2 comments about Mountain Mafia - Organized crime in the rockies.

1. Having been born and raised in an Italian family during the 1930's and 1940's in Southern Colorado,( Walsenburg, Pueblo, Agular) I found the discussion of organied crime in the local mountain communities a step down memory lane. I found the references about Mr. Charles Blanda, aka Charlie to his friends, to be the most interesting. Mr. Blanda was a family friend, he was always a gentleman and was a very good boss. My mother was a bartender for 35 years in Walsenburg, Pueblo and Denver. She worked for Mr. Blanda at the Holliday in on 7th. St. for about 5 years 42 to 47. As a little boy I stopped in to see her from time to time and always had a Cherry Coke and a conversation with Mr. Blanda. I also recognized several other names of people that I knew personnaly as a kid. It is a very interesting look down memory lane as I am now 73 years old. Long, long ago.
   Cecil R. Sowers Jr. Gysgt U.S.M.C. (Ret)



2. WOW! If you are from Pueblo,CO or the towns mentioned in this book you will be amazed. Last names are very familiar as well as the places it talks about. I absolutely loved it. Now people I know are borrowing the book and there is a waiting list.

5 comments about Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts.

1. This is a well-written, well-researched book that captures a unique moment in history and a bizarre character who's also a product of his place and time. Rubinstein goes the extra mile to follow the thread of this true-crime story, and his engaging prose takes you with him.



2. I have no idea how accurate the facts are, but this is brilliant storytelling. Think Douglas Adams in the post-Communist Eastern Bloc.



3. I'm afraid I didn't get to the end of this tedious tale. It was so badly written that I lost interest very quickly. Repetitious, lacking credibility and sloppily structured, it also lacked credibility.
   
   It has got rave reviews and sounded promising. But having lived in post-communist Hungary, there is nothing romantic about bank robbers or any criminals.
   
   I was living half-way up a mountainside in rural Spain but even that didn't spur me on to finish.
   
   Good robbers don't necessarily make good writers and with his ill-gotten gains he would have been better to invest in a ghost writer.
   
   Sorry, it gets a thumbs down from me.



4. Ballad of the Whiskey Bandit is a rollicking beautifully researched tale of an appealing and clever bank robber. Set in Hungary during its various upheavals in government, Attila Ambrus set about surviving in style with a crime wave that was slick and ingenious. Mr. Rubenstein has given us a heartwarming, humorous book that is always entertaining and a joy to read.



5. I listened to the audio version of this book, without the hard copy available to me, and did not realize until the end that it was nonfiction. It is amusing, outrageous, adventure-packed, and fascinating enough to be good fiction. Now knowing it is a true story, and having read other reviews here, I can see that there might have been some exaggeration for effect. But I wouldn't let that deter anyone from reading it - or listening to it. The audio version was especially well done.

5 comments about The Franklin Cover-Up: Child Abuse, Satanism, and Murder in Nebraska.

1. To all of the detractors and those who think this is merely crazy conspiracy BS.
   
   The horrible crimes documented in this book are not fictitious bunk made up by the author. Everything he wrote is verifiable, much of it was direct testimony from the CHILDREN that were abused by these, often wealthy and prominent, f'ing-inbred- lowlifes, and everything can be backed up with credible EVIDENCE. Mr. Decamp so much as said that if anyone believes that he is lying, or being untruthful about ANYTHING he's written in his book, then that person should just 'go ahead and sue him'. He wrote that, he in fact, "welcomes" any suits that anyone would like to bring against him challenging his honesty in what he's written in this book. So, if you're questioning Mr. Decamps honesty here, you should do something about it, instead of immediately dismissing it with your poor complaints, arguments, or lack of independent thought.
   
   Ultimately, Mr. Decamp concludes that the reason why this huge cover-up has gone on for so long, is because there are very prominent people who like where they are in the social hierarchy, and if this scandal were to reach the mainstream then the whole "system" itself would collapse entirely, thus threatening the security of their position. The sick perpetrators and coordinators identified in this book are willing to let innocent children be abused and murdered in order to maintain their privileged, insignificant little lives. How very sad. But you do, as the saying goes, reap what you sow.
   Go watch Conspiracy of Silence.



2. THIS IS A MUST READ FOR EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD.
   
   JOHN DE KAMP IS A BRAVE, INTELLIGENT MAN.



