Is True Crime Blogging Faddish?

By Laura James

In the days when anyone with a credit card and $4 a month can begin a website, the internet has become more ephemeral by the day. The ease with which someone can take up blogging is exceeded only by the simplicity of stopping when it all becomes too much.

Two of my favorite true crime websites are now mothballed. One is CrimeRant, Gregg Olsen and Matt Phelps' popular forum, which said goodbye earlier this month. Now the talented and popular Steve Huff has turned to other projects. Other blogs and sites in the theme have proven mortal as well, the Crime Library among them.

Is true crime blogging faddish? Several authors have tried their hands at it, and the most successful have just called it quits. The time required to develop and foster an online forum in any theme is considerable and the benefits, for these three at least, were not equal to the task of finding content on a daily basis and the drudgery of typing it up without errors, not to mention the ongoing battle to monitor remarks left in an open forum, which often descends to the sort of temple-tightening nastiness that seems to seep into the corners of every internet endeavor.

But as a place to begin a writing career, for testing ideas, for finding others fascinated in the same riddles that move you, blogging is here to stay, the roster of interesting characters ever-changing and to be enjoyed while they last. Thanks to Steve Huff, Gregg Olsen, and M. William Phelps for offering their own thought-provoking, inspiring, and insightful stories to those of us fortunate enough to be tuned in at the right time.

Read More...

Summary only...

When Nonfiction Writers Cheat

Nonfiction by definition is not fictional. Yet according to some it's perfectly acceptable for authors to bring their imaginations to bear when relaying a story billed as nonfiction.

Is this acceptable to you?

It's not to me. Not in my favorite genre, true crime, anyway (emphasis on the "true"). Once in a while I come across a true crime or biographical title in which the author has taken liberties. Sometimes these are acknowledged right up front, while at other times I detect the fictionalizing based on my knowledge of the subject (Lizzie Borden comes to mind). To my way of thinking, it's a literary sin to inject fictional details in a nonfiction account -- and a cardinal sin to do it without informing the reader.

In an essay recently written for the New York Times, reviewer Bryan Burrough took an author to task for indulging in obvious fictionalizing in a biography dubbed nonfiction. "That's not artistic license," Burrough concludes. "It's cheating."

Amen.

I haven't always agreed with Mr. Burrough -- his dismissive review of Vincent Bugliosi's recent book about the JFK assassination left me livid -- but, by God, he's right this time.

So I was shocked -- shocked, I tell you, more shocked than I've ever been after seeing the "SIXTEEN PAGES OF SHOCKING PHOTOS!" that ubiquitously appears on true crime paperbacks -- to learn that some in the literary world actually challenge him on this point.

Remarked review reviewer Levi Asher: "Nonfiction books almost always invent dialogue and imagine scenic details beyond the realm of what the author can authenticate."

To which I say, oh, really!? Not on my bookshelves they don't.

Sure, Truman Capote, John Berendt, and Joe McGinniss wowed critics with their masterpieces. But they all made up the details. Their fictional indulgences gave voice to critics and assured that they will forever have asterisks next to their names on the roster of the genre's giants.

And it would have been so easy to avoid. An author is allowed to suppose, I suppose. You do it the honest way by (a) clearly labeling conjecture as such, (b) employing modifiers like maybe, probably, likely, etc.; (c) you write your lyrical descriptions of the landscape in the present tense; and (d) you choose your subjects carefully so embellishment isn't necessary.

By contrast to these fast-and-loose types, Ann Rule has written two dozen books now, all exhaustively researched. Even after such a prodigious output, no one has ever, to my knowledge, breathed a word of challenge to her reporting. Not a hint, not a rumor, not a whisper has ever impugned her reputation for trustworthiness. Say what you like about her prose (or don't), but we know she tells us the truth. If she indulged in fictionalizing, she'd never be the icon she is today. I don't think it's coincidence that she has dominated the genre for decades now.

I'd hazard a guess that 98% of true crime readers want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Otherwise, what's the point of the nonfiction label?

Read More...

Summary only...

Jumping Right On It: Josef Fritzl Book Deals

By Laura James

It didn't take the publishing industry more than a few days to assign writers to pen books about the case of Austria's Josef Fritzl.

Before the ink on the two-inch headlines is even dry enough to touch, three publishers - St. Martin's, HarperCollins, and a third yet unnamed - have put together deals with authors for books about the case, reports Wiener Zeitung at its site offering English-language news from Austria.

