s&d: True Crime! books

As mentioned above, "The Stranger Beside Me" is 100% essential. Almost too scary and ominous.

This piece on a new collection of work by New Yorker crime writer St. James McKelway prompted me to check out an older anthology of his from UCI, collecting a fair number of pieces talked about as being in this new one.

I just ordered this:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51g1Fz%2BPv3L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

Gordon Burn's two true crime books, Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son, about the Yorkshire Ripper, and Happy Like Murderers, about Fred and Rose West, are v good, intensely miserable. The one on the Wests really knocked me into a pit when it came out. But a bit literary maybe?

(not 100% what I mean by 'a bit literary'. have to go out anyway)

No I know what you mean. Some are told in a very tabloid way, and some are written in a way that's more about the story somehow.

The Wrong Man by James Neff, about the Dr Sam Sheppard Murder case is another one I'd consider very literary in style. and god talk about gripping.

I think - I dgaf about 'serious' writers pondering what nasty crime means for society. But then Burn doesn't do that much iirc, is better than that - concrete, precise, observational. But anyway, going out!

intensely miserable

you are SPEAKING MY LANGUAGE! will add to wishlist.

Slightly OT, but true crime fans may enjoy this little tale:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/20/thomas-quick-bergwall-sweden-murder

Almost done with the Ressler book (Whoever Fights Monsters)- it's pretty good!

Interestingly enough, even though Ressler and John Douglas worked together in the FBI, Douglas barely rates mention, which I find funny. I guess they're in some kind of ego smackdown these days, lol.

Douglas' Mindhunter covers similar ground to Ressler, since they both interviewed a lot of the same criminals, but the styles are different enough that you could read both and come away with something from each. Douglas is much more narrative-focused, tries to bring you into the stories he tells and definitely has a much more intense focus on the victims and their families. Much more dramatic, and he has a lot of interesting detail about his own life and involvement in the cases.

Ressler's more analytical, he's not as interested in putting you there as he is in giving you facts and data, still very much a case-study kind of guy, you feel like you're more part of a lecture series or a class than fireside chats.

Kinda feel myself going down the rabbit hole again - will have to dig up a few more books to get the curiosity sated again. It seems like once or twice a year I go on a tear. Except I find it starts to mess with my head irl, like I start looking for windowless vans and get obsessed with local missing children reports... :/

One of those two wrote a book called "The Cases that Haunt Us" in which he discusses the Lindbergh kidnapping, Jack the Ripper, JonBenet Ramsey and other famous cases. I think it was Douglas, but in either case it's a really good book.

yeah it was Douglas. It's a good one, you're right.

I got to meet Douglas last year at a speaking event - he's a very nice man! He signed a couple of my books for me. I found his books were more productive (?) than others because he was always at great pains, much as Ressler is too, that the killers don't get too much credit or are not made out to be more than they are. They're always very quick to remind you of their failings as humns vs their successes as killers.

Picked up 'Road Out Of Hell' by Anthony Flacco from the library, about the 1920's Wineville Murders. Hoooolllly fuck. I'm only a few chapters in and it's already more harrowing than anything I've read in a long time. Scary shit.

and I also got Lisa Cohen's 'After Etan'

Not a book but True Crimers should check out the mini-series The Staircase. It's about a murder in Raleigh, NC and it is 100% amazing.

oh yeah that is incred

And if you do decide to watch it, which you should, avoid reading anything about the documentary or the case before hand. It is so much better if you go in cold.

Happy Like Murderers, about Fred and Rose West

think the prob I had w/ this book - which is esp good on the way that fred and rose's home became a manifestation of their banal evil - is that the high quality of the writing turns the whole thing into an aesthetic experience, somehow - that burn had given his subjects a better book than they deserved, maybe?

Any recs for definitive books on the Night Stalker or Hillside Strangler cases? Those are two I've always wanted to read more about. (Is Ramirez unique among serial killers in being apprehended by people on the street?)

thanks for the rec, carl -- I'm def gonna look up the Corridor!

no shit, that Wineville book gave me bad dreams last night, I've never had that happen before. Think this is a 'read in the daytime only' book.

It's not that the details are any worse than anything I've read, I think it's just that this acccount is written really WELL, and written as a firsthand account of events as they are unfolding by the nephew who was on the ranch & endured almost as much as the victims themselves. Being part of his thought process, and feeling like you're witinessing everything right along with him...it's a lot to handle.

