4 comments about Night of the Devil: The Untold Story of Thomas Trantino and the Angel Lounge Killings.

1. I am the sister of Gary Tedesco, the policeman that was murdered and so for me reading this story was very difficult. With that being said, I believe David Stout wrote this story with a great deal of compassion for all the family members and friends that will be forever changed as a result of this horrific crime. If you want to read a true account of the story that has been in the news for 39 years then I would suggest reading this book. David really did his homework.Everyone who believes hard criminals should be released into society again, should read the results of what allowing these two murderes into society time after time did to two innocent lives and the families and friends their lives touched. The two men who murdered them should never have been out of prison in the first place but one is now walking the streets with us again. The policeman got the death sentence and the families got the life sentence.



2. Most of us have views about the efficacy of societal imposition of the death penalty for ultimate crimes such as murder or high treason. David Stout's Night of the Devil will will take you on the forty-year journey of a convicted murderer of two police officers, from the crime through the laborings of the state and federal judicial sytems, as they lurch through the particulars of this case and through the general evolution of our society's unsetteled position over the imposition of the ultimate sanction.

   Written by a veteran reporter and author of several mystery novels, this story is thoroughly researched, dispassionate, and riveting. The author is from the old school: present the facts so that the reader can gain insight and form their own opinions. Mr. Stout writes in a clear, highly-paced, engaging manner. Few readers are likely to put this book down for long.




3. This book is riveting. Once I started reading it, it was impossible to stop. Mr. Trout really brings the reader into the story. Even though the events happened over 30 years ago, you feel as if you are there. David Stout is a real journalist. He brings the story to life, he is fair and balanced in his reporting. I highly recommend this book if you have any interest in crime, punishment and what's right/wrong with "justice" in America.
   My heart goes out to the families of the victims.



4. This book is a must for anyone who is interested in the controversial case of Thomas Trantino. Trantino was convicted, in February 1964, of the brutal, senseless killings of two, Lodi, New Jersey, police officers the previous summer. Initially condemned to death by electrocution, Trantino's sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment, and he bears the dubious distinction of having served more time behind bars than any other prisoner in the Garden State. The author obviously did his homework, read the trial transcripts, and interviewed many close to the case, including relatives of the slain officers. This story is presented in an objective, unbiased way, and Mr. Stout even puts to rest the horrifying (and, thankfully, false) allegations that the officers had been forced to commit sex acts before they were shot. There were at least two minor inaccuracies I picked up on - Trantino's associate, Frank Falco, was a product of Manhattan's Lower East Side, not Brooklyn, and he had two sons by different women, not a daughter - but, for the most part, I found "Night of the Devil" a compelling read which is definitely on the money.

No comments about Forty Years Later: Life after Alcatraz.

No comments about Outlaw Tales of New Mexico: True Stories of New Mexico's Most Famous Robbers, Rustlers, and Bandits (Outlaw Tales).

2 comments about Driven to Kill: The Clara Harris Story.

1. Ok, I admit it: I cheat my diet now and then with a nutritious Krispy Kreme donut, & sometimes I read the ever erudite Enquirer - what else to do when stranded in a slow-moving check-out line? Cliff Linedecker, Best-Selling Author in his own write, has teamed with National Enquirer staffers in several recent rush-to-print-while-the-story's-still-hot "true crime" books. And the results are, amazingly, pretty good.

   This book goes beyond the quickie sound bites and sensationalistic snippets I saw on TV. (Alas, I must toil every day to earn my Daily Bread and so, to my chagrin, cannot lie about the house all day watching Court TV and eating bon-bons.) It is the saga of the dynamic duo of Clara and David Harris cum Texas triage with the infiltration of trollop Gail Bridges. The cover aptly features the "murder weapon," a 4,000 pound Mercedes and embossed tires tracks all around. There are many "Wow! I didn't know that!" moments. Clara was a Columbian dentist. That Texas law regarding justifiable homicide if catching one's wife in flagrante delicto was not as sexist as Urban Legend had it.

   While reading this book, just remember the tabloid from which it sprang: an entertaining diversion, a guilty pleasure about as substantial and nutritious as a Krispy Kreme, and devour them both. Reviewed by TundraVision, Amazon reviewer




2. I could have written this book. It contains nothing more than what was already in Texas Monthly, the local news, and Dateline. Mr. Linedecker threw this together in a hurry and it's not worth your time or money.

No comments about Supper with the Crippens: A New Investigation into One of the Most Notorious Domestic Murders in History.

1 comments about Charles Manson - Helter Skelter and Beyond (Biography).

1. Don't waste your money. 50 page SUMMARY (LARGE fonts, nothing new, no pictures), 30 pages of references.

3 comments about Very Much a Lady: The Untold Story of Jean Harris and Dr. Herman Tarnower.