3. The book was both informative and well documented for very shocking and somewhat disturbing subject matter. There was a great deal of detail to the point of too much but the author's closeness and passion for the case was evident. He left no stone unturned with vivid accounts and interviews of victims and who had first hand knowledge and backed his research.
   For conspiracy theory buffs it's a must read. You come away with a new view of our local and national politicians and the lengths to which they will go to achieve and stay in power. Also makes you think of who really controls our country. Are we manipulated for a higher cause or by some super-rich men behind the scenes with diabolical motives? You read the book and decide. If nothing else this book makes you stop, reflect and truly think.



4. This book is a real eye opener. It's amazing how a story like this has been virtually suppressed in a "Free" country such as ours. I don't want to hear about American Idol or Britney Spears, these are the news stories that should be getting air time. There should be an independant task force set up for the protection of children who are being exploited and brutally abused. Try doing a search, isn't it amazing you really can't find one? Kind of makes you wonder. The fact that there are so many influential politicians involved in this scandal gets you to thinking do we have the fox gaurding the hen house??



5. John W. DeCamp is strongly motivated to pursue justness in this world which he discovers quite hard, or impossible to do. Because for most people it is harder to live with a painful truth than to snug comfortably in the corrupt system that our world leaders have fabricated (I don't mean the USA government alone; I am referring to all humans rich and powerful whatever their background or nationality) he faces a Sisyphus-like task. His story in particular reveals the dirty manipulations of politics, the dirty minds of moneymakers, the desperate courage of some, of whom several have died unexplained deaths. It makes me wonder whether we live in de Golden Age of Immorality. Anyway, the book is highly readable, certainly for those with a strong stomach.

No comments about Mom Said Kill (Pinnacle True Crime).

5 comments about Black Dahlia Avenger Rev Ed: A Genius for Murder.

1. No doubt, this book causes a lot of heat and strong reaction. Many who've read it remain unconvinced, but nevertheless, the book itself is very well researched and written.
   
   Steve Hodel is the son of George Hodel - a Hollywood doctor running a VD clinic in unsavory LA in the '40s. The character profile Steve Hodel writes of his father is utterly fascinating, and can only come from one who knows him intimately, as well as having access to other family members and acquaintances.
   
   Steve Hodel was also a supervising detective on the LAPD for over 20 years, and has a well-established reputation as an honest and hard-driving professional. (There is a very strong professional summary given in the book of Steve's reputation, by Stephen Kay, the long-tenured assistant LA District Attorney, who, upon reviewing Steve's case against his father, states unequivocably that were Dr. Hodel still alive, he would be facing two murder indictments.
   
   DA Kay also concludes the case as being "solved," which is no small addmission coming from a man throughly versed with hundreds of LA murder investigations ranging over 30 years. (Steve Hodel's critics should be so similarly qualified.)
   
   Many reviewers have chosen to concentrate on some of the weaker elements of the Hodel case - the album pictures that do not resemble E. Short as well as others, the Man Ray association, the abortion ring cover-up, etc. But these critcs rarely face the strongest evidence head-on.
   
   The undeniable facts about the case cannot be changed. E.S. was murdered in a horrible manner, and deliberately posed in a particular fashion.
   
   The body shows evidence of a pathological killing; deliberate and thought out. (unlike a murder stemming from a fit of passion.)
   
   The body was *cleanly* transected by someone who knew how to disect a body, (which is virtually impossible for someone without medical training to do.)
   
   The killer knew E.S., and sent over 13 letters and postcards to the newspapers and police in the month after the murder. These communications shed enormous light on the spiritual character of the murderer.
   
   The killer's handwriting is preserved on several of these cards, (which Steve Hodel has positively identified as being his father's, via both his own recognition and via a professional handwriting analysis.)
   
   After more than 2 years of independent investigation, Steve Hodel arrived at his conclusions stated in his book *completely unaware that the very same conclusions had been drawn by investigating detectives over 50 years ago!* Once the DA's secret files were reviewed, (which had not been done in over 50 years,) they showed conclusively that George Hodel had been *the prime suspect* in this investigation. (To the extent that his house had been bugged, and surviving transcripts detail incriminating disclosures made by him.)
   
