4 comments about Murder of a Prophet: Dark Side of Utah Polygamy.

1. The author may not be a John Steinbeck, it's his first novel, but with a little more experience, he could be. Nevertheless, his knowledge of the subject is beyond dispute. The novel made front page review in the Salt Lake Tribune, and the author has been interviewed on national and local television. Murder of a Prophet has caused quite a stir in Utah, especially among the 60,000 odd polygamists believed to live in Utah and the surronding states. According to the Tribune, it has been banned in the polygamist communities of Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah. The story, which incidently is very good, gives the reader a peek in the minds of polygamists prone to violence, which is not an unusual scenario in Utah. I was raised in a polygamist family, rejected the religon, but still have contacts among the subculture. Utah polygamists, paranoid by nature, are doing what they can to discredit both the author and his story, which is why I read it. They are afraid it paints all polygamists as abusers. It dosen't. It is an intense story about abuse of power and demented cult mentality. The polygamists would rather cover up their dark side than deal with it. It is interesting that those most critical of the book have read it cover to cover and are in the process of writing their own book, that is suppose to counteract Murder of a Prophet.



2. John Llewellyn possesses a unique insider's view of both the law enforcement world and polygamist culture. His investigative background and journalistic expertise combine in this fascinating, compelling and entertaining work. The characterizations are both believable and ironic and the plot is unique and intriguing.



3. but coming from a polygamist background myself, I see that the author has mixed up and disstorted a lot of facts. One fact that is kept very quiet is that Mr. Llewellyn was for a number of years a member of the apostolic united bretheren, a polygamist group located in Bluffdale, UT. Also, he only left after being rebuffed while trying to court a second wife. His story sure has changed!! I was born in Colorado City and have friends and family in 3 different polygamist groups and know a lot of the true stories. It is true that the Kingston group and the Colorado CIty bunch engage in forced marriages, and incest...



4. This is a very short book but very informative. I couldn't put it down. Once again, Llewellyn holds up his end of the bargain and does very well. It's a good story but very sad that something like this actually happens and still, no one does anything about this cult. Yes, there are some crazies in every cult or religion but this cult is consistently crazy in the fact that they blindly follow anything. Buy this book. You won't regret it.

2 comments about Who Killed Diana?.

1. Don't waste your money on this one. If you are really interested in conspiracies on Diana, go and surf the net. You'll get more than what you find in this book-and then some!



2. I read this novel after reading the excellent "Whose death in the Tunnel?" by Aaron Becker. This book did not begin to compare. I read it to the end hoping for a glimmer but it left me cold.

No comments about Human Sacrifice: A Shocking Expose of Ritual Killings Worldwide.

3 comments about Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth.

1. All Lincoln scholars will find this book of interest particularly for when and how it was written. Had to have been a "bestseller" in 1908!



2. When Lincoln was killed he was an old man of 56, while Booth was only 27 at the time of the assassination. I really can't figure why this fiction was written, as the travesty was done when John Wilkes Booth was gunned down from a slat in the barn. He had no way to escape!
   
   It's just like the rumors which spun about Elvis Presley that he was an informant for the FBI and did not die of an overdose of drugs in his mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, that he was relocated to Germany. Do you think that man could have spent all these years hiding and not singing. No Way!
   
   Just like the fiction that Booth lived to confess years later. Could he have gone on with his life without acting on the stage? Whyever would he confess and link the Vice President to the conspiracy. Andrew Johnson was supposed to have been abducted at the same time as Lincoln, only his assailant got too drunk to do the deed. Now, this little myth maker tries to make us think that he was in on the kill of Lincoln so that he could take over. He had his hands full of the reconstruction and other things which were continually going wrong. He was definitely not like Lincoln in any way, but a man from Tennessee who had been governor of this Volunteer State would never have done that. Now Texas is another matter altogether. Why this was written, I'll never know! It's just not worth the bother to look at, or read trash about an honorable assassin. He had health problems and perhaps though he was dying anyway. Who will ever know? No one who reads this volume in history.



