1 comments about The Female Homicide Offender: Serial Murder and the Case of Aileen Wuornos.

1. Great Transaction - no problems, book in great shape, very happy - THANKS

5 comments about Into the Water.

1. Diane Fanning chose an excellent crime story to write about in Marc Evonitz; however, I found that the downfall was too much information was included that was not necessary. In this book, Fanning includes details on numerous other crimes that I had trouble seeing the relation to of the crimes committed by Evonitz. For example, readers are given in depth account of Evonitz's stepfather's (Perry Deveaux) crimes of rape and murder. If Deveaux had been an influence in Evonitz's life, such account would be worth detail; but since Deveaux was incarcerated for the duration of the marriage to Evonitz's other Tess, such vivid detail was not really necessary. The book is full of summary detail on a variety of crimes such as this.
   
   What I did appreciate, however, was that the author not only captured my sympathy for the victims' families, but for the perpatrator's as well. Fanning did an excellent job of making you realize that serial killers do have those who love them and they are as victimized as the families of those murdered.
   
   And lastly, a previous reviewer made comment as to how you know the end by the last of the first chapter. Personally, before I even begin reading a book, I have a general idea of the outcome. I have found that 99 percent of the time, there would have been no book if their had been no conviction; which tells me that, most likely, the one I am reading about is in prison for life, sentenced to death, or dead by his own hand or otherwise. If you're like me, laying the end out in the beginning is no problem and actually sets it apart from other trime crime books.



2. Any kind of review one may write on a book, movie or anything else is all relative anyway. What you don't like, I may love ... and visa versa. But I have read true-crime books almost exclusively for years, and found this book to be one of the best. I do not find it filled w/ "tedious, unnecessary details", but instead an illustration of the progressive chaotic life of a serial killer. The book does not read like a newspaper article, as many do. This book makes you feel as if you are actually there, a bystander, living the horrific nightmares. Some true-crime books can become almost unbearable as you wait for the author to 'get to the point', and usually ... by the time it comes to the trial ... I put the book aside. Don't we already know how it ends by reading the back cover? And while we do know how this book ends, it still has a way of weaving the facts to draw us into the lives of the victims, their families, the investigation and the true story of a monster-in-the-making named Richard Marc Evonitz. I highly recommend this book.



3. Very interesting read; however, Diane Fanning's other book "Through the Window" is much more of a page turner. I would recommend it, though, to people who are hooked on true crime stories.



4. Into the water was another well written disturbing book by Diane Fanning. In my opinion , interviews are one of the most important ingredients in a true crime book and Diane Fanning definitely goes to the limit conducting interviews. I would recommend the book to anyone that is a true crime fan.



5. INTO THE WATER is a mediocre attempt at a True Crime drama. The killer, Richard Marc Evonitz, is eventually linked, through DNA and other forensic evidence, to the sexual assaults and murders of 3 young girls, all of whom he kidnapped from the front yards of their family homes in broad daylight. This serial killer may have continued to haunt the state of Virginia had his fourth victim not made a miraculous escape while Evonitz slept next to her on the bed in which he raped her. In a less than brilliant attempt to avoid capture, Evonitz led police on a high speed chase. Unfortunately, Evonitz got the last word when he shot himself in the mouth rather than surrender. Following his death, DNA also linked Evonitz to the rape of another teenaged girl in her own home.
   
   There is some information about the history of the offender, but it is the predictable history that each of us leaves behind when we retire from this world. Of course, none of his immediate family members, his friends, or anyone else who knew anything at all about him could have dreamed Evonitz was responsible for these shameful crimes. (Think standard television interviews following the arrest of most sociopathic serial killers: "He was a quiet neighbor who always seemed willing to lend a hand. I never noticed anything suspicious about him at all!")
   
   It is more than a bit difficult to understand why the author would choose to include the lengthy and wordy commendations of the investigative task force by 3 separate agencies. These commendations were so similar as to be wholly redundant and unequivocably unnecessary as important inclusions into the primary text of the story. (Okay, we get it. The task force did a great job.)
   
   Perhaps the most frightening part of this tragic story is how many other missing and murdered victims were evaluated as having a possible connection to Evonitz... and how many other predatory sex offenders with similar and perverse desires roam the peaceful streets of every neighborhood in America.
   
   If you want to read a book by Diane Fanning, I would direct readers to the much more interesting GONE FOREVER. Fanning is capable of better work, but INTO THE WATER sinks like a stone.

5 comments about On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Malloy.

1. Mr. Read's dreary look at the life of these speakeasy dwellers was entertaining and delightfully dark...
   I really liked Read's well-written desciprtions of his novels characters. I found myself able to connect to the characters and understand why they acted the way they did.
   I look forward to more of his writing in the future and would encourage others to get off the computer and get On The House.



2. A sort of nonfiction version of the hard-boiled "noir" novel, dripping with black comedy. The author hits the perfect mordant tone & captures the sordid desperation of the 1930's perfectly, down to the sardine sandwiches & rotgut booze slung in cheap speakeasies. The running gag focuses on a mark who is being set up to be murdered for an insurance scam, and who proves inconveniently durable despite increasingly desperate measures taken by the bungling plotters.



