2 comments about No Turning Back.

1. I had followed this story through the media but reading Joanne's story in her own words, as she had experienced it for herself, shed an amazingly different light on things. I cannot believe what this poor girl went through. I read this book in one day. I couldn't put it down. I would strongly recommend it!!



2. I didn't really follow the story of Joanna & Peter in the press in the UK when it originally came about. I caught bits & pieces here and there, and vaguely remember that the man accused of murdering Peter in the Australian Outback got put in jail, but I do remember Joanna getting portrayed in the UK press in a very bad light.
   
   Then she disappeared, and nothing was said, until recently, when a TV drama came on UK TV, and it her book came out. Apparently she had nothing to do with the TV show (which speaks volumes), and criticised in any interviews for this book.
   
   My mum is a sucker for these kind of books - well, it's either those or Dannielle Steele, or other biographies - so, in order to stop myself reading the stack of books I have to take on holiday with me (ha!) I've resorted to reading my mum's books. Otherwise I'll have no books to take on holida with me. So I read it.
   
   Instead of going straight to bed one night, I read the first couple of chapters, otherwise I would never have got to sleep. Then I read it all in one afternoon. We're talking 317 pages in total here. Apart from a break to phone a friend, and watch two episodes of Quantum Leap, I read it all.
   
   During reading, I went back and forth through what I was lead to believe by the many press reports I remember, to what Joanna was saying, to the conflicting reports in the book. For me, the first half of the book, despite being Joanna's point of view, was very dodgy, and I couldn't decide whether she had murdered her own boyfriend or not. Then the second half, with the court case, left me completely undecided.
   
   I doubt Joanna would have killed her boyfriend, and she must have been really upset, that when giving her statement, all her 'evidence' pointed at her. You do feel for her throughout the book, and it is gripping reading.
   
   I did feel at the end though, that nothing was ever really accomplished. What was the point in writing the book, apart from setting the record straight? Too many people would have already been influenced by the press, and would deliberately look for clues that she was lying etc. But overall, it was an excellent book, well written, and the court case transcripts were a real insight. The only problem is now I've finished it.

2 comments about The CIA's Russians.

1. John Hart is unusual in that he retired after an apparently distinguished career at the CIA and wrote an officially authorized public version of his last assignment (which started in 1971): An analysis of the personalities and psychological profiles of a number of Soviet defectors. His goal was to identify any common characteristics that might be useful in targeting future defectors and evaluating their potential to provide useful and reliable intelligence.

   Hart describes three publicly known defectors in depth, one identified only as Mikhail, briefly, and an additional six in a very cursory manner, apparently because their cases are still sensitive. He then seeks to identify common traits among the 10 cases, concluding that they were characterized by many of the following: (1) All were senior and relatively successful members of the Soviet intelligence community, KGB or GRU, having attained a typical rank of colonel, (all but one of the ten were military officers), (2) they felt resentful toward the Soviet system either because of its failure to recognize and promote them further or because it left them feeling excluded from its elite, (3) they were not motivated to defect by politics, religion, or idealism, (4) most had placed themselves in a compromised situation by poor management of personal or government funds and were seeking money to resolve these dilemmas with western funds, and (5) most thought that they were too smart to be caught by Soviet counterintelligence until it was too late. Of the four cases in which Hart reports the outcome, three were executed by the Soviets, only one successfully defected.

   In relating these stories, Hart produces some fascinating insights.

   Oleg Penkovsky, undoubtedly the most capable of the ten, provided intelligence on the capabilities and intentions of the Soviet leadership during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis that were probably key to President Kennedy's decision to face down Khrushchev's threats. Based on Penkovsky's reports, it was apparent that Khrushchev was bluffing.

   Yuri Nosenko, the sole successful defector, was caught up in the paranoid webs spun by James Jesus Angleton who was then the head of CIA counterintelligence. Angleton saw Soviet plots behind virtually everything, including Nosenko, despite the fact that Nosenko had identified the locations of numerous listening devices in the US embassy in Moscow. Nosenko was imprisoned for much of his first two years in the US and subjected to solitary confinement and harsh interrogation. Eventually, Director Richard Helms intervened to end the mistreatment. Happily, Nosenko was exonerated and placed on the CIA payroll.
   
