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2 comments about Stalked: A True Story (True Crime Library).

1. This is a real eye-opener. Who would think it could possibly happen to the same person twice. Should be requred reading for every woman. It certainly says a lot for her that she could find it in her heart to forgive. What is the title of the movie? I don't think one was made, but should have been.



2. This book scared the heck out of me. Lavonne is one brave woman, and the things she endured makes me shudder. I read it in one day, I just could not put this one down.

3 comments about Thief! The Gutsy, True Story of an Ex-Con Artist.

1. Crime is a dark subject, but this is one colorful book about a thief you just gotta love. A Mafia insider with a good sense of humor and a bad attitude, Slick Hanner is now talking. His life is high-speed, often perilous and always entertaining. Much of the action is set in fascinating, Rat Pack era Las Vegas. Readers of true crime, organized crime, the Rat Pack days and biographies are sure to enjoy.
   
   Rick Porrello
   Author of Superthief - A Master Burglar, the Mafia and the Biggest Bank Heist in U.S. History
   [...]



2. THIEF!, published by Barricade Books, is the gutsy true story of William `Slick' Hanner, an ex-con artist with mob ties, who grows up in "the toughest neighborhood in the world," 1940's Chicago , and makes his way into all kinds of trouble. From childhood pranks such as shoplifting for zoot suits, to getting entangled with the Lucchese Crime Family in Miami, where he almost becomes fish food. THIEF! takes you back to a bygone era where people could do things for kicks, rob casinos blind, and end up in the wrong places without becoming a "made guy." In fact, Slick was on the fringes of all the hottest scenes throughout the last half of the 20th century, whether it was working in Las Vegas as a Stardust dealer, serving as Jerry Lewis' bodyguard, driving a limo for the infamous Chicken Ranch in Nevada, or celebrating New Years in Havana the night Castro took over Cuba. You name it and Slick has lived it.
   
   Cherie writes the book in a fast-paced tone, true to Slick's voice. If I didn't know her, she would be invisible; she writes that well. And we as writers know that is one of the toughest things to conquer when writing a biography; yet Cherie does this with ease. The book is a hard-hitting adrenaline rush with a lot of laughter. She can tell you a story in a sentence; she knows how to cut the fat. This is an epic with a lifetime of story and well worth the read.



3. I bought this book because I'm interested in learning more about the Las Vegas-mob connection. I've had my fill of books chronicling the New York mob scene. I must it's a heck of story and has much more to offer the reader than just what it reveals about the Las Vegas scene. Writer Cherie Rohn should be commended for her literary mastery in harnessing Slick's energy on the written page, and I highly recommend "Thief" for anyone thirsting for a good read. I look forward to more books by Cherie Rohn, a new literary talent on the true crime scene.
   --Ron Chepesiuk, author, "Gangsters of Harlem" and "Drug Lords"

5 comments about The Kimes Gang.

1. I had high hopes for this book but it's at best only a fair retelling of the Kimes brothers' saga with a tremendous amount of irrelvant filler. Many researchers in the last few years have debunked the myth of the "Kimes-Terrill gang" and Koch could have easily done likewise here in a couple of paragraphs, thus allowing him to explore Matt and George Kimes in more depth. Instead, he devotes over half the book to the exploits and misadventures of Ray Terrill, Herman Barker, Elmer Inman, Q.P. McGhee and others who had little or nothing to do with the story. Sometimes three or four chapters in a row on the Barker-Inman-Terrill gang! In between are recitals of Kimes gang robberies, usually ending with a few lines about how it was doubtful that Ray Terrill was there. Very pointless, actually, and soon monotonous. If you're looking for a book covering both gangs, Dee Cordry's recent work on the early history of the Oklahoma Crime Bureau works better. If you want a great history of the Kimes gang, I think it's probably yet to come.



2. The Kimes Gang is the fascinating story of Matt and George Kimes who began their outlaw ways at a young age as little more than petty thieves but made a quick progression to bank robbery and eventually murder. The Kimes Gang studies the various crimes which covered several southwestern states including Arkansas, Arizona, Kansas Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, while also including well researched histories of the brothers Roy and Clyde Brandon, Herman Barker, Elmer Inman, and the notorious safecracker Ray Terrill. The Kimes Gang is a highly recommended read for all students of crime in the southwest United States during the 1920's and the prohibition era.



