was only 16 when he killed his father and I kept hoping he would get another chance at life. Keep a few tissues handy for the ending.
Huge disappointment! I was so excited to see a new Gregg Olsen TC book coming out. He's been putting out a lot of fiction and it's been a while since he's had a TC. I pre-ordered but it sat on my phone for a while after I got it because I had some others I needed to read first. Started it yesterday and it sounded kind of familiar. When I went to put it on my reading now list here on GR it said I had already read it. Hmmm, it's a brand new book. How could I have read it? Turns out American Mother: The True Story of a Troubled Family, Greed and the Cyanide Murders That Shook the World is a re-issue of Bitter Almonds: The True Story of Mothers, Daughters, and the Seattle Cyanide Murders that came out 20 years ago. Darn! I wouldn't be upset if I hadn't paid full price for it!
Koren wrote: "Turns out American Mother: The True Story of a Troubled Family, Greed and the Cyanide Murders That Shook the World is a re-issue of Bitter Almonds: The True Story of Mothers, Daughters, and the Seattle Cyanide Murders that came out 20 years ago. Darn! I wouldn't be upset if I hadn't paid full price for it!"Adding to the pertinent discussion now!
Koren wrote: "Huge disappointment! I was so excited to see a new Gregg Olsen TC book coming out. He's been putting out a lot of fiction and it's been a while since he's had a TC. I pre-ordered but it sat on my p..."After I thought about it, I think the pre-order price was 2.99. I should have known there was a reason it was so cheap. I must not have read the description very carefully or I would have recognized the plot.
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by Dianne Lake
5 stars
a really good inside look at how Charles Manson's cult functio..."
Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties
Replying to add link.
Trail of Havoc: In the Steps of Lord Lucan by Patrick Marnham3 stars
Finally read this irresistably-titled book after getting it as a gift. Wonderfully written and gave me all kinds of food for thought on the Lucan case. The theories in here might even be correct -- they do fit the available facts very well. I did come away wishing for more information on Mrs. Rivett, because the author did not rule out the possibility that she was not after all killed by mistake. After reading every word of this book I do not understand the long, convoluted detour into British libel law. Did it have any bearing on this case, or did the author include it because so many acquaintances of Lord Lucan were tied into it? This long tangent kept it from being a 5-star book, although it was very interesting in its own right. One more question to scratch my head about I guess, in a genuine head-scratcher of a crime.
Lady ♥ Belleza wrote: "Eva wrote: "Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixtiesby Dianne Lake
5 stars
a really good inside look at how Charles Manson's ..."
A good recommendation. I finished it in one day. I read Helter Skelter a long time ago and Member of the Family was just as good.
Bill wrote: "I read Helter Skelter a long time ago and Member of the Family was just as good."Wow! That's a ringing endorsement!
American Mother: The True Story of a Troubled Family, Greed and the Cyanide Murders That Shook the World by Gregg Olsen4 stars
I was excited to see that one of my favorite true crime authors was coming out with a new book and then disappointed to start reading it and realizing it was a re-issue of a book I had read many years ago called Bitter Almonds. Is this a trick publishers use to get you to buy a book you bought before? Because I paid for it and because it had been so many years since I read it the first time, I gave it another try. I had forgotten most of the details so it was an interesting read and I enjoyed the update at the end. The only complaint I have about this book is that there is about 100 pages of trial that is mostly repetitive of what we already know. If you haven't already read Bitter Almonds, this one is definitely worth the read.
Lobster Boy: The Bizarre Life and Brutal Death of Grady Stiles Jr. by Fred Rosen3 solid stars
Proof positive, if you needed it, that people who work as sideshow attractions are just like the rest of us. Grim, sad story of domestic battering, lousy decisons and difficult lives capped by a murder conspiracy. This is a rare case because Fred Rosen, who normally stays out of the middle of the action as any journalist would, actually found himself contributing evidence to the trial. This book has a solid sense of setting. I looked up the scene of the crime and it looks totally unchanged. Better upon re-reading. Recommended!
Dead Giveaway: The Rescue, Hamburgers, White Folks, and Instant Celebrity... What You Saw on TV Doesn't Begin to Tell the Story... by Charles Ramsey5 stars
An unlikely hero. You might be familiar with the names Amanda Berry, Gina De Jesus, and Michelle Knight, the three girls that were locked in a house for 10 years by a man named Ariel Castro. I know at least 2 of the girls have written their own book if you want to know more about the crime. This is the guy that heard them yelling for help in the house next door and kicked the door in to rescue them. I was amazed at the picture of the houses and how close they were and yet no one knew there were children trapped in the house. He became an instant celebrity with more than 15 minutes of fame. Did you know that those morning shows on tv pay for your way there, but you are on your own finding your way back home? That is just one of the funny things this guy comes up with. Anyway, the book dwells little on the actual crime. The author has his own story to tell and he does it with a great sense of humor and a liberal use of the F word! (Thought I'd throw that in just in case you are offended by it). Seems his entire mission in life since he was a boy is to see how much trouble he can get into. This was a quick read as it is a short book, and you can't put it down because you want to see what he is going to do next!