Wait, the Wineville murders were the ones that figured in that Angelina Jolie movie, right?

The Staircase! If you look up the corridor, I can't say what you'll find...

lol corridor - staircase, I meant

xxpost Phil - yeah apparently Changeling was based on Wineville. I never did see the movie

xps re: Happy Like Murderers

I think that's otm, a good articulation of the problem that was nagging at me about it. But then it feels hard to know what one's asking for - worse books? No books about this kind of thing?

it's tough, because my other huge peeve is the leering, 'mind of a genius' style writing that seem to salivate over the details, and/or oversimplify.

I dunno what the answer is. I'm kind of glad there are books we can read about this kind of stuff, when they're well written, because there's things that can be learned. but yeah, they should come with mind-showers or something.

that Ressler book got a little tiresome in the end. He was kind of obsessed with 'we need to keep these killers alive so we can study them' and omg so passive agressive about pointing out 'this person complained about a thing I said but time passed and it turned out I was correct all along, lol that these poor plebs don't understand my genius'. I get the whole keeping them alive to study *in part*, but it's still kind of offensive somehow for me? after a while reading his book it starts to feel like Ressler has spent so long interviewing the perpetrators of these crimes that he has lost sight of the victims, and what that does to the families to have these men treated as though they're fascinating specimens. He's a bit too in love with his own role as interviewer, I think.

i read this book as a young beatles buff:

http://img3.etsystatic.com/000/0/6698079/il_fullxfull.321643311.jpg

completely unconvincing even to a teenager, but pretty entertaining.

I finished the Wineville murders book, Road Out Of Hell and I will go as far as to say it's one of the best books of its kind, in this genre, that I've read.

The story itself is literally unbelievable - a 13yo boy is for all intents and purposes abducted by his uncle, with full knowledge of his own mother, to live on a farm in the middle of nowhere where the uncle abused him constantly for 2 years, and abused and murdered at least 20 young boys. and coerced his own nephew into helping.

There are so many events that unfold that made me gasp or put the book down or have to walk away. the book is almost entirely told from the perspective of the boy. You go through what he goes through, which is why it's SO harrowing. It's like you're living it with him for so long. And the uncle is never exactly analysed or examined, because everything you need to know about him is witnessed by this boy.

He survived! It's insane. But that boy went on to be a wwii veteran, a husband, and adopted two at-risk boys who they raised as their sons. he told his oldest son everything when he was old enough. but he never passed any of the horror onto his family, because of a few key people who showed compassion for him when he needed it.

I'm honestly still open-mouthed at what went on at that ranch. The uncle was beyond Gacy levels of inhumanity. But that kid just seemed to have something in him that was built for survival. It's a really amazing story.

also those Best American Crime Reporting annual collections! any read the latest?

These were really good--I just found out the series has been cancelled, though, so last year's edition was the final one.

u guys read this? im into it, read 200 pp in like a day

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514GoYVgT6L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

Happy Like Murderers, about Fred and Rose West

theres a booknotes youtube of the ppl who eat darkness writer & he namechecks gordon burn, whom ive never heard of, but it sounds like something worth looking into for me. i think i need these to be at least a lil literary or else i just cant really deal

that People Who Eat Darkness looks intriguing

it's good; the perpetrator is such an enigma, and the best part is that the author recognizes it and doesnt at all try to pretend like he can fully explain him

i don't read a ton of these things, but i'm about halfway through ed sanders' The Family right now and it's pretty gripping.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0307279081/ref=aw_d_iv_books/185-7597314-6346743?is=l

The killer of little shepherds, not perfect but fascinating story about a French serial killer in the late 1800s.

Also rep for the aforementioned Charles bowdens works. On a similar subject, The daughters of Juarez:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743292049

Basically reads like the fourth part of bolano's 2666 but grimmer for being true.

Black mass isn't a bad account of whitey bulger's tenure as crime boss + his relaysh w the FBI. ymmv in terms of how fascinating you find mob stuff. I find most of it pretty tedious tbh but this was solid.

"The Staircase" doc that carl agatha recommended upthread is finally on youtube if anyone's interested.