Josef Fritzl, if you haven't heard by now, is the Austrian man who confessed to keeping his daughter in a dungeon for decades, fathering seven children by her. The story is so startlingly grotesque, so Grimm, one has to cast about for precedents.

It sounds on its face like something out of the Newgate Calendar. One is reminded of the tale of Sawney Bean, without the cannibalism. One is of course reminded of the cases involving kidnap victims held for years - Austrian Natascha Kampusch, as is commonly cited, or Christine McGuire, whose tale was told in Perfect Victim. But the Fritzl case may well stand apart in the annals of crime. His own daughter...! It's no wonder several books are in the offing less than a month before the news shocked the world. But is that a good idea?

St. Martin's Press has assigned John Glatt to the story, though his reputation can't keep up with a prodigious output. Remarks Wiener Zeitung: "does not speak German". That criticism may well be off the point. One does not need to speak German if one does not interview anybody for the book. It would not be the first time St. Martin's published a book that relied more on Google than on journalism.

HarperCollins managed to assign two journalists to the tale, and the book deal was said to be "lucrative." The authors are Bosnian Bojan Pancevski and the UK's Stephanie Marsh, a columnist for the London Times. One would think this book will be a bit less exploitive with two professional journalists producing it. But this is Orenthal Simpson's publisher we're talking about.

The third book will be from UK author Allan Hall, who wrote The Girl in the Cellar for HarperCollins about the Natascha Kampusch case a mere four months after her escape. The Guardian was among those to call the resulting book a "rush-job" containing unsubstantiated allegations that never should have been printed. Publishers Weekly did not star its review and called it less than satisfying.

Some questions can only be answered in time. Thus there's reason to think these first three books might not be the last.

Read More...

Summary only...

The Curious Convergence of Romance & True Crime

By Laura James

Two wildly popular literary giants are coming together these days in curious ways.

No, I'm not talking of steamy stories a la True Crime Writer on Book Tour meets Starry-Eyed Fan. That's so seventies.

I'm talking about the genres of True Crime and Romance - which many may well think ought to remain two ships that pass in the night.

Yet I can't help but notice an increasing number of romance novels that carry true crime themes. In one recent book, the heroine was the survivor of a BTK-type killer. Many a romance author has recently penned a novel in which the hero (or more often, the heroine) is a true crime writer. At least one author has openly credited Ann Rule for inspiring her main character. Some recent examples: Nora Roberts (River's End), Mary-Ann Tirone Smith (An American Killing and others), Lisa Miscione (Smoke and others), Rochelle Krich (Blues in the Night), and Bailey Weggins (If Looks Could Kill and others).

It's a natural occupation for a romantic suspense heroine - a job that gives the amateur investigator plausible grounds to get simultaneously caught up in danger, intrigue, and a love story. I'm not so sure, though, that romance readers are entirely comfortable with the idea, as it may represent an unwarranted intrusion of a dour reality. As one understated romance reviewer recently remarked, "Serial killers and romance won't mix for some people."

As an avid and enthusiastic reader of spousal murder stories - the non-fiction kind; I burn through these paperbacks as so much dry kindling - I wonder whether a romance writer will one day win my heart with a love story set against the backdrop of a spousal murder case that fully explores the potential themes. Can true love sprout in such a setting?

I think of a spousal murder case that has been the talk of Detroit for over a year. The shocking but perhaps not entirely surprising story goes like this: successful career mom juggles high-paying job, several kids, and petulant husband. Enter pretty German au pair. Before you can say adultery, mom is scattered in pieces at the local park. A fictional tale of two reporters who manage to fall in love while deeply pondering the worst case marriage scenario - now that's a tale I'd pay $6.99 to read. Not that I'd expect it to be a bestseller....

Read More...

Summary only...

Seung-Hui Cho's Collateral Damage

When Seung-Hui Cho went on his terrible rampage last spring, he killed 32 people and then himself. Unfortunately it seems he is not quite done inflicting damage on the people of Virginia, and the media coverage of his murder spree has helped him.

One of the themes of the press response to the tragedy has been a call for legal reforms of all sorts - never mind that his case was a good example of the lack of enforcement of our current laws. Many news shows left the public with the impression that there was a need to change our laws for treating the mentally ill.

