5 comments about Crime of the Century, The.

1. First of all, I find it hard to believe that this book is out of print. I must assume that it did not sell well in its original print. Because of the circumstances surrounding this case, it is truly frightening.

   Richard Speck entered the townhouse at 2319 100th Street in Chicago and murdered eight innocent nurses in cold blood. Because of an apparent lack of motive, the crime sent shockwaves across the country. Speck was a drifter that was harmless until he had some booze in his belly and a knife in his pocket. Most people that knew him suggested he was harmless when sober.

   After killing the nurses, ran from the police as well as his crimes. He attempted the ultimate escape in attempting suicide. His attempt was a failure. Once he realized that he left a living witness to his crimes, he realized he would soon be caught if he stayed in Chicago. He could not get out of Chicago quick enough.

   The only thing that saved Speck from execution was the Supreme Court ruling several hundred death row inmates were to be set free from death row on a techincality.

   Having worked very near the site of his murders for three years, I was intrigued by his story. Kids would often say they get chills just passing the house. These kids obviously were not even alive at the time of Speck's rampage. This shows Speck's impact on Chicago and America. The most frightening killer is the one that kills for no apparent reason.




2. Richard Speck committed the most heinous of crimes in 1966. He savagely murdered eight innocent young women student nurses in the sprigtime of their lives and showed no remorse for what he did. This book, written by the man who prosecuted him and sent him to prison is a factual, precise account of the crime that began the "serial killing" and "mass murder" mode. What is so riveting, yet upsetting and shocking about this book is the fact that nothing is held back and one feels as if he is in the room with Speck waiting to be murdered by him or one of the witnesses at the trial, or one of the jurors or as part of the investigation team. Its all there and nothing is held back. I remember being a child of 6 in colorado in 1966 and my Aunt talking about the murders. The story made national headlines and even reached to a small country town where I was raised. I was scared then. About a month ago I was digging through some old magazines and found a people magazine article on Richard Speck from 1991, the year that he died of a heart attack in prison. (He was never executed though he received the death penalty but the Supreme Court ruled against the death penalty in Illinois so the man got off easy. But who knows about his eternal soul...only God can judge that). Anyhow, the article went into depth about what he had done and how one brave woman, Corazon Amurao, one of the nurses, survived. I looked here at Amazon to see if any books had been written on Speck and found this one! It is the best account of any Crime that I have ever read. My heart still reels with sadness at what those poor young women had to suffer and the terror that they must have gone through. How Corazon Amurao got through everything without going through Post Traumatic Stress is a testament to the way things were handled, her protection and shielding from police and reporters. Currently she is a nurse in Virginia. Speck was never punished sufficiently for his crime on this earth. The evil he perpetrated had far reaching repercussions as it ushered in the "terrorist" era that continues to this day. This book is not for the squeamish. It is excellent and well writing and cuts to the heart from first page to last. May God bless the young women who suffered at the hands of a madman and may God have mercy on the madman who didn't have mercy on those eight beautiful, decent, hardworking women he killed that hot July in 1966.



3. This book was written by the investigators of the 1966 crime which makes it more of a forensic novel -- more in line with modern crime stories. The plot follows the actions of mass killer Richard Speck who brutally bound, tortured and killed 8 Chicago nurses. In the confusion of his murderous frenzy, one nurse managed to slither under a bed, unnoticed, and later identified Speck as the killer.
   
   After recently meeting this sole survivor, I purchased The Crime of the Century for some of her friends to better understand what happened nearly 40 years ago.



4. The Richard Speck Massacre of 8 Student Nurses in Chicago during the heat wave on July 13-14, 1966 is almost still impossible to believe. In this book, it's well-written but I have one criticism regarding the victims. The cover of my paperback book has the faces of those victims but nothing to identify one from the other unless you do some research on the internet. 8 beautiful dark student nurses, 5 Americans and 3 Filipinos, who would have made substantiate contributions in their field were robbed from us. One survivor, Cora, lived or survived the massacre but not without the emotional and traumatic scars that haunts war veterans. Cora's description and courage during a time of absolute terror is evident in this book. The two authors here have my absolute focus because they are clear to the reader about what is going on. The background information of Richard Speck is vital in understanding how a monster came to be and how this terrible tragedy occurred.