3. This book is great and he did act on stage after the assassination. Why the other person wrote that this book is not worth reading I will never know. It shows two pictures of Booth after the assassination when he was living under an alias. It is filled with evidence. If you would like to know who was killed in the barn instead of Booth you should read "Return of the Assassin John Wilkes Booth". It is filled with new evidence. Both of these books are must reads.

4 comments about Every Mother's Nightmare (Onyx True Crime).

1. this book has very little information in it. When I got through reading this book I was shaking my head wondering. There was very little information about this crime. All I learned was that two beautiful children were murdered & their mother's did everything they could to find the murderer & have him or them punished.



2. I have read this book several times and it affects me deeply each time I read it. My heart breaks for Mari Winzen and Jude Govreau. I thought the book was written in a very compassionate matter. It was a horrible tragedy from the beginning but it was made worse because the mothers had to wait almost two years for an arrest and then there were constant delays before there was a trial. Mari and Jude walked the road to hell and made it back in one piece and I have a lot of admiration for them.



3. This was an awful experience for two mothers to go through. Children brutally murdered and endless problems abounded. It makes you realize justice is not always swift and easy. I don't see how the mothers survived without killing someone themselves. It was a difficult read at times, trying to remember the aka's of protected sources, and other information was confusing. There were what I think were errors but there was no way to confirm. I do think a better job could have been done with the writing considering the important subject matter. All and all it did tell you what happened.



4. This is a every touching book to me cause I knew Tyler the little boy that the book was written about. I just loved the book. And every time I read it just brings back memories that are just to sad. I loved the book.

No comments about Who Named the Knife: A True Story of Murder and Memory.

5 comments about Shadows of Evil: Long-haul Trucker Wayne Adam Ford and His Grisly Trail of Rape, Dismemberment, and Murder (True Crime (St. Martin's Paperbacks)).

1. I echo previous reviewers' sentiments re: Mr. Smith's recounting of Wayne Adam Ford's crimes. This was not the author's best book. It did appear very unusual to read the author's views against capital punishment and his opinions re: the link between brain damage and criminal behavior on pp. 3-20. At first, I wondered if the author would ever get to the story of Ford's cimes! I usually don't care much for a true crime writer's opinions about crime and punishment; rather, I enjoy reading this genre for the historical information. I'm interested in the "what" rather than the "why". I look for facts....what types of cunning, stalking behavior are exhibited by criminals; what types of careless, naive behavior might be exhibited by victims; and what lessons should my family and I learn from these tragedies? It's important for us to realize the true nature of random acts of violence in modern America and what steps we should take to try to lower our own risks of becoming victims. To Mr. Smith's credit, however, I do think that he has written better true crime pieces: HUNTING EVIL was a remarkable work in which he demonstrated genuine writing talents, and I commend that book to all of you. All in all, if you read a lot of this genre, this certainly isn't the worst one that you'll read!



2. I am an absolute fan of the true crime genre, but this book takes the cake as the worst true crime book that I have read. The bulk of this book is spent criticizing (implicity and explicitly) the police and government - NOT for failing to stop a serial murderer, but for failing to give the author documents that he felt he was entitled to. Moreover, the sympathetic justifications for Wayne Ford's atrocities was a bit too much to bear.
   A true journalist would not let his own views taint the story that he is trying to tell. I don't think that I would rush to read another book by Carlton Smith anytime soon.



3. This book seems to depart from the usual "true crime" format. Rather than being written after the case was done it seems to have been written as the case was occurring. The legal system was suppressing the expected fine details about the criminal and the investigation which causes the book to be tantalizing but not satifying. I found the lack of finer details surrounding the actual mode of commission of each crime to be the most disappoiting aspect of the book. This, after all, is the "signature" of each criminal encountered in this type of book. Lacking some of the suspected to be interesting but not available evidence and investigative techniques used to detect and/or solve the crime is also disappointing. I think the book would be much better if it had been written after the case was ended so that it would have been more detailed and the story didn't leave the reader "hanging" for lack of a definitive ending. This is the only book I've read by this author so I don't know if this is his style of investigative writing or if this particular book is an exception to the rule. Reading reviews carefully and examining book discriptions should allow a reader to discern if this type of book is what they want or not. In summary, well written but lacked specific details and left me hanging.