1. Very Much a Lady by Shana Alexander is the immensely readable story of Jean Harris. For anyone who has lost track of yesterday's headlines, Harris is the headmistress of a girls' school who shot and killed her lover, Herman Tarnower, a respected cardiologist who authored the best-selling Complete Scarsdale Diet Book. To this day, Harris maintains that the fatal shooting of Dr. Tarnower was an accident that occurred when the doctor fought with her over the gun she planned to use to kill herself. Alexander traces of the lives of Harris and Tarnower from childhood on and sees the seeds of destruction planted early on. The same character traits which brought them together as lovers doomed them to a terrible ending. Harris's relationship with her impossible-to-please father formed her early identity as a "good girl" and led to her need for a dominant male image to shore up her shaky sense of self. The classic overachiever, Harris had to excel in any project! she tackled. She craved stimulation which she failed to get from her brief first marriage to a decent but unexciting man. Harris divorced him and began a fourteen-year-long love affair with Dr. Tarnower. The latter was a dedicated physician with old-fashioned attitudes toward women. There is one puzzling aspect to the tale that deserves fuller attention than Alexander gives it: Harris's religious background. According to Alexander, Jean Harris's Mom was a devout Christian Scientist. The irony of Jean's passion for a doctor should have been examined in light of the Christian Science beliefs into which she had been indoctrinated during her childhood--but this is ignored by Alexander. The jury rejected Harris's version of events and found her guilty of murder. Alexander, who is unabashadly Harris's partisan, brilliantly dissects the defense errors which led to conviction. Amongst the chief of these were her attorney's misguided interpretation of the explosive Scarsdale ! Letter, the distance between the accused and the jury in cl! a** and background, and the failure of her attorney to understand the personality of this brittle, high-strung "lady." In a story laced with ironies, the greatest is that in the version of events told by the prosecutor and accepted by the jury, Herman Tarnower is just another murder victim whereas according to Harris's defense Tarnower died a heroic death, tragically jeopardizing his life to save hers,



2. Shana Alexander's Very Much a Lady and Diana Trilling's Mrs. Harris: The Death of the Scarsdale Diet Doctor are complementary books about a fascinating case: the murder of Dr. Tarnower by his lover Jean Harris.

   It is Jean Harris' motive in killing Dr. Tarnower that interests these two writers. Jean Harris was neither psychotic nor particularly violent. In some ways, she seemed the classic example of the woman wronged. In other ways, she seemed the classic example of the 1950s woman coping uneasily and unsuccessfully in the changed world of the 1980s and in still other ways, she seemed the eternal victim of circumstance.

   Both writers agree that the punishment did not fit the crime. Mrs. Harris did not intend to kill Dr. Tarnower and in law, intent does matter. Shana Alexander spends more time than Diana Trilling in exploring the mistakes made by the defense (such as their refusal to plead to a lesser charge), and she is more critical of the prosecution. Both writers, however, are primarily interested in Jean Harris' character. Their differing approaches regarding the latter are at the heart of these similar, yet ultimately distinct, books.

   Shana Alexander is an objective partisan. She is honest about Jean Harris' flaws, but it is clear both from her tone and the accumulation of biographical information that she considers Jean Harris not as a victim but as a basically sane and not unlikable human being pushed beyond her limits by her culture, her background, her medical history and her own psychology. She doesn't exculpate Jean Harris but neither does she condemn her.

   Diana Trilling, on the other hand, is far less partisan and far more critical. She sees in Jean Harris a woman who sacrificed her intellectual integrity for a sordid affair. She is disgusted by Mrs. Harris' behavior during the trial and appalled by the letter written by Mrs. Harris to Dr Tarnower before the killing (and never actually read by him). Shana Alexander, on the other hand, while agreeing that the letter condemned Mrs. Harris in the eyes of the jury (even in the evidence did not) bemoans the lack of prescience by Jean Harris' defense in presenting the letter in court. Her defense, Shana Alexander argues, did not understand Jean Harris and were therefore unable to successfully present the problems of the case both to Jean Harris herself and to the jury.

   The similarities and differences between Shana Alexander and Diana Trilling make their two books excellent complements. I recommend reading Diana Trillling's book first since it is the "outsider's" take on the case. Shana Alexander's book then will give the reader a closer look at a troubled woman and a bizarre, perhaps avoidable, tragedy.




3. I didn't come to this book "cold." I have seen interviews with and documentary TV programs about Mrs. Harris, read another book about her, and viewed both HBO's "Mrs. Harris" and an earlier, excellent TV movie about her trial which utilized trial transcripts for the dialogue. Shana Alexander's detailed, nuanced book about the life of the woman whom she quickly came to admire and sympathize with gets my vote, however, for how Mrs. Harris should be remembered. Being mesmerized by need and wonderful memories into continuing in an increasingly unrewarding, even degrading, relationship is a phenomenon which both men and women, uneducated or as impressively literate as Jean Harris, can understand. Things can go terribly wrong, particularly when one partner in the relationship seemingly is incapable of true commitment or even of empathy (Dr. T), and the other is under the spell of not only of lost love remembered but of sudden forced withdrawal from mood-altering, inappropriately prescribed medication. Ms. Alexander's book gives a fascinating, multi-faceted look at an uber-capable, extremely responsible adult female who goes through the windshield one appropriately dark and stormy night after long-term endurance of disrespect, flagrant cheating, and neglect and short-term drug-induced crashing depression and panic. Before being released from prison, Jean Harris spent years helping her fellow inmates and their children and writing lucid, compassionate books about this experience; much to her credit, her excellent biographer includes this information in this book. I hope Mrs. Harris, whenever she passes away, lives through the admiration and love of her own children, whom she cared for more than herself, as well as that of a wider audience introduced to her in this work. As for Dr. Tarnower, I hope he is remembered as what Mrs. Harris feared he would be: a "diet Doc."