3. A friend of mine was talking about how dark and funny this book was. I picked up a copy because I was out of reading material, though I wouldn't normally read true crime. But this was fabulous! The story itself is one of those too-crazy-to-be-true stories, and the writing is dark, funny, and vivid. Ever since I read it, I've been cruising through other true-crime books. I think Simon Read made me a convert! I'll definitely read his future books, as well...



4. On The House is the fascinating story of the murder of a lonely alcoholic man by his "friends" and aquaintances for a minimal amount of insurance money. The story is interesting, primarily due to the the sleazy, greedy and totally incompetent plotters, and it is well researched. Author Simon Read moves the story, which takes place in the early 1930's, along well, and his outstanding description of the ambience makes the reader feel as though he is actually in the barrooms with the characters.
   
   Unfortunately, though, Mr. Read has stated that he considers this story to be a "black comedy." I do not consider myself humor impaired, but for the life of me I cannot find anything funny about the murder of a pitiful, harmless man for insurance. Mr. Read therefore attempts to artificially introduce "humor" by employing a style of writing I can only describe as annoyingly juvenile. Among many possible examples, Mr. Read writes that Michael Malloy had been a fireman "before life kicked him in the balls," and on no fewer than four occasions in On The House he refers to a doctor as "the good doctor" for no apparent reason than to introduce a smirky tone.
   Mr. Read is clearly a talented writer. However his attempt, for whatever reason, to write this story as a comedy, injects far too much of his own personality into the book, which ultimately adopts the tone of having been presented by a precocious 10th grader. On The House is still well worth reading, but a grown-up approach by Mr. Read would have made it more so.



5. There's nothing funny about murder... or is there?
   
   Simon Read's "On The House" could have been mistaken for a Monty Python script. Drunken derelict Michael Malloy is insured by the Murder Trust, an aimless band of low-level hoodlums who headquarter at a shabby New York speakeasy. The Trust members, which include an undertaker, the speakeasy's syphlitic owner, and a deranged cabbie who wants to try murder for the first time, make one attempt after another to kill Malloy and collect the insurance money. They pour him drinks of pure wood alcohol and serve him poisoned oysters and sandwiches crammed with rotten sardines, glass, and metal bits. They try to run him over with a cab, and leave him on a park bench during a winter night after pouring freezing water over his unconscious form. After each brush with death, the cheerily oblivious Malloy keeps coming back to the speakeasy, convinced that his would-be killers are his friends. Finally their plan succeeds, but the victory is only fleeting. The Murder Trust becomes the target of first suspicious insurance claims investigators, then the police, and finally the electric chair at Sing Sing.
   
   "On The House" is infused with a dark humor that manifests itself in sentences like the following: "At twenty-seven, Marino was a mess of a man, being not only a shabby dresser but also syphlitic. By his own account, he was harangued with frequent bouts of the clap and blue balls." The victim, Mike Malloy, is described as someone whom life has "kicked in the crotch." Malloy's murderers are distinguished only by their ineptitude and homicidal mania, but Simon Read has given the whole story a 'car crash' treatment that keeps you turning the pages, shaking your head and, yes, cracking a smile or two.
   
   Read is a natural storyteller. Using dialogue and descriptions scraped from news accounts of the murder, he presents a morbid and entertaining picture of Depression-era New York and its lowlife. Victims rights advocates might consider his treatment of Malloy's death to be breezy and offensive, but the entire murder plot was so slapstick and surreal that any solemnity could only come across as phony.

No comments about Breaking and Entering: Women Cops Talk About Life in the Ultimate Men's Club.

1 comments about If You Love Me, You Will Do My Will.

1. This is an excellent book, a very quick read. The authors do an outstanding job of capturing the South Texas Catholic culture as well as the personalities of all of the main characters. This story would make for great non-fiction, but it's completely true, the characters all real. Anyone interested in cattle barons, oil bidness, a little Catholic church history, and the modern day "Old West" should read this compelling work.

5 comments about Goodbye Lizzie Borden: The Story of the Trial of America's Most Famous Murderess (Penguin True Crime).

1. This is an analysis of the Borden case from a legal point of view by a former judge. The facts are well-presented and the legal insights and arguments are convincing, but the impartial reader will sense and be annoyed by the author's clear bias against Lizzie throughout much of the book. The book would have been strengthened by a fairer ad more even-handed, two-sided approach. Even so, it's an excellent piece of factual and analytical work.
   
   David Rehak
   author of "Did Lizzie Borden Axe For It?"



2. My book came and was what I had expected. My transaction was satisfactory.



3. If you only buy one book about the Llzzie Borden murder case, this is the one to have.
   
   Probably the best and most lucid book on the subject. Judge Sullivan presents the facts of the case in a fair light without personal embellishments.



4. Robert Sullivan makes a strong case that Lizzie Borden might have gotten off, even if she committed the crime. Oddly enough for a judge, he confuses this with proving that she did commit it. Sullivan starts off with the assumption that she was guilty, briskly rejects any other possibilities, and lo and behold, he finds her to be guilty.
   