This element of the coverage has mystified me. Never, as far as I saw, did they actually consult experts on the issue. As an attorney who has practiced in this area of law, representing social workers, community mental health agencies, and a psychiatric emergency room, I know our commitment laws are the product of decades of careful thought and are pretty much the same everywhere.

If a person is dangerous, s/he can be forced into treatment. Seung-Hui Cho met that criteria and before his murder spree he was so adjudged. He was ordered to get treated. He didn't go. Nothing was done. That is where the law failed.

But in Virginia, the law may change. A movement is afoot to force treatment upon anyone who might be dangerous in the future.

This should frighten all of us. If this law passes, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Virginians will be locked up against their will not because they've done anything wrong, not because they've made threats or shown homicidal or suicidal tendencies, as Seung-Hui Cho clearly did, but because their case workers and psychiatrists, motivated in part by their own "CYA" self-interests, must comply with this new law and won't want to run the risk that one of their patients might commit a crime.

My heart goes out to those patients. The dirty little secret of modern psychiatry is that the most effective medications for treating serious mental illness have terrible side effects and cause severe, life-shortening organ damage and in some cases sudden cardiac death. Even if there were a safe and effective treatment, there isn't enough funding for people who want to be treated, let alone those who don't. Apparently Virginia is prepared to turn back the clock to the time when those people were warehoused in state homes, convicted not of a crime but of an illness. I wonder if the people of Virginia fully realize the financial and personal cost of these proposals?

There is an old saying in the legal profession: Bad facts make bad laws. It sure is true here. Seung-Hui Cho cost 32 people their lives. How many will he cost their liberty?

Read More...

Summary only...

The judge who said no to the cameras

This week a judge in Michigan presiding over what is perhaps the highest-profile murder trial in this state in a generation said no to the cameras.

Dateline, 20/20, and 48 Hours were among the many media hoping to tape the proceedings in People v. Stephen Grant. It is a spousal murder in the upper middle classes of suburban Detroit involving three physically lovely people who became involved in a triangle; the husband fell in love with the au pair, and bloodshed ensued. It is just the sort of distraction that this depressed city needs as we watch the American auto industry collapse into a pile of rusty parts at our feet, taking with it the economic foundation for our corner of the world.

Stephen Grant is a handsome suburban Detroiter accused of killing his wife in an argument, then butchering and scattering her remains. He has pleaded guilty to mutilation of a corpse. This week he went on trial for first-degree murder. This case has been the talk of Detroit with every local news show following closely.

The prominent coverage of the case would have made Judge Diane Druzinski the most famous judge in Michigan. She could have done what other judges in high-profile cases have done – take advantage of the fame; write a book, run for Court of Appeals.

Judge Druzinski thought the proper conduct of the trial was more important. The judge gave a lot of different reasons for her ruling. I can’t say that I agree with all of them, but I concur in the decision. Lawyers grandstand for the camera; judges do too. And so do juries.

We know that the glare and heat from television camera spotlights can put pressure on jurors sitting in judgment on a murder case. We’ve seen it time and again: an outrageous verdict that flies in the face of evidence – rendered live. Some are convicted despite shaky evidence. And guilty as hell, but acquitted: OJ Simpson, the Menedez brothers, Robert Blake, Robert Durst, so on and so forth. We hope that the cameras would fully explain the outcome in the O.J. Simpson case and others like it. The alternative is to grow concerned about the cases that aren’t televised.

In the Stephen Grant case, I think we can trust this judge to conduct a fair trial, even when no one’s watching – rather, because no one’s watching. I have to admit a bit of bias; I attended law school with Diane Druzinski and was always impressed by her, especially when she came close to besting me in the contest for the highest GPA in the class. I’m proud of her decision in this case – it’s in the best interests of justice and our best hope of securing a verdict that comports with the evidence and not with the audience’s expectations.

Read More...

Summary only...

Prosecutorial Judgment: One of the best on one of the worst

When the Duke "rape" scandal first unfolded, some of the more hyperactive of our TV personalities, bless their hearts, had the bandwagon outfitted and rolling along with salacious details, embarrassing emails, and titillating revelations concerning the sportsmen at scandal-center. Thankfully they scrapped that script - some quickly, others eventually - in favor of an altogether more shocking sort of crime story - the grotesque prosecutorial abuses committed by Mike Nifong, now a former member of the North Carolina bar.