2 comments about J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime: An Historical Antidote.

1. Academic debunking of Anthony Summers' scandalous "Official and Confidential" superbly researched and written by a noted critic of J. Edgar Hoover. Summers' bestselling volume used uncorroborated gossip and hearsay to "prove" the late FBI director was a closet homosexual and transvestite blackmailed into submission by organized crime. Theoharis, author of such previous works as "From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover" and "The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition", sticks to the facts and uses solid scholarship to dismiss the Summers book as baseless.



2. This book was written to deny the claims of Anthony Summers that Hoover dressed in women's clothes at orgies. Given that the lack of corroboration, that claim is easily refuted (p.41). Curt Gentry's book told that Hoover's real crime was filing false expense reports. Athan Theoharis argues that Hoover's disinterest is organized crime was the result of a "lack of accountability"!! Hoover was not from a wealthy and powerful family, his career depended on pleasing powerful politicians by using his personal skills and talents (p.79). Hoover was first promoted under Wilson, kept his job under Harding, Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and then Franklin Roosevelt (who increased his powers). Hoover curried favor with powerful businessmen (p.40), and also sought information to stay in power (p.72). Hoover didn't investigate syndicated crime as long as the ruling Power Elite wanted that. Congressmen controlled the FBI budget, and Hoover got along by going along. [After the US Secret Service investigation sent a Senator and Congressman to jail, their budget was cut.] Naval Intelligence worked with organized crime during WW 2. Hoover's statement "no single individual or coalition of racketeers dominates organized crime across the nation" (p.17) is still true today; read that closely. Hoover collected scandalous news a necessary self-protection in the political jungle of Washington (p.72). If Hoover concentrated on left-wing groups rather than La Cosa Nostra he was just following orders (p.139).
   
   Chapter One discusses the personal character of Hoover, but not his family background. The charge of homosexuality was often "used by persons who wanted to smear someone" (p.27). One example concerns three high-level aides of Nixon (pp.30-31)! Hoover wanted "sworn statements" from them denying their homosexuality; did he get them? [Any chance to forge them?] Hoover quickly suppressed such rumors (pp.34-38). Could a "sex photograph" have existed in 1946 (p.47)?[Composite photographs are possible, and actors with make-up to double for real people.] Chapter Two tells about the collecting of personal information of a sexual nature and how it was used for political purposes. [That went on with the Founding Fathers!] Prominent personalities could be controlled and political agendas could be promoted with the possession of this knowledge. [Remember one of the "Honeymooner" shows where Ralph tells Alice she is a "Mrs. J. Edgar Hoover"? What did Jackie Gleason mean?]
   
   Chapter Three discusses the expanded Federal powers of the New Deal. [Actually, that started earlier with Prohibition.] The purpose of the New Deal was to save the Power Elite by triage of malfunctioning units (p.120). The failing economy was followed by a rising crime rate (p.121). The expansion of federal powers was presented as a moral conflict between good and evil, divorced from economic reality. Hollywood produced is melodramas (p.125). [No connection here between the end of a "well-regulated militia" and the rise of organized crime.] FDR re-assigned counter-intelligence from the US Secret Service to the FBI (pp.127-128). The FBI took an interest in politicians (p.135). FBI wiretaps immunized crime bosses from prosecution (p.141)! The justification for secret, illegal bugging practices is on page 150. The protection of organized crime by the Attorney General is on pages 151-152. Read it for yourself!
   
   Presidents, attorneys-general, Congressmen, and others cooperated with and benefitted from J. Edgar Hoover (p.160). Was the ACLU then controlled by the FBI (p.163)? The summary on page 164 only underlines Hoover's role as an enforcer for the Power Elite.

No comments about The Art of Violence: True Stories of the Hardest Men in Britain.

1 comments about Hard Bastards 2.

1. If you haven't read the first book, it's probably worth buying. The only difference between this, and HB1 is that Kate Kray has included people from "up north" ie "KILLER" from Liverpool, and also an international flavour with a Kung-Fu champion thrown in for good measure. Again, the 2nd book seems to concentrate more on ensuring the reader that the "hard bastard" in question is actually a decent person, rather than going into details about the violence the person has seen. I was especially disappointed with the coverage of Tony Lambrianou. For all that he has seen & done in his life, I expected a more detailed account from him.
   It's a very easy-to-read book (I read cover to cover in 3 hours) which makes it seem even less appealing if you're paying the hardback price imported from the UK.
   My advice; but the auto-biogs of Roy "Pretty Boy" Shaw and Lenny "the guvnor" Mclean instead. They were true hard bastards.