   I would recommend this book to anyone with a strong interest in the case. It has all sorts of information that is not included elsewhere about a similar crime that could have thrown off suspicion, the backgrounds of the jurors, etc.
   
   Sullivan simply rejects the idea that anyone else could have done it. The suggestion that it might have be Bridget Sullivan is quickly dismissed without examinaton: "Bridget didn't do it."
   
   I feel informed, but not at all convinced. I recommend Kent's Forty Whacks: New Evidence in the Life and Legend of Lizzie Borden as the best book that I have ever read on the subject, and Edgar Radin's Lizzie Borden: The untold story (A Dell book) as the second.



5. The last page gives the personal history of Robert Sullivan, a judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court, who presided over a hundred murder cases. The 'Bibliography' lists many books, few of which are readily available. It does not list the books by Edmund Pearson and Edward Radin which covered this case for general readers. The one best book since 1991 is David Kent's "Forty Whacks". The best solution is still Arnold Brown's book. Sullivan seems quite biased in Appendix III about "the purchase of possession of ... poison", given that Lizzie didn't purchase or possess a poison; the attempted purchaser could have been a look-alike. Professor Borchard's book was available to Sullivan. Many believed that Lizzie was guilty and paid off somebody to be found 'not guilty'. Arnold Brown explained why Lizzie did not commit the murders and paid off the authorities to be found 'not guilty'. An appointed judge should know how things work in politics. You can study Sullivan's picture and judge his personality for yourself. Agnes de Mille's book quoted the daughters of a physician about the murders: there was a secret that was never revealed.
   
   The 'Preface' considers the fascination of the unsolved murders of the Bordens. It may be due to the logical paradox that Lizzie was the remaining prime suspect but she couldn't have done it. No blood spatter on her clothes, not murder weapon, being seen outside at the time of Andrew's death. The legend of a cold-blooded spinster killer seems to meet the inner need of people who believe it. Sullivan read the two-thousand page transcript on microfilm to give his own opinions in this book. The record cannot contain the actual environment seen and heard by the jury, who decided the facts in this case. A transcript doesn't capture the tone of the answers.
   
   Sullivan's bias is show by his dependence on the words of 90-year old Abby Borden Whitehead Potter who was ten years old at the time, and was never interviewed by anyone. That is not an astonishing fact (p.4)! She was both a child and not a witness. The Great Depression saw the decline of Fall River in the 1920s (p.6). In the early 18th century the Bordens owned all of Fall River (p.7). In the 19th century industrial Fall River was the third largest city in the state. A few families formed the ruling class of Fall River (p.8). Why did Lizzie change her name (p.20)? Fashions change, "Lizzie" became the generic name for a servant (the 'tin lizzie'). Sullivan's story about the "Day of Horror" is biased against Lizzie. You have to read other books to know this. Sullivan's explanation of 19th century law is not exact. Massachusetts in 1877 was the first state to require Medical Examiners, used in Europe for decades (p.43).
   
   Sullivan was puzzled over D.A. Knowlton's offer (p.54). Was this just a ruse to learn defense strategy? Lizzie was indicted only after Alice Russell testified again (p.55). Lizzie pled "not guilty" (p.56). The Fall River ruling class supported Lizzie (p.60). [Did they know the secret?] Sullivan's prejudice is shown by comments on ME Dolan's testimony (p.123). Sullivan comments on Jennings' statement on reasonable doubt (p.145). Sullivan's bias caused his error about the newspaper advertisement on page 37 (p.161). In his charge to the jury Judge Justin Dewey subtly argued for the defense (p.172). Dewey was never sanctioned for this; was it for the sake of justice? Sullivan's bias is shown on page 182. The "expert testimony" was against the facts known to the jurymen who slaughtered cows, pigs, and sheep on their farms. After the trial Knowlton was elected Attorney General of the state, and Jennings was elected D.A. of the county. Was this the reward for their actions in the trial?
   
   This would have been a better book if Sullivan had squelched his bias in telling the story, but unloaded in a long final chapter. Many of his quibbles were answered in Arnold Brown's book, which solved the crime and explained the discrepancies. Unlike most authors over the past seven decades Brown was honest enough to admit he couldn't prove it. But no one else can, ever.

1 comments about The Mob.

1. Although his work is long, Peterson offers a detailed, interesting look at organized crime in N.Y.C. His accounts, from the 19th century gangs of the 5 Points to the mid 20th century Mafia families, are gold to any N.Y.C. mafia buff!

2 comments about Speed Kills (True Crime (Avon Books).).

1. This book is a little bit more accurate than "Blue Thunder" but it is still not all true, nevertheless it is still a good read. I have been in the boat business in south florida for many years and know most of the key figures in the book, therefore I can tell you Mr. Harris's motive for Aronow's death is not accurate. Aronow's killer was never caught.



2. Was told the book was in very good condition. Very poor falling apart, and bent up. Very misleading seller.

No comments about Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned: True Stories of Women Who Kill.

No comments about The Violence of Our Lives: Interviews With American Murderers.