   Hart also offers the fascinating hypothesis that Lenin, in forcing Russia to adopt the European industrial model, transformed Russia, perhaps permanently, from a Eurasian to a European society and nation, ending the Slavophile-Modernizer debate. It will be interesting to see if this theory is correct.




2. This is a small book -- speaking comparatively with reference to other histories of espionage. It is easy to read and fascinating.
   
   Each chapter is given to a different person in the service of the Soviet Union who became a spy for the United States -- some successfully, some disastrously not so.
   
   If you are looking for a grand view of Cold War espionage, it is not here. Instead, you will find, perhaps, some psycological insights into the different kinds of characters who betrayed the Soviet Union and the unique and very dangerous possibilities that they had to deal with. You may also pick up some details of "the craft" as it was practiced by the CIA at the height of the Cold War.
   
   Some of the characters are tragic, some sympathetic, and others will just plain leave you cold.
   
   All in all, the book is a small but quite useful contribution to understanding a crucial time and an epochal struggle that is rapidly ebbing from the collective memory.

5 comments about Blood and Volume: Inside New York's Israeli Mafia.

1. Thrilling and mesmerizing. Copeland tells the story of a fasinating character with remarkable attachment. Great Read!!!!



2. I grew up in NY and had never heard of the Israeli mafia so I picked up this book out of curiosity.
   Copeland does a fine job of relating the facts in the case of this violent organization that helped usher in the cocaine craze of the 1980s.
   With the pen of a veteran reporter Copeland delivers a clear and fast paced narrative.



3. Very interesting topic and very interesting characters. I can't get over the fact that they are real characters.



4. This is an exciting story of great success and great failure. The stories are fun and should be adopted into a movie!
   Not as much blood as one would think but the heists they pulled: pretty interesting. Overall a decent read for a weekend. Enjoy



5. This was one of the few books that I have read in one sitting. The story and the characters come together to create one of the most exciting, intense, and provocative books that I have ever read. I cant wait till the movie comes out.

No comments about "Tales of Ratiocination" The First Detective Stories.

No comments about Life in the Gang: Family, Friends, and Violence (Cambridge Studies in Criminology).

3 comments about The Mother's Day Murder (St. Martin's True Crime Library).

1. I found this book to be fairly interesting. Once again it is all about greed and money. I feel the writer could have gone into a little more depth, but all in all a good read.



2. Living in Augusta I particularly enjoyed this book, which does a good job of summarizing the relevant aspects of the city.



3. This book is your typical true crime fare. Gina Spann wants her husband out of the way so she can collect his life insurance. She gets young impressionable men to do the crime for her. Although it's an interesting story, it's not one of my personal favorites by this author but it's worth reading anyway.

5 comments about Be Careful Who You Love: Inside the Michael Jackson Case.

1. Having followed the Jackson trial and reading the transcripts, I really expected this book to be a biased rehash of the Jackson trial. Insted I discovered it had a great narrative and less bias than I expected.
   
   The story of the first Michael Jackson case (1993) took almost half the book, which is why I graded Be Careful Who You Love a 4. One of her primary sources was Ray Chandler, and I had already read his book. These chapters seemed like an abreviated version of All That Glitters, which I also have on my bookshelf. However, if you have not read this book, you will be glad she included the detail in these chapters.
   
   When she discussed the witnesses on both sides during the recent trial, she gives them all a fair shake. She will admit when prosecution witnesses fell short, including the alleged victim's mother.
   
   Of all books on this trial, I would recommend this one above all the others I have read.



2. Diane Dimond has done an extraordinary job of having delivered an organized, easy reading view behind the scenes of the molestation accusations and trial of Jackson. It's presented without bias in a factual and sequential manner that is fast reading and compelling. Diane Dimond should consider a new career as a true crime writer.