Koren wrote: "Dead Giveaway: The Rescue, Hamburgers, White Folks, and Instant Celebrity... What You Saw on TV Doesn't Begin to Tell the Story... by Charles Ramsey5 stars
[bookcover:Dead Giveaway..."
I loved this one. Not many TC reads can give you a smile!
Under the Knife by Karen Roebuck4 stars
This book is mostly about the victim. She survived the attempt on her life by her plastic surgeon husband. While she is an intelligent person (she is an RN in a large hospital) she doesn't make very good choices in relationships, rushing into several marriages that didn't last very long. Her last husband shoots her in the head and from there most of the book talks about her many surgeries and medical difficulties. I thought this was an interesting read, but if you don't like medical drama you may not like it.
The book was published in 2022 so I tried to do a search to find any information about the victim or her husband. He got 20 years in prison so he should be out by now. It would be interesting to find out if he went back into practice and also how she is doing now.
The Best American Crime Reporting 2007, edited by Linda Fairstein4 stars!
Every chapter in this book made for excellent reading. I came away educated on the events surrounding more than a few crimes and other true mysteries, from what became of Sneha Philip, to why on this planet anyone would mistake David Berkowitz for the second coming of Christ. Well-chosen stories, well written. Highly recommended.
Golden Boy: A Murder Among the Manhattan Elite by John Glatt4 stars
This true story about a son who murders his father really made me think about how mentally ill people can slip through the cracks. This guy could have had the world by the tail. He was college educated and his parents had lots of money, but his mental illness was mostly untreated, and the parents were enablers. Interesting story.
A Deadly Wandering: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in the Age of Attention, by Matt Richtel4 stars
This is an excellent read that starts with a true multi-family disaster but goes much farther than average in understanding what happened so that Keith O'Dell and Jim Furfaro died, seemingly out of nowhere. By the end of the book I understood why the man responsible for their deaths could not remember how he'd done it, and what needs to happen to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. The author opened several chasms under my feet, making clear that while we have all the information we need to stop similar deaths from happening, we are pretty much all working together to make it worse every year. Read this one. It is packed with information you need.
The January 6 Report: Findings from the Select Committee to Investigate the Attack on the U.S. Capitol with Reporting, Analysis and Visuals by The New York Times4 stars
This was a remarkably fast read considering that it came to 592 (oversized) pages. I came away knowing much, much more about the events around January 6th than I thought there was to know. There must be even more out there to learn because my copy of the book turned out not to be the final version. The full report has about 300 MORE pages of calumny, violence, official misconduct, and high-level government corruption. In truth my edition has a second-draft feel to it, with uncaptioned photos leaving me wondering who is testifying, words left out of sentences and very, very repetitive writing that had me wondering "didn't I just read this?" pretty often. Remarkably, it described a Michigan Senator as a Republican from Vulcan, which can't possibly be just a typo. Leaving that aside, I never thought any president could make me miss Richard Nixon, but this book made that happen for me.
Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties by Dianne Lake5 stars!
Just an excellent read. Dianne Lake's memoir of her life before, during, and after her 2-year stay with the Manson family. Full of insight and interesting details that didn't make it into any of the other books about this sorry episode in history. Don't miss this one.
Until You Are Dead: The Book of Executions in America by Frederick Drimmer4 stars
An interesting look at the history of executions in America and how executions evolved from hanging, firing squad, electric chair to the now ever popular death by lethal injection. He touches a bit on execution of the innocent, but this book deals mostly with facts and doesn't give very much personal opinion.
The Criminal by Havelock Ellis3 stars
Quite an interesting attempt to quantify what makes a criminal a criminal. Ellis obviously did a great deal of reading on the subject and tried to put it all together in a way that made sense, but scientific inquiry looked very, very different in his day and a lot of the result is absolute spinach. Research samples are super tiny, hardly more than anecdotes by today's standards. Many of the unquestioned assumptions the researchers made are wildly off. There is no concept in here of cultural differences between groups of people. And wow, is this book ever racist. There are photographic plates and illustrations that don't seem to relate to the text. Long sections of the book treat of irrelevancies like whether or not someone has tattoos, and whether convicts were brave or scared when they went to their executions. The great hero of this book is Cesare Lombroso, who seriously thought he had proven that the shape of a person's head and face could tell you at a glance whether someone was a criminal or not, if that gives you an idea. With all that said, this kind of thinking did form the foundation of today's scientific methods. I came away hoping that a hundred years from now readers will not look back at today's scientific research and fall off their chairs laughing.