3. I just loved this new book about a relatively unknown gang, which terrorized the southwest during the pre-depression era. Most of their activities were in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma, but may have been as far as the west coast and into Kansas and Missouri. The author uses footnotes to show the reader his documentation to its fullest. Past reviewers have stated this was a distraction, but most scholars of any nonfictional books will want either footnotes or endnotes. Also a couple of reviewers thought the book wasted too much time on the Barker-Terrill gang, which I found to be an important ingredient to the start of the story. Many of the gangsters during this time period usually ran with each other or at the very least knew each other. So, I felt this was important and the author describes the law and lawlesness during the time period before the Kimes gang got going. This book is the first of it's kind and I feel it will be a major part of most library's ganster era section. It shold be read by others interested in this type of history. Good job!



4. This book is riddled with errors. Dates and names are wrong with many names misspelled. Just because someone uses footnotes and endnotes doesn't mean that his sources are correct. Mr. Koch should have doubled checked his sources before printing fact. I thought he would have done better than this.



5. "The Kimes Gang" is a good new true crime book about a group of outlaws who robbed and killed their way in to history during the mid 1920s, in the State of Oklahoma primarily. This is a well documented book with footnotes and a bibliography. There are also several photo's, which I have never seen. I think this book would be a good book for anyone to read. Good job!

5 comments about Murder In Spokane.

1. I gave this book three stars but that wasn't my original rating. While I was in the process of reading it I felt it was a four star book (maybe 4 & a half) but in the time between finishing it & writing this review, as I've had time to think about what I had read, it has fallen to a definite three-star rating.
   
   Most serial killer books like this contain the same elements: descriptions of the crimes themselves, details of the investigation including how the case was solved, & a detailed summary of the legal maneuverings as the killer is brought to justice. The author usually has at least the cooperation of the police department(s) involved in the hunt for the killer & may even have a specific source confirming his data & feeding him the inside information that makes such books so interesting. In Murder in Spokane though, Mr. Fuhrman doesn't have such a source--something he complains about bitterly throughout the book. So the details of the case presented here are of necessity pretty sketchy. The book consists mostly of Fuhrman & Mike Fitzgerald, his co-host on a radio show in Spokane, reading newspaper accounts of the case. They then discuss what they've read over dinner or on the phone & then get together once a week on the radio to complain about what a bad job the Spokane police are doing hunting for the killer. Fuhrman & Fitzgerald do conduct some independent investigations of their own but, since they aren't able to get any of their findings confirmed by the police, their private search for the killer is pretty much an empty effort.
   
   Despite the lack of hard facts & inside information, the book can be a compelling read due to Fuhrman's writing ability & I read the book in two sittings. I'd have read it in one if I hadn't started it so late in the evening! But as I worked my way through the book, I began to doubt Fuhrman's motives in writing it. He is constantly harping on the failings of the Spokane police, especially their failure to communicate with the media, & particularly their failure to communicate with Mark Fuhrman. You eventually get the feeling that the primary reason for his criticism is the fact that the investigators wouldn't talk to him. I am led to wonder if he had gotten the cooperation he sought whether the book might have painted a much more favorable picture of the local police. It's almost as though he was using his radio show & the book he was working on as a way to bully his way into the case.
   
   Of course, his criticisms of the police may be valid. The problem is that we have no way of making a fair judgement since Fuhrman can only speculate on why the police are doing certain things. Why won't they release a description of the suspect's car? Fuhrman says it's incompetence but maybe they wanted to look for the car without the killer knowing they could recognize it. Why didn't they put lots more detectives on the case? Maybe they didn't care enough about the victims but it's also possible that the city just didn't have the money to fund a major investigation of this type. At the start of the book, you're inclined to give Fuhrman the benefit of the doubt on these criticisms, but after a while his carping about the investigation & complaints about why nobody will help him with his book made me wonder whether he was playing fair with the reader. It would have been nice to have been able to hear the other side & have someone respond to his criticisms.
   
   Why wouldn't the Spokane police cooperate with Fuhrman? Well, you can infer several reasons from the book, the most obvious being his harsh criticisms of the department on his radio show. Another reason has to do with a friend of his who investigated a decades-old cop killing in Spokane, eventually pinning the murder on another corrupt Spokane policeman. Apparently, there was a lot of bad blood towards Fuhrman & his friend over this & it's not surprising that they wouldn't want anything to do with him. This isn't really fair but it was certainly a part of the problem & Fuhrman never makes the obvious connection between the two issues--an example of his not being fair (he mentions the incident as an example of Spokane P.D. corruption & not as a source of police hostility towards him). Yet a third reason has to do with the thrust of the book Fuhrman wanted to write. From the sound of it, the book would have been about a big-city homicide detective helping out the understaffed & befuddled Spokane P.D.--if they got a sense of this attitude it's not surprising that they would clam up & not have anything to do with him.
   
