2 comments about Ted Bundy: The FBI Files.

1. it appears that these are in fact... official FBI files, but all the interesting information has been blacked out... and so i say
   ...................WHAT IS THE POINT?



2. This book contains very little info and is not what you may think with tons of interesting documents. There is much blacked out on every page. Don't waste your money.

5 comments about America at Night: The True Story of Two Rogue CIA Operatives, Homeland Security Failures,Dirty Money, and a Plot to Steal the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election- by theFor.

1. This book has some very interesting insight into a real story that depicts how some things work in this world... how someone can get all the way to the "kitchen" with the Bush's and be an outlaw. Very well written novel also! Only con would be some far fetched conspiracy theeories laid out at the beginning of the book and never proved during the book.



2. I'm sure most of what Mr. Kolb says is true about Hirschfeld and Sensi but I suspect he uses this capital to serve his ultimate goal -- to trash everything Republican. As a hit piece of this magnitude he is unconvincing. Ironically, if the picture Kolb has painted of these two con men is accurate and their abilitiy to use powerful figures is proven, then why is he not looking to find innocence in the many Republican politicians that seem to have been used? Why does he automatically see conspiracy on a wider scale within the GOP?
   
   He seems to trust "The Gray Eminence" and other people he has actually talked to like Engin Yesil. John Kerry is a war hero (Bush a poseur). He uses the term neo-con as a perjorative. Wolfowitz, Rice et al are war mongers out of touch with what....the omniscient benevolence of the Kerry team? A balanced outing of the "facts" would have at least included some rebuttal. There is none. He says at the beginning he is non-partisan. Nice try.
   
   He believes he is saving the world from evil. Has Kolb read Bill Sammon's book "At Any Cost - How Al Gore Tried To Steal The Election"? How that egalitarian and progressive organization, the Chicago Daley Machine was called in as a fixer for the Florida recount? There is no paucity of evil in America. Why be seletive?
   
   The fact is that both parties have operatives. Both parties are involved in scullduggery. And because of the hightened political climate both parties have a stake in deeming the other an enemy. I think the day of a mere advisarial relationship between left and right is over.
   
   We all pick sides. Kolb is on the Democratic team.



3. An entertaining book, as long as you don't believe the far-fetched conspiracy theories. The author takes a fact here, a factoid there, on and on and tries to put them together for a grand conspiracy. As far as I could tell, it's really just the story of some con men, talented and interesting though they were.



4. This started off as interesting, but I lost interest when he started writing page after page about Muhammud Ali as the greatest man who ever lived. Toward the end, the book became a reason to bash the right, although the author claims he isn't. Kold is a left wing partisan, and it shows. Too bad, as the books holds real promise.



5. America at Night is one of the most riveting books I've read in a long while. I absolutely couldn't put it down. Not only is the story completely intriguing, but Kolb--unlike many true crime authors--can really write. The man is obviously a born storyteller. And in this case, the story he's telling happens to be true--which makes the book all the more fascinating. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in how politics really works in this country, or anyone that just enjoys a compulsive, compelling read.

5 comments about Tom P's Fiddle - A True Texas Tale.

1. I was drawn in instantly, it was like I was there too, watching and hearing every thing that was happening right in front of me. Really shows how life was back then. Being a native Texan it was particulary interesting that this was a Texas story. Makes me feel like I knew Tom P. personally. A must read!!!



2. I have some personal knowledge of Tom P. Varnell. According to family research, he is a very distant cousin of mine. This book really brings the story to life. The book is so well written, you feel like you are there, sharing in all of the problems that Tom P faced. I bought two books, one for myself, and one as a gift. I have had so many requests to loan this book that I am going to order another from Amazon. I wouldn't part with my personal copy.
   
   I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in life as it was around the turn of the 19th century.
   
   I can't wait for Sherri Knight's next book to come out, as I am sure that it will be as interesting as this one is. Tom P's Fiddle - A True Texas Tale



3. Sherri Knight made me feel like I was living during the time of Tom P. The book read absolutely fantastic!! The entire family seemed so real that I just hated finishing the book. It seemed like I was leaving friends behind. The land and the times are particularly well portrayed. Just reading about Tom P made me want to have been able to travel back in time to that era! Thank you Sherri Knight for making 19th century Texas come so alive!!



4. I discovered this book when it became a finalist for the North Texas Book Festival Book Award for Non-Fiction. As a 6th generation Texan, I'll admit the cover drew me to this True Texas Tale. However, I'm a noted critic that authors fail to do justice to our frontier way of life and our rich, unique vernacular. Hollywood always seems to have a cursory presentation. But Sherri Knight's prose effortlessly drew me into the world of our ancestors, where life was as tough and gritty as our language.
   