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Violated: Exposing Rape at Baylor University amid College Football's Sexual Assault Crisis
The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder
and
If You Tell: a True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood
and not written a review of any of them because life work mental distress. Each of those books are worthy of reading.
Lady ♥ Belleza wrote: "Ok I have blitzed through: Violated: Exposing Rape at Baylor University amid College Football's Sexual Assault Crisis
[book:The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and M..."
The Good Nurse was an excellent book. I was reading the reviews and saw what looks to be the REAL Stephen King posted a review about it.
Fatal Error by Mark Morris4 stars
I was watching 20/20 last week and thought I had a book about the crime they were discussing and when I checked my bookshelf, I had this book about Sharee Miller. While Sharee didn't actually commit the crime, she may have gotten off scott-free if the lover that killed her husband hadn't kept all of the emails she wrote encouraging him. Dubbed by some to be the first internet murder, if it's not the first it surely is one of the first, as the murder takes place in 1999. Since then, I think most of us know that anything we put on-line can be traced back to the one that wrote it. I waited to watch the 20/20 episode until I was finished with the book and it was fun to see most of the characters in person and see how much they had changed in 20+ years. Also, Sharee was interviewed from prison and finally after so many years, confessed to what she did.
Manhunt: The Night Stalker: How I brought serial predator Delroy Grant to justice5 stars
This is a really extraordinary case from London, where I live. Colin Sutton, who previously led the investigation that brought down serial killer Levi Bellfield, is one of those detectives that clearly relished the investigatory side of policing, rather than climbing the career ladder. In this book he tells how he was drafted in to review Operation Minstead, which was hunting the Night Stalker, a burglar and rapist who terrorised the elderly in south London for 17 years. It is a fascinating account, revealing how he came up with a proactive approach to snare the perpetrator, Delroy Grant, by basically laying a trap.
It is a candid insight into the politics of the Met, what went disastrously wrong with the investigation, and the problems of leading and motivating a team chasing a devious, monstrous home invader. Most importantly, he never loses sight of the suffering of Grant's many victims.
Not the Camilla We Knew: One Woman's Life from Small-town America to the Symbionese Liberation Army by Rachael Hanel4 stars
Camilla Hall was a little-known player in the Symbionese Liberation Army and played a role in the kidnapping of Patty Hearst and was killed in a shootout with the police. She was brought to the author's attention because Camilla spent some of her childhood close to where the author lives. It is also about an hour away from where I live so it was interesting to read about places I was familiar with. I got a kick out of reading that she got together with one of Camilla's friends in a coffee shop in Jackson, Minnesota. There is only one coffee shop in Jackson and it is right across the street from where I work so I stop in there all the time. It was also interesting to read about the St. Peter, Minnesota tornado just a day after the 25th anniversary of the tornado. Anyway, Camilla was a small town girl who grew up to be a terrorist. The author goes in depth to explore how a normal small-town girl found her way into a terrorist organization. Was it nature or nurture or something else? We will probably never know for sure.
Murderous Minds Volume 1: Stories of Real Life Murderers That Escaped the Headlines by Ryan Becker3 reluctant stars
I have to give this one a "meh" rating for several reasons. For one, these are not, as claimed, mostly little-known cases. Several of them made national headlines and one of them, the Kimes family, has 3 or 4 books written about their crimes. Names are misspelled in here and there is a lot of clumsy writing, my favorite example being "she was a grandmother with grandchildren." It makes me wonder what else the author got wrong. But with all that said, a couple of these cases were new to me and interesting to read about.
Homicide: A Forensic Psychology Casebook, edited by Swart and Mellor3 stars
This proves to be a forensic-psychology survey textbook of sorts, basically a collection of articles. Ranges from a frustrating overview of the different ways of scoring psychopaths -- in an article that lists all kinds of instruments, who developed them and who is allowed to use them without showing you the checklists themselves or what they actually measure -- to horrifyingly detailed descriptions of the crimes of homicidal necrophiles in a probably wrong-headed article attempting to categorize them in a very hairsplitting way. Goes deeply into domestic-violence homicides, gay homicide, how interviewing children and the elderly needs to be different, and how to interview the mentally ill among many other topics covered. The editing needed work, honestly; there were whole words left out of sentences, some of which were really not sentences at all, and the misplaced commas verged on Shatneriffic. Lots to see in here!