To their credit, some of the best prosecutors in the United States have issued strongly worded remarks on this case. One of them - Missouri prosecutor Morley Swingle, author of the true crime title Scoundrels to the Hoosegow, voted by members of the Missouri bar as one of the best prosecutors to grace the Show-Me State - gave an interview to me in which he remarked, "[Nifong] has done a true disservice to prosecutors across the country. He is the Mike Tyson of prosecutors – an ear-biter and a whining bully.... Nifong represents the sort of prosecutor who usually only appears in bad fiction or soap operas. I predict he will be disbarred, if he hasn’t been already."

Quite strong and appropriate words - and the prediction came true.

Now several articles and books have been or will be written detailing the judicial horrors inflicted by Nike Nifong. One of the first is Until Proven Innocent by Stuart Taylor Jr. and K.C. Johnson. And to his continuing credit, Morley Swingle drew more attention to this scandal by reviewing the book for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, complimenting the effort to dissect Nifong's misdeeds.

Said Swingle: "There are many villains and cowards in Until Proven Innocent... unfortunately for the prosecutor, he tops the list."

But he is not alone. The new book also skewers the "victim," a policeman, Duke's higher-ups and professors, and the DNA expert who omitted evidence of innocence from the final report.
"Of the many journalists skewered in this book," Swingle notes, "CNN's Nancy Grace comes off the worst. "

I for one am glad to see voices specifically from the prosecutorial bar raised in objection to the disheartening and so very public misconduct in North Carolina. The ongoing and voluntary condemnation of Nifong from the best of his own kind leaves me more hopeful that his grotesque abuses may well indeed be isolated incidents.

For more interesting reading on this case, see --

How a private email ended up on CNN

Associated Press update on the civil suit against Nifong

Read More...

Summary only...

How about new term for 'psychopaths'

I hate the word psychopath. Sociopath doesn't do either. Both words have been hijacked by our pop culture. They no longer convey what they once conveyed. "Psychopath" usually implies insanity. On television, in the fiction realm anyway, psychopaths are made out to be anti-heroes, uncontrollable homicidal maniacs, self-destructive nutjobs. Jason. Freddie. Jack.

I much prefer the older term for them -- "moral imbeciles."

That was what the British Parliament called psychopaths in the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913. The law described what we call psychopaths as "persons who from an early age display some permanent mental defect, coupled with strong vicious and criminal propensities, on which punishment has had little or no deterrent effect." And isn't that a decent definition of a psychopath?

Even in 1913, two of the three legs of the so-called "homicidal triad" were recognized and discussed by criminologists and true crime authors. It was known even then that fire-setting and cruelty toward animals were sure signs that a lad was headed down a dark path.

In 1920, the "moral imbecile" was characterized by author E.J. Pratt as someone who as a child "lights a bon-fire on the carpet of the living-room of his home and accuses his younger brother, or, perhaps, the cat for overturning a lamp. He has only two interests - one, to see a good big blaze with the resulting confusion and terror on the part of the family, and the other, to escape the personal consequences of discovery."

Said the grande dame of British true crime, F. Tennyson Jesse, writing in 1924 of the poisoner Chapman, who murdered women for fun: "Chapman... had been notorious as a boy for his practice of torturing animals."

"Moral imbecile" is a better term than "psychopath" to describe them. It's a properly denigrating term for those who lack that most basic and common human trait - empathy.

Read More...

Summary only...

CNN's Crime Criteria

TO: CNN Staff
FROM: CNN Executives
DT: Sept 03, 2007
RE: The Cable Crime Narrative Criteria

Henceforth the following criteria apply when CNN Staff scour local news for CNN-worthy stories. These parameters apply to Kidnapping, Missing Persons, and Murder Cases.

1. The victim MUST be a white female between three and thirty-five.

2. The victim MUST be sexually attractive. A cute, natural blonde of 9 is better than a 15-year-old brunette with braces. Parents must also be attractive. Obesity, bad teeth, bad hair and piercings are verboten on CNN.

3. Engaging photos of the attractive victim MUST be available; the more, the better, since we may replay them for years.

4. The victim MUST be middle or upper class. Photos of trailers and ghettoes are verboten on CNN.

5. There MUST be a sexual component to the case. This can be satisfied in many ways:

a. The victim was sexually assaulted before she was murdered (JonBenet).

b. The victim was probably sexually assaulted and murdered (Dru, Maddie, Polly).

c. The victim herself has recently done something naughty, such as an affair with a married man (Chandra) or all-night partying (Natalee).

d. Someone close to the victim has done something naughty (Laci).