   My conclusion is that Steve Hodel has made his case. Surely, there are areas where the author has engaged in some speculation, (namely, in trying to piece together certain timelines and associations.) But the evidence he brings to bear is exceedingly powerful and far beyond the realm of mere conjecture.
   
   You will have to discern for yourself, but I find the overwhelming number of points of confluence highly persuasive. If Steve Hodel's case is so flimsy and weak, (as some conclude,) then why was Dr. Hodel such a chief suspect during the time of the investigation? Why was his house bugged, (when there is no record of any other suspects receiving this level of scrutiny,) if his culpability is so "preposterous," as is maintained by some.
   
   An honest reader can discern that Steve Hodel has presented a very powerful case. His experience as a real live LA homicide detective so qualifies him as a professional in this area that *by this fact alone* his investigation proceeds on highly reputable grounds. (That he maintains the killer is his *own father* simply adds all the more gravitas; for why would any man utterly trash his fathers' [and by association, his own,] family reputation if this case were not true?)
   
   The "modus operandi" of a serial killer is well documented. George Hodel fits this profile to a "T". Steve Hodel's coined term, "thoughtprints," confuses some, but is simply a modern description of the motivations inherent to virtually all human action. It is the spiritual backdrop that explains the "why" a thing is done. Once Steve proves conclusively that George Hodel is the killer of E. Short, he proceeds to link him to a dozen more pathological murders in the LA area in the years before and after January of 1947.
   
   As I've stated, the evidence is compelling, and many professionals have agreed. That some are not convinced is evidence of many things other than a lack of well-presented, powerful, and utterly substantive evidence. Read for yourself and see.



2. This book will be too graphic, too "dark," for anyone who thinks we can solve our worst social problems without looking at them. It makes no sense that the killing (and killings) has not been solved; so what has been done only begs the question. I say more. I don't want to look back on this world when I'm eighty and say if we'd only...



3. This book details the heinous murder/mutilation of Elizabeth Short, aka The Black Dahlia, and the subsequent investigations of her death. Here, we have what could have been a genuine page-turner of a sordid tale (more on the quality of the story later) and one of the strangest accounts that I've ever read.
   
   The author, Steve Hodel, a retired senior LAPD homicide detective, decided to try and solve this very cold case which occurred on or about 15 January 1947. Short's naked body was found provocatively placed, severed in twain, in a vacant lot in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California. Probably because it was the Hollywood Press who got on to the story, Short soon became known to the world as "The Black Dahlia" which, of course, sensationalized the subsequent publicity of this renowned murder.
   
   WARNING! SPOILER AHEAD!!!
   
   Now, as to the story being a strange one, it's chiefly due to how the facts evolved as Hodel pursued them. As he amassed data he was shocked to learn that his prime suspect turned out to be his own father who happened to be a well-known physician and frequent lecturer on forensics at the Los Angeles Police Academy! This was Dr. George Hodel, an associate of the renowned Russian composer Serge Rachmaninoff, among other notables.
   
   The elder Hodel was a child prodigy who originally attended a Montessori School run by Madame Montessori herself in Paris, France -- Hodel's I.Q. was 186, a point higher than that of Albert Einstein. Dr. Hodel died in 1991.
   
   While Steve Hodel's evidence is incredibly convincing, his conclusions on the case are still called into question by people who are much more well-informed on the case than I am. And I have to confess, as a retired life-long professional law enforcement officer myself, there is something, some niggling incongruity, about Hodel's account which lacked finality; however, I am at a loss as to exactly where to put my finger on the precise spot where Hodel may have missed something as the book is quite long and heavily fact-oriented.
   
   I shorted the author the fifth star on this one as, while his book is a block-buster in terms of sensationalism, he is unfortunately a marginal story-teller and the text suffers somewhat as a result. Still, his resolution is so compelling that I still feel obligated to recommend the book for others to read.



4. ...is that the author was a detective. This book is such a poor piece of investigation that I wonder how he was able to maintain his job. Imagine how many innocent people may be sitting in jail because of him.



5. Truly disturbing story about a series of unsolved murders in LA headed by the "Black Dahlia" murder in January 1947. Hodel is a retired LA homicide detective whose father had a strange twisted past that he didn't uncover until he started researching the Black Dahlia and related murders.
   
   I can't say more without either revealing the mystery or exposing readers of this review to frightening depravity.
   