   As noted above, the book is quite readable & flows along nicely while you're reading it. But it lacks a proper ending, especially for the *real* subject of the book: Fuhrman's charges against the Spokane police. To make his allegations stick, he really needed a "gotcha" at the end, something compelling that would prove his case to an unbiased observer. He never gets this though &, while his criticisms may be accurate, they are just as likely to originate in some very sour grapes.
   
   Is the book entertaining? Yes, it is, but once you're done reading it you'll wind up regretting the money you spent on it.



2. I like the writing style, but, regardless of whose fault it was,
   Fuhrman has very little to say, with respect to the crimes, in
   this book. He brought some really important stuff to light in
   Greenwich. Here, he only reports a few important incidents which
   anybody can find in 10 minutes using Google. He is an EXTREME
   outsider in this investigation. Half of the book is about
   Fuhrman arm-chair guessing at what the task force and police
   were finding out. The other half is spent bitching about the
   incompetence of the same task force and police.
   
   With respect to the half of the book about the crime... why
   spend your time reading opinions and guesses by somebody with
   very close to zero inside information about the crimes? An
   insider book on this crime would be great-- but it's not here.
   
   With respect to the half of the book about the incompetence of
   the authorities... This could have been covered completely in
   one chapter. As an example, only a lawyer could enjoy the
   affadavit chapter. An entire freaking chapter devoted to
   minute dissection of an affadavit. Even if all the conclusions
   are correct (I'm not convinced), I have wasted 20 pages of my
   time to find out that the affadavit authors wrote the document
   in such a way as to minimize exposure of their own weaknesses.
   Who would expect it to be written any other way? Would you
   try to influence a judge by telling him how badly you screwed up?



3. You don't have to read very far into this book to realize that there's very little actual information about the Spokane serial killer or the way the killer was finally identified and caught. Most of the book is about how Fuhrman thinks that police should do their investigating, the politics of the Spokane Police Department and Sheriff's Department, past crimes, bio info on the victims, and Fuhrman's comments during his radio show. The police never took Fuhrman into their confidence during their lengthy investigation and he doesn't know a single detail other than what was publicly released. Fuhrman portrays himself as an experienced 'homicide detective' but it sounds like most of his police career was in robbery.
   
   Fuhrman seems to rely heavily on his imagination and intuition as a police technique. He writes lengthy passages about might be in the mind of the criminal based on what is at the crime scene and believes that this 'imagination profiling' should then be used to identify the bad guy. He obviously focuses most of his energy on the effort to identify a suspect rather than on gathering evidence which might help to actually convict someone. This type of technique was probably useful in collaring car thieves, burglars, strong-arm crooks, etc. and then letting them plea bargain but is not as likely to be helpful in convicting someone for murder. Fuhrman apparently visited many of the body dump sites (creepy if you think about it) with his fellow talk-show host as a part of his informal 'investigation' and went on the air frequently to criticize the police but never actually found any clues that pointed to a suspect.
   
   All of these shortcomings on subject matter would be forgivable if the book was readable and interesting but it is filled with trivial tedious details that are just boring. I give it two stars and that's very generous.



4. I like Fuhrman's writing style; very "coppish" and informative. The only problems I had with the book were that it seemed "quickie" and incomplete. Some passages were repetitious and there were *no pictures* in the book except fuzzy, blurry ones on the covers - unlabeled - of some of the victims. The victims deserved more than that. Still, it was interesting enough that I finished it in two days!



5. Sometimes I wished Mark Fuhrman would just go away, ever since his notoriety during the O.J. Simpson trial, he has been seen and heard on Fox giving criticisms regarding criminal investigations. Kind of ironic since he bungled one of the century's most notorious cases with numerous mistakes. Now, he has relocated and retired from diverse Los Angeles, California to less diverse Idaho where he lives with his family. He writes about the Murders in Spokane just as his book, Murders in Brentwood because it involves multiple victims. After reading Barer's book on the same case, I vaguely remembered Fuhrman's book which was more about him than about the victims and the case itself. Fuhrman is still trying to gain acceptance among his peers or try to forget the Simpson debacle but wherever he goes, that case will follow him to the grave.

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