4. This was one of the worse true crime books I have read. Normally I do not feel the need to review books but in this case I am compelled because the book is based on nothingness. It repeatedly tells the reader that everything is under a gag order or deleted so there really is no story here.... just pages and pages of disclaimers and citations to motions that have had all the "meat" deleted. Kinda makes you go, huh?



5. As with most of the other reviewers, I cannot believe that I paid for this book. The entire book blames the police, prosecutors and anyone else for the crimes of this man. He is not a criminal...he is mentally ill, as is anyone else in the book who does drugs, shoplifts, etc. It is a diatrabe against the death penalty also. When reading a true crime book, I do NOT want to be subject to the views of the author...just the facts, thank you. Rest assured I will never waste any money on another book by Carlton Smith.

5 comments about Whisper to the Black Candle: Voodoo, Murder, And the Case of Anjette Lyles.

1. Poisoners are always premeditated killers.

   The act of poisoning another person, particularly over a long period of time, bespeaks of what the law describes as a "malignant heart." The idea of watching one's handwork slowly overtake and painfully kill a victim is almost too cruel for imagination. But when the victims include her own young daughter, then the murderess may be assured of permanent infamy.

   In 1958 Anjette Lyles went on trial for killing her nine-year-old daughter, as well as a couple of husbands and a mother-in-law using Terro ant killer, which as we learn is 94% arsenic. This happened in Macon Georgia, not far from the rural middle Georgia town I spent my summers as a child. Anjette ran a restaurant, a courthouse kind of place, where she fed the very judges, prosecutors and even some of the jurors who would later condemn her to Georgia's electric chair. Being taking to the big city as a boy always meant that her restaurant would be pointed out and the tale of her perfidy retold.

   My complaint about this book is that it doesn't tell enough. Spared execution because she was supposedly too insane to be put to death, Anjette spent the remainder of her life at the Central State Hospital in Milledgeville.

   The author failed to come to grips with the fact that in 1972 capital punishment was effectively (though temporarily) outlawed when the United States Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia. And while Ms White makes a good case of psychiatric malingering, the fact remains that Anjette Lyles remained in Milledgeville even after she no longer faced execution in the event she was determined to be restored to sanity. Further the degree of insanity necessary to avoid the death penalty being imposed is quite high. Essentially a condemned must not be able to understand that he or she faced execution , the reasons for it, and the consequences of it. Anjette seemed to be qualified in every way for the ultimate punishment, even if she was an obvious sociopath.

   This will not be the definitive book about Anjette Lyles, though it is a good start. The definitive book has yet to be written, but when it is, Anjette Lyles will be assured of her proper place among the serial killers of the twentieth century.




2. I never knew much about the book til I seen it in the library where I used to live. The title alone was what brought me to pick it up. It was odd for a title. Yet, once I read the inside sleeve..I knew I had to read this book. Checking it out at the library, I immediately got into reading it and couldn't put it down. Neither will you. It's a book about Voodoo, Arsenic, and a woman named Anjette Lyles. Definitely worth checking out if you're into true crime books.......



3. This book is definitely an enjoyable read. The case of Anjette Lyles is indeed an interesting story.

   If the title of the book was "The Trial of Anjette Lyles," then I would give this book a 5-star review. What's in the book is fine. It is well written and very factual. But what is not covered in the book is what leaves you wanting more.

   The book picks up Anjette's story with her marriage. Not much of Anjette's childhood and teenage years is covered. You can't help but wonder about her upbringing. Could the insights of her childhood friends and school classmates of Anjettes's have provided a better understanding of Anjette. How did Anjette get involved in black magic? What was she trying to influence with her candles and voodoo? These questions are never really addressed in the book

   From a secular viewpoint, was Anjette mentally competent? She clearly knew right from wrong. And no doubt, she knew how to manipulate the psychiatrists. Did she descend into madness or was her act a total sham?