   I want to call this a "waste of paper" (1 star), but a morbid fascination with the seemingly bottomless depths of the human heart (I did read the whole book, after all) forces me to raise it a couple of notches.

5 comments about The Westies: Inside New York's Irish Mob.

1. The brutal murders recounted in this incredibly well-written account of some Hell's Kitchen local hoods (The Term Westies was never used by them), will stay with you for a long time after finishing this book.
   
   This is more than just a typical organized crime story. These guys grew up together on the West side of Manhattan and their ruthlessness led them to become the kings of the streets in a neighborhood with a long history of tough criminals.
   
   The subsequent unraveling of their world, the saga of the cops who pursued them and the details of the investigations, trials and outcomes read like a late 20th century morality tale. Sometimes the truth is harder to believe than fiction. These guys were bad dudes.
   
   Great book- hard to imagine that this could have been done any better than what TL English has accomplished here.



2. even hardened new yorkers will be shocked by this book---superably written and difficult to put down. Beats peter maas, mario Puzo et al



3. I just finished reading The Westies and I thoroughly enjoyed the book from cover to cover. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading true crime drama.



4. Bought for my boyfriend. He hasn't finished reading it, and I'm not sure why. It seems quite thick for such a narrow topic.



5. It isn't often that I use the word "absorbing" in my reviews, but this term certainly applies here. Once I began reading this book, I found it almost impossible to put down. "The Westies" is a gripping, dramatic narrative of the rise and fall of a group of insanely violent street-level hoodlums who seized control of all of the racketeering interests throughout the "Hell's Kitchen" (it has since been gentrified to the more fashionable "Clinton") section of Manhattan's West Side during the Seventies and Eighties. Essentially drunks and drug abusers, these fellows killed without hesitation and often over nothing more consequential than a real or imagined slight, and it was not unusual for them to dismember their victims' bodies in an effort to thwart identification by the authorities. It was this innate savagery and utter ruthlessness which subsequently brought them to the attention of Paul Castellano and the Gambino crime family, with whom they forged an uneasy working relationship. Why do I give this book such an enthusiastic thumbs up? Simple. Even though I read this book when it was first published eighteen years ago, I appreciate it even more now. It's a first-rate New York crime story which, I repeat, will keep the reader glued to its pages.

5 comments about Novels in Three Lines (New York Review Books Classics).

1. This is an extraordinary collection of short newspaper stories.
   
   Félix Fénéon (June 22, 1861 - February 29, 1944) was a French anarchist and art critic in Paris during the late 1800s. Fénéon was the editor of "Revue Blanche", where he featured Achille-Claude Debussy as his music critic and André Gide as his book critic and published Marcel Proust, Apollinaire, and Alfred Jarry, as well as his own translation of Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey".
   
   Here's an example of his reviewer's style, taken from a search on Google Books:
   
   "The tones of M. Paul Gauguin's pictures are very little separated from each other; because of this, there is in his work adull harmony. Dense trees rise from the fertile soil, abundant and humid, invade the frame, pursue the sky. The air is heavy. Bricks seen between the trunks indicate a nearby house; things are lying about, muzzles are scattered in the thicket--cows. These reds of roofs and of cattle the artist constantly opposes to his greens and reflects them again in the waters, encumbered with long grasses, which run between the tree trunks."
   
   After the "Revue Blanche" folded, Fénéon went to work as a journalist, first for the conservative "Le Figaro", then, starting in 1906, for the liberal broadsheet "Le Matin".
   
   Taken together, the collection is a fascinating view of Paris, and an intriguing insight into Fénéon's mind.
   
   Robert C. Ross 2008



2. This book gave a real insight into all the bad things that were happening in France back in 1906. It was a list of all the three line items that the writer put into his newspaper to fill out the page. Some of them had some wry humor but most struck me with sadness because of the terrible crimes and accidents that occured. The brevity of the items intensified the emotion. I couldn't read too many pages at a time. This book is not for the squeamish. I recommend it because it gives a view of life back then.



3. To anyone familiar w/Charles Mudede's Police Beat column at the Stranger (to those not, it's one of the most bohemianly sensible features of Seattle's free weekly of bohemian sensibility), Fénéon has got to be Mudede's inspiration. He has the blueprint for finding the sublime in the tawdry, for finding the severe brutal beauty of the kosmos in an episode of COPS.
   