Please, people, bring us ONLY those cases with an element of rape, sexual misconduct, affair with the nanny, or wild living. If you find a story that meets the five criteria above, please hit the emergency button located underneath your desk.

Read More...

Summary only...

Cursed By Name: Jesse James

It is impossible to understand, let alone explain, the ahistorical anti-hero worship that prompts thousands of American and British parents every year to curse their children, boys and girls alike, with the name Jesse James.

Now the trend has reached black parents as well. This year rap mogul Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs christened one of his two newborn twin girls with the name.

What were you puffing, daddy?

Because no self-respecting African-American woman would want to bear that name.

Maybe if he didn't smoke so much pot he'd remember something from history class. Those parents' knowledge of the first murderer to bear the name obviously comes from Hollywood, and they've bought in with their children's reputations to the romantic image of America's most famous outlaw.

Make that America's most famous son. Jesse James is the most famous American who ever existed; the further you get from the United States - the Arab world is often mentioned - the more you'll find some who know the American outlaw but can't name the American president.

And yet our culture's opinion of the romantic bandit has slowly begun to change. It started with the 2003 Random House release of the bestselling Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War by historian T.J. Stiles. He called Missouri's favorite short-lived son a terrorist, putting forth the controversial but well supported theory that the outlaw was more Osama bin Laden than Robin Hood. The long-awaited Brad Pitt version of the legend, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, will hit theaters this fall and, according to some who've had a sneak peek, portray him as a psycho.

Apparently the young parents of the world need a reminder that Jesse James was a Confederate bushwhacker - that's a 19th-century term for an insurgent - and he came from a slave-owning family. He grew up with slaves, was tended by slaves, and fought and bled and murdered civilians and Union volunteers to keep slavery alive.

Jesse James' parents owned many slaves. Robert James - a Baptist minister! - bought them one at a time when they were very young, freshly yanked from their heartbroken mothers, weaned by sale.

Stiles, amazing though it may seem, was the very first author to discuss the slave-holding habits of the James Gang. As he explained in his book:

[L]ike most Southern commercial farmers, Robert [James] began to buy slaves as he prospered, probably paying between $200 and $400 for each of the boys and girls who populated his spread by the end of the decade.

Boys and girls? The image is jarring: the pious, beloved man of God, shouting out bids for toddlers at auction. But that is indeed what he did. By 1850, he came to own at least five black children, ranging in age from two to eleven (in addition to a black woman, age thirty).

Then they grew them, like corn or wheat or any other crop, and cashed them in when they reached peak adolescent maturity. Then they'd reinvest in a fresh crop of little ones.

But not before taking a pinch here and there themselves. At least one slave on the James farm gave birth to a mixed race child before she abandoned the baby and ran away. According to Stiles, the three white men on the farm then were Frank James, then 17, Jesse James, then 13, and their stepfather, though nobody knows who exactly fathered the baby they named Perry, whose destiny was to be a servant to his mother's rapist.

Surely, mom and dad, there are other names that won't amount to a curse or nudge a child into jail in a sad sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Because even if you won't bother to find out a thing about the real man before you burden your own offspring with his name, chances are they might want to know more about the "outlaw" than you do. And they may well be horrified by what they learn.

Read More...

Summary only...

What's Wrong With Edgar?

The Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, issued annually by the Mystery Writers of America, is the most prestigious literary award bestowed in the true crime genre (aided by a lack of varsity competition). It was named for Edgar Allan Poe, a newspaper editor turned author who based many of his most popular stories (Marie Roget, etc.) on true crime cases. (Yes, it's true; long before there was a Truman Capote, famous writers produced thinly fictionalized accounts of real murders.)

While I love to see my favorite genre get some chits, I’ve come to distrust this award.

Some short-listed books are just not worthy of the honor.

Some giants in the genre who should have Edgar awards have none – Ann Rule, for one.

Some authors of high-quality works are excluded because, as I understand it, publishers can only submit two books apiece, which squeezes out a lot of great books.

Other authors are excluded from consideration because their publishers aren’t “approved,” which is a bit mystifying. An author’s publisher must give “fair treatment to authors” (definition not provided) in order for the author to be eligible for an Edgar award. How fair is that?

And if your book is published by a university press, it ought to be a “major” university as opposed to a “minor or relatively unknown” institution (definitions not provided). Kent State University Press, which has a true crime series and publishes some of the most interesting true crime books being released today, is currently not on the list of approved publishers, even though a Kent State book was short-listed for the award in 2007. Strange.