   I found the compelling story of Tom P Varnell populated with strong, engaging characters that often had to rely on their own sense of justice on the frontier. I was so drawn into Tom P's world that by the end I desperately wanted to reach across time and space and spend the afternoon at the Varnell ranch sipping a cup of Arbuckle with Docia. With the complete immersion that I found in Ms. Knight's illustrative prose, I really did find the next best thing.
   
   When I went to Google to learn more of Tom Ps story on my own, imagine my surprise to find Sherri Knight had a complete blog that detailed her journey into Tom P's world. I was astounded by the vast amounts of research executed by this author. I highly recommend a visit, as you will be richly rewarded with vast amounts of supplementary materials and photos. I need not be a skeptic when it comes to Sherri Knight, she knows her history and she knows her Texas!



5. Many of us would like to know what our ancestors lives were like. If we are lucky, we have relatives alive to tell the tales. But like the game of gossip, the tales differ from relative to relative, and a kernel of truth is in each story, but not the whole truth.
   
   Sherri Knight has meticulously pulled together family stories and researched dilligently to find that kernel of truth and in doing so, has written the story of one man's life in the late 19th century. It reads as though we are the crowd watching the events as they unfold before our very eyes. We are the neighbors, the jurists, the lawmen, the womenfolk, who are seeing the events that are set in motion, when in a youthful moment of indiscretion, shots were fired.

3 comments about The Luciano Story.

1. This book is a great introduction, but nothing more. The book has no continuous flow to it. It is not well written, but does contain some useful information into the power that Luciano held



2. This book does provide the reader with a basic insight of Lucianos life.It has been well written but the facts seem to be a bit out of place.A few incidents seem to be exagerated by the author and the reader gets the feeling that its not a book but more like a story from the news paper. A good book for a reader who wants to have basic knowledge of Lucianos life but the book i would recommend for the true followers of Organized crime is the Luciano Testament.



3. This book does provide the reader with a basic insight of Lucianos life.It has been well written but the facts seem to be a bit out of place.A few incidents seem to be exagerated by the author and the reader gets the feeling that its not a book but more like a story from the news paper. A good book for a reader who wants to have basic knowledge of Lucianos life but the book i would recommend for the true followers of Organized crime is the Luciano Testament.

No comments about Outlaw Tales of Wyoming: True Stories of the Cowboy State's Most Infamous Crooks, Culprits, and Cutthroats.

1 comments about The Shelton Gang: They Played in Peoria and They Played War in Bloody Williamson County.

1. While slightly disorganized in the earlier chapters, this slim book by a Peoria newspaperman is still an entertaining read and contains some new information on the notorious Shelton brothers of Illinois. While not neglecting their Twenties feud with Charlie Birger and Thirties battles with the Cuckoos gang in East St. Louis, the bulk of the book deals with their latter days in Peoria. Photo quality leaves something to be desired but there are some pictures I haven't seen before. It's well worth picking up though Taylor Pensoneau's "Brothers Notorious" remains the essential biography of the Sheltons.

2 comments about The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa's Most Wanted (Biography & Memoir).

1. Books and essays written by Sverker Finnström and Tim Allen are better places to start reading about the LRA and Uganda. Their work imparts an understanding of the conflict rather than an impression of the author's ego.



2. If there is a religiously-inspired, insane, murderous fugitive leading a band of rebels hiding in the African jungle, what is the best thing to do? Why, interview him. That was the answer of Matthew Green, a young British journalist covering East Africa for Reuters. All that had to be done was to find Joseph Kony, the warlord of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) whose fanatical Christian militia had terrorized northern Uganda for over two decades and who is recognized as being among the world's worst of bad guys. Find him, and get the answer to the one simple question: "How could one maniac leading an army of abducted children hold half a country hostage for twenty years?" Getting the answer is not so simple, nor is finding Kony, but the outcome of Green's 2006 quest to find him and Green's attempt to understand an answer to the question are contained in his _The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa's Most Wanted_ (Portobello Books). Suffice it to say that Green's history of the region and of Kony's movement does not fully explain the monstrosities the LRA has perpetrated, and he doesn't get the answers he wanted, but Green details how he was doing his job as a reporter, letting us know about the many frustrations therein and the broader explanations he obtained. There is journalistic bravado and curiosity on display here, but with self-deprecating humor, making this an enjoyably readable memoir and travelogue with dark themes.
   