   From spiritual viewpoint, Anjette professed to be a good Christian woman. Yet she dappled in the occult and seemed to put her trust in black magic. Was her Bible toting a sham?

   Yes, this is a good book. Read it, but then wonder: "What's the rest of the story?"




4. This book, covering the 1950's case of Anjette Lyles who was convicted of the murder of four people including her own 9 yr. old daughter, was a good read but far from what I would call a "must" read true crime book. Although it was fascinating to read about Georgia society and courtroom procedures during the late '50's (I can't believe the prosecutor would read the jury's verdict to the accused at the end of the trial- but it was true!)this book relied heavily on court transcripts it appears since many of the principles are now not alive. It lacks the "shock" value you read in many good true crime books of current days but does do a nice job of setting the "facts" down for the reader and convincing you that the jury reached a just verdict. A good book but not one you would read more than once.



5. "Whisper to the Black Candle" is the story of Anjette Lyles, who fatally poisoned 2 husbands, a daughter and a mother in law. The scene is Macon, Georgia in the late 1950s. There is fine local color here as the author skillfully retraces that Old South era and milieu. Readers will be drawn quickly into the flow of the story. There is little suspense here- the hardcover book jacket and previous reviews have touched upon the hot spots. Yet what would be a detriment in most True Crime tales does not hold here. The case and the cast of characters are so refreshingly authentic-and offbeat-that an aura of suspense is not required. Also, authoress White has performed a superb job of researching Anjettes' crimes, illuminating her considerable personality, recreating the segregated Macon of the 1950s and relating the prosecution and trial. A previous reviewer has stated it well: `There is no shock value... but the facts are straight'. And the facts-and the story- can stand on their own. This reviewer's only complaint concerns that misleading title; voodoo is only marginally involved here. The curious are forewarned. That aside, "Whisper to the Black Candle" is definitely recommended to True Crime fans, especially the more curious/adventurous. Folks from Georgia should pounce. They should appreciate the local, halcyon setting. Tundra will be glad to know that the "Ann Rule rule" is suspended! Those centerfold photos actually enhance rather than merely divulge.

5 comments about Lethal Shadow: The Chilling True-Crime Story of a Sadistic Sex Slayer.

1. I am an avid true crime reader and this book wasn't worth the typing effort to order. The author focused on every pointless event of the case and crime. I honestly couldn't finish it. I made it 2/3 the way through and tossed it on the bookshelf...and believe me, it has to be bad for me not to finish it! Its to bad too, because the REAL story that he was attempting to tell was an outrageous crime that was commited and worthy story to be written about, he just couldn't get it across.



2. Story of a counterfeiting, spousal abuse, kidnapping, rape and murder. The author focuses mainly on the counterfeiting aspect and the U.S. Secret Service agents who pursued Mike DeBardeleben. You never get the feeling of really knowing the subject as you do with Jack Olsen, Ann Rule, et al. This is a problem with half the true crime books out there; probably because they are written from court transcripts and do not scratch the surface of a great story.



3. I found this book to be mildly interesting, but certainly not the best book I've read. I found it to be a bit dry at times, with too much focus on the police, FBI & Secret Service personnel and too little on the criminal and his crimes.



4. THIS BOOK WAS GREAT - the author didn't make it a hollywood show like ann rule, etc. He wrote the facts of the case. Explained the horrific things that this man did. As a TRUE crime book goes this is one of the best.... Ann Rule and others like her GLAM it up to tell a story for the new york times best seller list. This book states how it is - no beefing up the evidence to try to impress you. No lying and storytelling.. simply put - the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.



5. I found this book to drag on so much that I never finished it. It was just simply too full of facts and was a complete bore to read. I get enough required dry reading material in my college courses.

No comments about Love and Death in Kathmandu: A Strange Tale of Royal Murder.