I just started watching - gripping stuff!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oMpwP2e7fY

killer of little shepherds was good in a "devil in the white city" kinda way
people who eat darkness was pretty good but the author was annoying and i wished he had focused less on the girl's family

xp there'er gonna be 2 new "episodes" of the staircase on sundance channel in march

Awesome!!!!!

Thought I might have mentioned them already, but the two Lawrence Schiller bks on O.J. Simpson's trial and Jonbenet Ramsey are both pretty great - obviously subsequent events have dated them a little, but Schiller had tremendous access and a formidable research team, far more so than on average true crime bk.

gahhhhh only episode 1 of Staircase is online

fuckers

I'll have to investigate getting the rest of the episodes when I get home tonight. Jerks

You can get the DVDs through Netflix. Add them. Move them to number one in your queue. And then ilx mail me as you watch it because hearing people's theories and opinions about the case develop as the documentary progresses is one of my favorite things ever.

re: OJ, the paralegal students I'm teaching this term were asking me a heap of questions about the OJ trial and I had to admit that I didn't know too much about it. Perhaps I shall read that book.

i have no netflixes ;_;

but I have ways & means. this will happen imo

So there are like three books on the Snowtown/Bodies In Barrels murders. Can anyone recommend any of them?

carl agatha - bk is told very much from the defense team POV, if that helps or hinders, tho Simpson later tried to sue Schiller:

http://www.gba-law.com/press/oj-brills-content/

Happy Like Murderers, about Fred and Rose West, are v good, intensely miserable.
― woof, Tuesday, October 23, 2012 2:45 PM (3 months ago)

u were not kidding abt 'intensely miserable'. guh. brb, need 2 look @ some kitten blogs or w/e

Homicide by David Simon (I know, kind of obvious)
Bad: The Autobiography of James Carr
Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail by Thomas McFadden
Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano
The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison by Pete Earley
Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II by Brendan Koerner

Finally read “Acid King” by Jesse P Pollack, about Ricky Kasso

The level detail & research is excellent, and he really goes to great lengths to contextualize Ricky, and Gary Lauwyers thr murder victim. So much better than that plagiarized Say You Love Satan piece of crap by St Clair.

I will say style-wise it’s a bit lacking, but that’s maybe just a personal preference. He’s synthesizing a lot of transcripts & reports and it’s hard to make that artful at the best of times - certainly not a knock on the author.

Saddest detail to me was how ~young~ these kids were. Also Ricky’s parents, how how poorly they handled his behavior & how obviously ill-equipped they were. I’ve seen versions of that growing up. fear-based tough-love parenting can really backfire in terrible, unintended ways

Highly recommend the book if you have any knowledge of the case or interest in 80’s teen dirtbags

Still working my way through "Deconstructing Jack", a 900-page self-published tome and now the author has a follow-up.

His theory is that there isn't one ripper, that it was a bunch of guys. I'm reading it for the social history. Not sure I agree with it or not, but I used to read Ripper forums and Ripperologists really need the piss taken out of them. Every suspect is implausible bullshit, IMO and there won't be any new insights until someone puts the murders in a historic context - something ripperologists don't do.

Personally I think the guy had a beer with poor and immigrant women, whoever he was. Clearly a lot of the profiling is wrong.

Still working my way through "Deconstructing Jack", a 900-page self-published tome and now the author has a follow-up.

His theory is that there isn't one ripper, that it was a bunch of guys. I'm reading it for the social history. Not sure I agree with it or not, but I used to read Ripper forums and Ripperologists really need the piss taken out of them. Every suspect is implausible bullshit, IMO and there won't be any new insights until someone puts the murders in a historic context - something ripperologists don't do.

Personally I think the guy had a beer with poor and immigrant women, whoever he was. Clearly a lot of the profiling is wrong.

(Sorry about the double post)

"Beef with" although he probably also had a beer, or ten.

Other thing is I'm back to reading about Al Capone and have this new pet theory that Bugs Moran set his own guys up to be bumped off (he survived), but I have to do more reading.

There are still unresolved issues with the St. Valentines massacre after all this time and growing up I heard a lot of stories.

my grandmother lived pretty close to where the SVM occurred and heard all the commotion after the fact. she was 17 when it happened i think. it was a wild time to grow up in Chicago.

Yeah it was crazy. People being gunned down in respectable neighborhoods. Gangsters eating in fancy restaurants every night. SVM massacre was in Lincoln Park I think Capone preferred to do business in the burbs.