   In these grisly little bits, FF makes his claim for a spot on the pantheon of Grand Guignol, a storied company that includes Baudelaire & the great medieval master, Villon.



4. Digesting an entire story and reproducing it in three lines is an art form. To have had it your daily paper was a privilege denied to all of us. Feneon could make the most mundane news item into a fascinating gem. He could communicate angles with extraordinarily efficient use of words. He was the Al Hirschfeld of news. Like Hirschfeld, Feneon's news items are tinged with humor:
   
   Brandy he thought. Actually it was carbolic acid.
   Thus Philibert Faroux, of Noroy, Oise, outlived
   his spree by a mere two hours.
   
   If you read this book while imagining the nationwide roundup page in USA Today, you will mourn the death of creativity. Journalism today is so dry and careful, so politically correct, as to be completely disposable and avoidable. Try this item, one of series describing the ongoing battle to get crucifixes out of classrooms in 1906:
   
   Two mayors in the Somme were determined
   to restore to classroom walls the image
   of divine torture. The prefect suspended
   those mayors.
   
   And let me leave you with one last gem that could also never appear in an American paper today:
   
   The name of a man arrested in Blainville
   as a spy: Tourdias. His age: 24. His
   profession: traveling salesman of bandages
   and medicine.
   
   Truly a novel, an elevator pitch for a Hollywood thriller. Leaves you asking questions, like nothing in the papers today. And that's the whole point, isn't it? Leave them asking for more!



5. A great book, opening up an aspect of modern literature that needs to be much more fully explored and understood. In his celebration of the quotidian, Feneon made it clear that the real world offers all that is needed to refresh one's vision. We could not have had Rauschednberg without Feneon, though I've no idea if he ever read this brilliant, modest book. Great introductory essay by Luc Sante makes this an even more important book for anyone trying to understand why so much modern art feels the way it does.

5 comments about The Dreams of Ada.

1. This book is a great read, one of injustice and leaves the reader puzzled and sad, and wondering why in God's great world is this man (the DA) is still in office. It must be an embarrassment to the citizens of Ada, OK. I am in prayer for these men and their families.



2. No American can afford to not read either The Dreams of Ada by Robert Mayer or The Innocent Man by John Grisham. Coming from a family of cops I have always known that innocent people are convicted of serious crimes all the time but the cases outlined in these two books are detestable. You absolutely must read these books. Now.



3. I bought this book after reading The Innocent Man by John Grisham. I personally could not get into this book like I did the other one. But other reviews tell me it is an excellent book.



4. I live in Pontotoc County. Now that everything has settled down, it's back to normal. This is a scary place to live. This book is a very accurate account, things like that happen here all the time again. OSBI, doesn't seem to care. FBI will not return anyones calls. It's a must read people!! I just hope I don't disappear for saying so. You just don't go in front of most of the Judges here for anything. I am glad to not be a criminal but around here you don't have to be. I have been lucky thus far.



5. I read this story from three different authors. It is a sad but true story. Worth your time to read.

5 comments about Almost Home: My Life Story Vol 1.

1. This is a book you just can't put down once you start reading it. Even if you've seen the documentaries on the West Memphis Three and read the Everitt book, this autobiography adds so much more in revealing Damien's life up to (and including) his imprisonment, and just how strong a character he has to have survived everything that has been thrown at him to date. Damien's story made me even more angry and frustrated at how he has been treated than I was after seeing the docos and reading Everitt's book, but also made me simply awestruck at how he has come through everything without losing his sanity. He writes in a very flowing/easy to read style, and does not seem to hold back on revealing personal details or feelings along the way. Definitely recommended to anyone, even if you've never heard of the "West Memphis Three" case.



2. A thin book, no surprise from someone who has spent most of his life on death row. Damien Echols is an articulate, intelligent, and an ordinary young man. We are a poorer society because of the circumstances of this book. If we tolerate this then our children could be next. Read it and weep. Please, will the society I believe I live in let you walk free.



3. I am a firm believer of the West Memphis Threes' innocence from the beginning. I believe Damien and his friends were targeted because they were the "different" kids in town. I hope to hear that they are freed from prison someday and can go on with their lives. They have missed out on too much already! May the DNA evidence prove their innocence!