Here and there on the internet I’ve seen people mention their status as judges in this category, and without singling anyone out, as a whole they strike me as quite unqualified. How does a fiction mystery writer wind up judging true crime? They are entirely different animals. No one would let the editor of Cat Fancy judge at the Westminster dog show, no matter how vast her knowledge of cats.

What concerns me the most is that two or more authors often put out a book about one case in any given year - murderess Susan Polk was the subject of two books out this year, for example - but only one book has been nominated. I fear that the one given the nod may join the short-list or even win when the one that wasn't nominated was the superior work. If a fictionist is judging the contest, chances are higher that s/he doesn't know of the work that didn't "qualify."

True crime authors, kindly take note. We need some qualified judges to give the award real heft. If we are going to demand the respect the genre deserves, let's make a good job of the Edgar.

As of early July, these true crime books have been submitted for this year’s award. I’ve only read a couple of these books so far; I particularly enjoyed The Enigma Woman by Kathleen Cairns. I will put $20 against any takers that Vincent Bugliosi will get his third Edgar next year, not necessarily because his book is the best, but because his book is the longest.

Two contributors to In Cold Blog are on this list already - I've highlighted their names in bold. And if the Edgar award were more fairly administered, several others would be on this list as well.

Adams, Sam, PRECIOUS BLOOD
Alpert, Stanley, THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
Bugliosi, Vincent, RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F.KENNEDY
Butcher, Lee, LOVE ME OR I'LL KILL YOU
Cairns, Kathleen A., THE ENIGMA WOMAN: THE DEATH SENTENCE OF NELLIE MAY MADISON
Casey, Kathryn , DIE, MY LOVE: A TRUE STORY OF REVENGE, MURDER, AND TWO TEXAS SISTERS
Cook, Kerry Max, CHASING JUSTICE: MY STORY OF FREEING MYSELF AFTER TWO DECADES ON DEATH ROW FOR A CRIME I DIDN'T COMMIT
Craughwell, Thomas J., STEALING LINCOLN'S BODY
Crier, Catherine, FINAL ANALYSIS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE SUSAN POLK MURDER CASE
Fanning, Diane, UNDER THE KNIFE: A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, A PHONY DOCTOR AND A SHOCKING HOMICIDE
Good, R. Stephanie, EXPOSED: THE HARROWING STORY OF A MOTHER'S UNDERCOVER WORK WITH THE FBI TO SAVE CHILDREN FROM INTERNET SEX PREDATORS
Hall, Allan &, Leidig, Michael, GIRL IN THE CELLAR: THE NATASCHA KAMPUSCH STORY
Klaidman, Stephen, CORONARY: A TRUE STORY OF MEDICINE GONE AWRY
Mladinich, Robert &, Benson, Michael, LETHAL EMBRACE
Recko, Corey, MURDER ON THE WHITE SANDS: THE DISPPEARANCE OF ALBERT AND HENRY FOUNTAIN
Rodriguez, Teresa, DAUGHERS OF JUAREZ: A TRUE STORY OF SERIAL MURDER SOUTH OF THE BORDER
Rule, Ann, TOO LATE TO SAY GOODBYE
Scott, Robert, KILLER DAD
Spellman, Paul N., CAPTAIN J.A. BROOKS, TEXAS RANGER
Stodghill, Rod, REDBONE: MONEY, MALICE AND MURDER IN ATLANTA
Swingle, Morley, SCOUNDRELS TO THE HOOSEGOW
Utley, Robert M., LONE STAR LAWMEN: THE SECOND CENTURY OF THE TEXAS RANGERS
Valez-Mitchell, Jane, SECRETS CAN BE MURDER
Wallis, Michael, BILLY THE KID: THE ENDLESS RIDE
Wenzl, Roy, BIND, TORTURE, KILL: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE SERIAL KILLER NEXT DOOR
White, Emily, YOU WILL MAKE MONEY IN YOUR SLEEP:THE STORY OF DANA GIACCHETTO, FINANCIAL ADVISOR TO THE STARS

Read More...

Summary only...

Enough Already with the SHOCKING PHOTOS!

For the last several years, true crime paperbacks have contained a sticker or a note on the back cover, something to the effect of --

WITH 16 PAGES OF SHOCKING PHOTOS!