I heard so many stories growing up of perfectly respectable people getting their liquor - smuggled from Canada - through Capone.

I learn new things every day: Anthony DeAndrea- "priest, politician, translator, gangster."

https://i.postimg.cc/7ZMNkfDH/Screenshot-20231201-045346.jpg

Halfway through this:

https://i.postimg.cc/yxGMjnpL/slenderman.jpg

There are a couple of print pieces cited earlier in the thread. I didn't know anything about the book or the case--just turned up on a sale table at Indigo.

Definitely disturbing. Part of me wants to know more about "Slenderman" and creepypasta.com, but a much bigger part says "No, those are not things you want to be googling." So I'll make do with the book. I do encounter some very strange middle-schoolers these days.

New book by West Memphis 3 attorney, looks like might be good:
https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2024/aug/19/arkansas-authors-west-memphis-three-lawyers-book/

Gift from a friend; didn't know it existed, really looking forward to it (came out in 2023).

https://i.postimg.cc/qRMgFTwW/starkweather.jpg

Don't know if the subtitle is just hype or credible--did it lead to some change in the legal system?

I think it probably is more to do w the cultural impact - conventional wisdom is the way his spree killing marked the end of the innocent 50’s and ushered in the violent 60’s to come, exposing the dark violent underbelly of teen culture, blending of pop culture w violence (starkweathers obsession w James Dean)
etc

I think of Richard Speck and Charles Whitman that way, this unfathomable break in the culture, but yes, Starkweather precedes them by a decade (with the Clutter family murders somewhere in between).

Not a book, but: the Boston Strangler film from a couple of years ago is so ponderous...The '68 film with Tony Curtis was probably one of the first dozen or so "adult" films I ever watched; my parents used to tell me that Tony Curtis should have won an Academy Award. Doubtful, I suspect, but as tricked-up as that film was--a lot of split-screen gimmickry--I do vaguely remember it being appropriately creepy. The newer one has nothing. I don't blame Keira Knighley or Carrie Coon, who do their best (Chris Cooper is kind of corny as a crusty newspaper editor). And anyone who loves Zodiac is going to roll their eyes every time they blatantly crib from Fincher's film.

yeah it was pretty bland, more like a Lifetime movie with a bigger budget

though honestly Lifetime would do a better job!

The '68 film is on YouTube cheap, I think I'll give it a go. I may have been unduly impressed at the age of 10 or so. The one thing I liked was giving those two female reporters their due.

Did not know yall were talking about this case, came here to post this collection of documents from the Nebraska Historical Society: an account by Fugate's trial attorney, results of a TV interview of the defendant (uh-oh), other takes at the time and through the years (original attorney's son took over her case in early 70s), pretty amazing----typed pages, with blank space when a section is done before the sheet is, but grab a caffeine and keep going:
https://history.nebraska.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/doc_3423am-B1F2.pdf

Almost finished Starkweather. Very good--it can be a bit wearing at times going over the details of the same few killings again and again, but obviously that's a necessity. Very much a book of advocacy (but not till the last 100 pages): the author is convinced Fugate was innocent, and makes a strong argument that takes in many protections that were later granted to someone Fugate's age (14 at the time) and with her background (abusive). (xpost) Yes, she kept in touch, personally and legally, with one of her lawyers and the lawyer's son (who also went into law) for a couple of decades.

The last 30 pages or so, after I posted, were the book's strongest. MacLean goes back to Lincoln and visits some of the key locations. He gives an account of the survivors' lives, and those of their children; some successfully moved on, one (the brother of one of the victims) ended in suicide. He gets more specific about his own childhood in Lincoln, his troubled family and his own connections to the case. And, almost like the ending of Zodiac, he tracks down Fugate in a nursing home and is able to "look her in the eye." Much sadder than spooky, though--at this point, Fugate can't speak and is bed-ridden (but responsive), and, according to her roommate, receives no visitors. As to the question I asked earlier, MacLean sees Starkweather as the blueprint for all mass/spree/serial killers who followed. It wasn't done for material gain, or as a result of insanity--it was random killing for the sake of it, and to ensure infamy. He also argues that the introduction of television into the equation was key. And that after Starkweather, one killer after another would study those who came before them.