Golden Boy: A Murder Among the Manhattan Elite, by John Glatt3 stars
This was an interesting read about a difficult legal case. You can always count on John Glatt for a good story, and he did a great job with some dicey legal and ethical issues. With that said, I could almost feel the author's frustration at not being able to interview the defendant in the case, for the understandable reason that the guy wouldn't even talk to his own defense team, he was so paranoid. Glatt seemed to feel forced to point out over and over how good-looking Gilbert is, as if that were an important point, and tell us everyone's pedigree as if that bore somehow on the outcome of the story. Did I really need to know that the judge who heard the case was descended from a president, or was it more germane that a well-chosen jury and a squad of experts cannot seem to find the line that divides full legal responsibility from a not guilty verdict?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...I read this today and is a very good read. Always remember that all of your Google searches can be uncovered. Computer forensics nailed the killer in this case.
Walk the Blue Line: They Walk the Line between Life and Death by James Patterson
Police officers share some of their worst moments. I'm sure most of these officers could write a whole book about their experiences, but each person's story is 3 or 4 pages, so it moves along quickly. I wouldn't think many people would aspire to go into the profession after reading these stories. It's got to be a tough job.
Koren wrote: "Walk the Blue Line: They Walk the Line between Life and Death by James PattersonPolice officers ..."
Added to our Collected Crime Tales and Crimebusters shelves!
The Vanishing Triangle by Claire McGowan 2 stars
We know going into this book that it is about unsolved murders in a region in Ireland. That said, there is little else in this book. A lot of supposition and attempting to tie the crimes to other crimes with little to no evidence. There is a lot of complaining about the laws and police work in Ireland that seem unfair to woman. There is little information about the crimes and the victims. It is a short book so I finished it, but wished I would have quit earlier.
Missing from Michigan Ave: The Case of John Eric Armstrong by B.R. Bates4 stars!
Just a fine, compassionate, insightful read about a dreadful local case of serial murder. This one still feels so close and immediate after nearly 25 years, and the authors brought it all back as if it were last week. Finally I got to learn something about the victims! I remain furious that I learned zero about that fourth body at the dump site, not even whether it was a child or an adult, male or female, not a name, not a cause of death, nothing. Who are you!? That's the only reason this was not a 5-star read for me. With that said I am extending a plea to these authors to bring us a book, or books, about the victims of Tony Atkins, Leslie Williams, Jeff Gorton, Tony Walker, Donald Murphy, Victor Malone, Ronald Bailey, Coral Watts, John McRae, Shelly Brooks and DeAngelo Martin. I have so many unanswered questions that you might be able to help me with...
The Burn Farm by Michael Benson2.5 stars
Although this was an interesting and legally important story, I had to set this book aside more than once because so much of it consisted of the defendant's rambling self-justification. It was an important part of the book, because this was what the police and jury had to work with, and my hat is off to all of them for slogging through it. The killer is a real piece of work and I hope our paths never cross for any reason.
Ripper by Linda Rosencrance3 stars
This book goes farther than just describing the crimes of Jeff Mailhot. By the end of the story we've been given a much larger picture of life, and crimes against women, in Rhode Island, especially Woonsocket. I came away with the sense that the police there have a whole lot to sort through and keep up with, not least their own bungling, which is a major undercurrent in this story. With that said, I'm very impressed with their determination to see this case through and get some answers for the victims' families.
I just finished Timothy Egan's "A Fever in the Heartland" and it is the best book of 2023. Youtube has an interview with the author and he is as engaging in person as he is as a writer.
Bill wrote: "I just finished Timothy Egan's "A Fever in the Heartland" and it is the best book of 2023. Youtube has an interview with the author and he is as engaging in person as he is as a writer."Got to find myself a copy of that one!
The Nature of Life and Death: Every Body Leaves a Trace, by Patricia Wiltshire3 solid stars
This started out very slowly, but picked up speed once the author -- one of the world's half-handful of forensic ecologists -- started to detail her experience in working on crime scenes. It clearly takes a very specific type of personality, with a great deal of training, to do this tedious, exacting work, and it sounds as if her results can be very powerful in court. All of the cases were interesting despite the large area of blank space in each narrative. She often did not give any times, dates, or enough detail to allow me to look up the cases. She seems uninterested in the outcome in the courtroom and is 100% focused on counting up those mushroom spores to get to the truth. Readable and often fascinating.
The Secret Serial Killer: The True Story of Kieran Kelly, by Robert Mulhern4 distinctly puzzled stars
This is a weird one. Rather than simply give a factual story with a set of conclusions at the end, the author found himself chasing down a series of will-o'-the-wisp half-truths that often proved impossible to confirm. Even the most straightforward-seeming facts dissolved into mist without warning. Full of odd coincidences, contradictory information and red herrings. I couldn't put it down.
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Obsessed with True Crime
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In other words, just keep reading and post your reviews here!"
I wonder what tha..."
I read more biography, memoir this year just because that's what my group is about. When I was at barnes and noble a few weeks ago it seemed like the True Crime shelf was smaller than it used to be, which made me wonder if it's not as popular as it used to be, although it seems like TV true crime shows are becoming more popular.