3. Honestly, Michael Jackson was always my favourite singer and showman, and everything that was going on around him was of great interest to me. The child abuse scandals both in 1993 and in 2005 did make me feel a little nervous as I could not really be sure whether I liked a normal person or a pervert. I bought this book to try and sort out where the controversy lay. Although it's written by a journalist, I was surprised there was so little evidence of what might make me change my mind about the case. There was a lot of information about the case documents, written testimonies and whatever else might be related to the case, but no pictures of at least one piece of paper from these documents - so it remains at that, just the words of a journalist. Some transcripts of dialogues which still gave no clue about what had actually happened. All in all, I was bored reading this stuff, but one of the last chapters really gave me the creeps - the part about the jury entering the courtroom to pass the verdict but not looking up and desperately trying to show that they disagree with the verdict they have just decided on.
   
   If you're an MJ fan, you may read that. But I doubt it may change your opinion about Michael, although this book is simply meant to make people change their minds or at least feel some doubt about his innocence.



4. Dimond left the courtroom every time the state finished up and the defense came up which makes her reporting biased according to courtroom attendees. She also was sued once by Michael Jackson which makes her slightly less than credible to report on him. I skimmed through this book and it was basically the same stuff you hear on TV probably due to no one from Jackson's side would talk to Dimond. A waste of money.



5. But if you are a tabloid Junkie---this is the book for you. Though Dimond trys to sound un-biased she de-humanizes Mr. Jackson by using the term "Jackson team" and believes every person she interveiws even after stating their financial intentions.She gives Jackson very little sympathy and believes him to be a molester based on interviews with poeple that were mysteriously fired or supoosedly quit or they really didn't even know Michael at all.
   Lets face it we are going to believe what we want to believe, and Ms. Dimond wants to believe he is evil.
   So I'll say it again...
   This book is cheap and I am ashamed I read it.

1 comments about The World's 20 Worst Crimes: True Stories of 20 Killers and Their 1000 Victims.

1. The title of the book is deceiving. It sounds very exciting. But the book just does not hold your attention. The writing isn't very good. I am sorry, the book IS readable, but I would not recommend this book to true crime buffs.

1 comments about Murder Two: The Second Casebook of Forensic Detection.

1. A great book with many stories, as well as explinations of meanings and how they work (blood spatter.) It's a very fast and easy read, it kept me very interested because I didn't feel like I was ever "stuck" on one story. I can't wait to get the first book now!

5 comments about You Can't Win.

1. A true story about a house burglar in the Twenties who escaped the law by riding the train to another town where he did the same thing again. It's Americana at it's best. Someone ought to write a ballad about this man using his words. "There's a lot of law at the end of a rope." "A hang man may be your only hope." "In a blind alley you shoot and shoot first." "Old grudges are opened. Old hates are revived. Stool pidgeon's beaten and the turn key's denied." "No one is eating the damned hang man's stew." "I never borrowed money I could not pay back."
   Hobo's are not derilicts and after you read You Can't Win you may feel the same. It is a great book that admonishes the prison system where there is no cure for the human condition if you put the human in a jail cell.
   He ended up working for a library in San Francisco. How he died nobody knows.



2. I thought this was a tip-top book. Blacky's adventures out West and in Canada around the turn of the century were very intruiging. I just wish there were more books written by him and not so much of a mystery of what happened to him later in life. Or maybe that's what makes him so appealing. I agree with several others about the "extras" at the end of the book. Especially his article that appeared in Harpers. That could've have been written today.



3. My son, who this book was purchased for, enjoyed this book very much. Thank you.



4. This is an amazing story that drags you into this guy's lonely world. Sexy, it ain't. It's a man's, man's world. It's obvious this guy did some hard time getting all the details down. I guess living it would allow you plenty of ammunition. After reading I had acquired a whole new paranoia regarding breaking and entering. It's depressing and lonely and stark. This is a book that needs to live on and on.



5. as far as im concerned its the best piece of hobo literature out there. jack black is an amazing writer and it shows. he doesnt try to get your sympathy and is just documenting his life and those surrounding him in a fantastic matter that you think he had spent 20 years on this book.