4. What Margaret Cho has to do with this situation, I will never know. She wrote the introduction. I thought at first that this was intended to be some kind of comic writing. Instead, it's the autobiography of Damien Echols, a young man in a small town in Arkansas currently on death row (along with his friend Jason and other friend Jessie serving a life sentance) for murdering three small boys. Cho's hook along with her comedy has always been to defend those who are different or odd, those who feel less alone. I can admire that, but I am just amazed that she would preach the word for this man, who she admits she doesn't know and who she said committed the murder. That aside, this was an excellent look inside the monster, the beast, the horror, the evil that is Damien.
   
   Damien grew up poor white trash in Arkansas, having little advantages, little money, little hope for the future. He turned into a heavy metal poser, wearing all black and getting into magic because it was the cool thing to do for all of those who consider themselves outsiders. Like a lot of kids, we all dabble in the dark arts. It annoys people, makes our parents angry, gives us attention. Most of it is just a show. Not for Damien. In his mind, he was Satan's vessel. He became the subject of a witchhunt after the children were killed because he was different. Granted, he was visably different. But enough witnesses have come forward saying that he did and said things that an innocent person would not. Satan made him do it? No, Damien made Damien do it. Look at that face on the cover of the book. That's not an innocent, sensative, vulnerable child's face. That is the face of a killer, a killer who knows how cute he looks and how he can fool us.
   
   And, Damien became a father while behind bars. He has gotten to physically hold his baby son, he could not be there for his birth, nor will he see him grown up. Instead he has been changed by fatherhood. While he cannot be with his child, experiencing the miracle of life rather than the pain of death he wanted to inflict on not just these three boys but others around him. He is up there with Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Ed Gein, and all the other truly twisted people who have murdered. I'll bet some of their friends and family said "He was different". Different doesn't make someone a murderer. Evil makes one a murderer.



5. I loved this book, it has every emotion possible linked with it, it shows you a completely different side to anything else written about Damien and the case. I can't wait for part 2.

5 comments about The Devil's Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century.

1. Over the past two decades, Harold Schechter has resurrected the stories of many prominent moral monsters from America's past, corrected the numerous myths that have grown up around them, replaced those myths with more fascinating facts, and then related them in compelling narratives that are also scholarly, sensitive, and keenly written.
   
   In resurrecting the crazy story of crazy Roland Molineux and his bizarre journey into murder and in and out of justice, Schechter has written his masterpiece. No question, hands down.
   
   A classic of true crime, and of biography and history. It will be around for many decades to come.



2. I accidentally came across this book at the library. It is a fascinating look at one of the most famous murder trials of the early 20th century, extremely well-written and involving. Even those who do not like "that sort of book" will enjoy this one. The people involved are brought to life by the author's talents, and the research behind the book is thorough and definitive. Absorbing and informative.



3. Thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Schecter's book from cover to cover. Purchased after reading a review, possibly in the New York Times Book Review. Book might have benefited from a more compelling jacket image. I would not have picked this book up had I not read the review. Also kept wanting to see more pictures of the characters but I realize that availability of archival images may have played a part. Great story, well told.



4. The book provides and excellent description of Victorian life and the Victorian mindset, but I was unable to shake the mind-boggling Victorian habit of actually TAKING some unidentified medicine that someone you don't know sent you in the mail. Schechter explores a world of pomp and priviledge, obsessed with the surface appearance of propriety, but secretly seething with sexual scandals and murderous grudges. This trial marked the beginning of the media circus that subsequent murder trials from Lizzie Borden to OJ Simpson would become, as the outwardly respectable defendent's sordid affairs and violent, cold-blooded nature was dug up by the police and media as much to shock and titillate the public as to achieve justice.



5. I stumbled across this book in the library and am so glad I picked it up. Having never heard of Roland Molineux before (and not knowing much about Yellow Journalism), I had no idea what to expect, but I was not disappointed. This is a story of greed, lust, and exploitation, all disguised under a prim Victorian facade. Chapters are short and to the point, and make for much page-turning suspense. I wish the author had been able to include more than two photographs of the people spoken of in the books, or even more images of the New York papers with their sensational headlines, as I feel that it would have added to the experience. That is but a small quibble, though; this book is a wonderful true-crime story, and it was fascinating to see how today's explosive media saturation began.