-- sometimes without the exclamation point.

It's not a quaint embrace of the genre's tabloid heritage; to this reader it's an annoyance. Those six words undermine the point of the 60,000 words inside. It arms those who denigrate true crime, like the New York Times mystery reviewer who said the language of true crime "dishonors the dead".

Besides, they're not shocking. Not usually. There's nothing alarming about family photos or the invariable page of detectives and prosecutors.

In all the true crime reading I've done, I can recall being truly shocked by three photos. One appeared in Body Dump by Fred Rosen -- a badly decomposed corpse in water. Mr. James saw the book on the counter, peeked inside, and blanched. The second shocking photo was also a decomposed corpse -- but the girl's family wanted it published. The third truly shocking photo I've seen - partly because it's on the cover - is the photo that appears on The Passing of Starr Faithfull by British crime historian Jonathan Goodman.

But I'm not looking for shocking photos. I'd much rather have shocking moments in my true crime stories. Moments of clarity. Moments where everything is made plain.

The most truly, deeply shocking moment I've had while reading a true crime paperback came courtesy Gregg Olsen's brilliantly written Cruel Deception. In the book, he tells the story of a mother on trial for murder, accused of Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy. The cross-examination of the defendant in that case was the single most shocking passage in any true crime book I've ever read.

But none of the eight pages of photos were shocking at all.

Read More...

Summary only...

In Cold Blood: Not All That

When Corey Mitchell kindly invited me to join this group of true crime luminaries, I was delighted to be included.

When he told me the name of the site, I had to laugh at the nod to Truman Capote. And then groan.

Sure, In Cold Blood is a terrific book reflecting years of careful research, a masterfully constructed story written by a gifted man at the height of his powers. It belongs, and is on, many a list of the best true crime books of all time.

But, honestly, there is so much b.s. in the whoop-de-doo about this book. Goofy claims have evolved from press release fluff to accepted fact. People who should know better claim that Capote invented the true crime genre. Some merely claim he created a "whole new genre," the "nonfiction novel" - or at least established the "modern novelistic style" of true crime - this last silliness courtesy Wikipedia's ridiculously inadequate history of the true crime genre.

Actually, writers have been turning murders into literature for thousands of years. If anyone wanted to find the true father of literary true crime, the hunt would take place in ancient China. If pressed to name the Western father of true crime, I'd first think of Cicero (depicted upper left), the great Roman trial lawyer who, 2,000 years ago, published accounts of and arguments from his most famous murder cases.

Frequently called "groundbreaking," Capote's book was anything but. "Truman Capote clearly had no eye to literary history when he claimed to have created in his crime study, In Cold Blood, a new genre, the 'nonfiction novel,'" wrote crime historian Albert Borowitz in Innocence and Arsenic. "Far from being a modern invention, the nonfiction novel, as a device for crime narrative, dates back at least to the early nineteenth century."

Yet nobody has to go so far back to disprove the Random House hype about In Cold Blood. You only have to consider the book that directly inspired Capote. He never credited it -- he never acknowledged any of the authors who write literary true crime before he did -- but there was one darn good reason this fiction writer of middling success was searching in the fall of 1959 for a murder case he could turn into a literary phenomenon.

It had just been done.

In January 1958, an author writing under the pseudonym Robert Traver published a novelized account of a murder case from the Upper Peninsula. The book was Anatomy of a Murder by Michigan Supreme Court Justice John Voelker, and it rocketed to the top of every bestseller list. It remained on the New York Times list for sixty-six weeks - well into 1959 - and both the book and the movie that followed are regarded as one of the finest thinly fictionalized true crime stories of the century.

Capote wrote a terrific book, but he invented nothing. Why does the nonsense persist? Two reasons, I think. One, Capote was a fixture in New York's cocktail intelligentsia, and New Yorkers love to pontificate that their city is the capital of the cultural universe and annoyingly sermonize that all things literary come from New York. Two, the book debuted on January 17, 1966, and was probably the first true crime book many baby boomers read. There is a lamentable human (and media) trait to think nothing much happened before I was born, my time is the most important time in the history of the Earth, and everything that happens today is new, the best, the worst, the most important ("this is the worst massacre in U.S. history," cried many foolish people after Virginia Tech).

All that said, I like the name of this website. It certainly is catchy and easy to remember. Groundbreaking, no. Among the best, if not the best, yes.

Read More...

Summary only...