   The warlord was born a peasant to a witchcraft faith-healer within the Acholi, a tribe living in northern Uganda near the border with Sudan. They had been the victims of revenge killing and cattle theft by the Ugandan government, and were in the market for a messiah. Kony had gone to primary school (wearing his rosary) but was distracted by the spirit world which forced him to become a witchdoctor. He was successful at the trade, and even more so when a new spirit infested him; he explained that the Holy Spirit had come so he could fight the Ugandan government and he would make the Ten Commandments law. Ten Commandments or not, for three years the International Criminal Court has had out an arrest warrant for the warlord, charged with crimes against humanity. Kony had made the conflict descend into a bizarre hall-of-mirrors nightmare. Green writes, "It was a conflict in which the people who chopped off people's noses were also victims, having been abducted and forced to kill in Kony's name. It was a conflict in which people would give food to the very rebels who could wipe out their whole village, hoping it would help their lost sons and daughters to survive." What is remarkable about Green's book, though, is that although he concentrates on his own efforts to get to see and interview the monster, he also comes to the realization that the concentration of the western media upon Kony is a simplistic one-dimensional analysis.
   
   It has to be said that Green does not make all this clear, but he has done an excellent job of describing the distressing and hellish conflict and its history. It wouldn't be fair to say whether he got that interview or not, but by the end of the book he has helped us realize it isn't very important, because the importance of Kony is overshadowed by how he is being used by others. "... as long as the conflict was portrayed as the result of one man's seemingly inexplicable `evil', there was no need for people to look any deeper." This remarkable book, a journalist's memoir not so much of "How I Got That Story" but more a look at a haunted land and a broader view of the history of its conflict, is the sort of deeper look that is needed.

1 comments about Laughing on the Inside: The Life and Crimes of Felon O'Reilly.

1. Felon O'Reilly's story is very powerful and his translation of it into a lesson for all is genius. This book is a must read for everyone. His uncanny sense of humor makes this a true page turner.

5 comments about The Man Who Invented Las Vegas.

1. This is a sketchy at best account of a powerful man during his time. The book is short and did not give me enough details to his insight on Vegas except that he was a gambloholic. It left me wanting to know more about this man and his rise to power. Honestly I enjoyed more his accounts as the publisher of the Hollywood Reporter and the power he had there than his accounts of trying to build the Flamingo. I thought the book would give more insight on early Vegas but to me gave more to early Hollywood.



2. Whatta story! If Mr. Wilkerson only had control of his addiction there is no telling what he could have accomplished. This is a talented man who had half the world by the tail, but couldn't get that 2nd half. He was able to accomplish a lot and was the creator of modern casinos in Las Vegas. This is a short story, but filled with interesting information. Highly recommended.



3. One man's chronic gambling habit became the foundation for modern Las Vegas: The Man Who Invented Las Vegas documents his rags-to-riches story and his impact on building the casinos and hotels of Las Vegas. Black and white photos pepper an examination of publisher Wilkerson's life and investments in the Las Vegas image in a fascinating blend of local history and biography.



4. This is a top notch read. It is hard to find books of this caliber about the mob. The research is scholarly but still accessible. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the birth of Las Vegas and the gritty details of Hollywood history in general.



5. Mr. Wilkerson makes a very strong case for his father's role in "creating" modern Las Vegas. As this distinction is popularly credited to the gangster, Bugsy Siegal, in both print and the movies, it is refreshing to see the record corrected in these engaging and compelling pages.

5 comments about Three Boys Missing: The Tragedy That Exposed the Pedophilia Underworld.

1. i had little knowledge of this crime before reading the book, the book is very informative and put together well, and it is also interesting to see it from the eyes of a detective that worked the case.



2. Set In a much more naiive time-the apple pie America of the fifties-One cannot imagine how horrifying these brutal murders must have seemed. James Jack is the ideal narrator, balancing insight with detail ; I hope we are lucky enough to read more stories written by this man



3. James "Jimmy" Jack has laid out in vivid, chilling detail the trail real Chicago detectives followed to close the infamous cold case of one of the City's most horrendous crimes. In a city where crime never takes a holiday, Jack exposes the sickness that dwells in the heart and mind of one man hellbent on committing the unpardonable sins of pedophilia and murder. This crime story, which grabbed national headlines in 1955, is poised to seize the nation's attention again in the Chicago-style writing of Detective Jimmy Jack in "Three Boys Missing." Must read!



4. Based off the experiences and 1st hand accounts of Detective Jim Jack this is an incredible yet sad story of 3 innocent children who lost their lives. The book puts you right in the middle of one of Chicago's greatest manhunts. I highly recommend this book to all.



5. Incredibly insightful, powerful, and personal look at a horrible crime from the detective that lived it. I was unable to put the book down from the moment I opened the cover. Dedicated Detective James Jack took it quit personally and was relentless in his pursuit to apprehend the person or persons responsible for these crimes.
   I would recommend this book to anyone who reads true crime stories. This book is an eye-opener from a point a view most of us will never experience. The pain, conviction, and dedication to capturing this killer is evident in every page. Information is power for those who keep childrens safety at the top of their list. This book is a must read- the suspense is undeniable.