5. ...If your answer is "A LOT", the CRIME OF THE CENTURY is a must read.
   
   In July, 1966, Richard Speck, an alcoholic social misfit and burglar killed 8 student nurses on Chicago's south side. Unfortunately for Speck, there were 9 nurses present, one of whom, Corazon Amarao, escaped death by hiding under a bed. She ultimately provided a sketch artist with information which led to Speck's arrest, and it was her testimony that led to his conviction.
   
   COTC is the joint effort of Dennis L. Breo and William J. Martin, who was the lead prosecutor on Speck's case.
   I generally don't like true crime by officials writing about cases they are connected to, and this book illustrates why. Let me say first, that the first 126 pages of the book, titled "The Murder" and "The Manhunt" are nothing short of outstanding. The depiction of the seedy southeast Chicago neighborhood where Speck was living and in which the nurses' residence was located and of Chicago's skid row - including the hotel where Speck attempted suicide before he was captured - is vivid and provides a starkly urgent sense of the drunken chaos that had become Speck's life. There is also a later section, chapter 27, that provides a lot of background on Speck's life prior to his arrival on the southeast side. This too is detailed and very well done. And finally there is an epilogue which contains some interesting information about Speck.
   
   But these sections total less than half the book. The remaining parts detail - and I do mean DETAIL - the state's attorney's protection of Amarao and her family; the brutally tedious investigation; the even more brutally tedious preparation for trial; and the only slightly less tedious trial itself. It is clear that Martin found the case - and also himself - fascinating, but personally I was not interested in reading on a continual basis about every minor insecurity he had while preparing for trial. Neither was I interested in what each and every detective or attorney was wearing at any given time. I didn't care about the background of every obscure judge who made a ruling at some point during the pre-trial litigation. And call me jaded if you will, but I just refuse to believe that EVERY SINGLE detective, attorney, and judge who had anything remotely to do with the case was among the finest example of professionalism and humanity as could possibly be found anywhere. Every detective - though perhaps a little world weary - was an expert at whatever he did, good humored if craggy, well and/or comfortably dressed, loved or respected - and often both - by everyone who knew him, and thoroughly professional. I lived in Chicago in the late 1960s and the police department was well and deservedly known for its rampant corruption, so I guess Martin just got really lucky.
   The same went in spades for the crack prosecution team. This group of young, dedicated professionals were concerned with only one thing - the conviction of Richard Speck. By golly, every one of them was sharp witted, earnest, and exceedingly kind to his wife and kids when he managed to see them, the case taking up so much of his time and all.
   And if it is of interest to you to know where the Chicago prosecutors and cops ate, what they ordered, and what the weather was like wherever they were, then you should rush right out and get a copy of COTC. Because it's all there, over and over and over....and over.
   
   And finally there is a recurring theme within the narrative of COTC which I found particularly bizarre. Martin and Breo spent what I considered an inordinate amount of time writing about and trying to discredit Dr. Marvin Ziporyn, the Chicago jail psychiatrist who became Specks's confidante and who was in the process of writing a book about him.
   This is rationalized as the prosecution's keeping tabs on Ziporyn who was expected to be a defense witness with his "shopworn diagnosis of organic brain syndrome." But the absurd lengths they went to to spy on Ziporyn -which oddly they describe without embarrassment - and their obvious personal animus toward him comes through loud and clear. He seems to have been an obsession of Martin's.
   
   CRIME OF THE CENTURY is well worth reading if you read only pages 1 to 126 and pages 226 to 252, Speck's biography. These sections are outstanding. The rest is boring and self-serving.
   And incidentally, I have read Ziporyn's book, BORN TO RAISE HELL, about Speck. It is considerably better than CRIME OF THE CENURY.

No comments about SMOKE, MIRRORS,AND MURDER AND OTHER TRUE CASES.

1 comments about Litchfield : A Strange and Twisted Saga of Murder in the Midwest.

1. The book is not a masterpiece by any means, but was interesting for me since my husband Todd Burdell and I are the ones that found the victim, Lynn. Imagine our horror when, after fishing at the lake, we try to put out a "brush fire" to be good samaritans, and wind up finding in the fire was a woman with her head gone... The author definitely took liberties with dialogue, since he never even asked us what we saw when we found her, or asked about our reactions. But I do believe he states this in the book that he was going to take liberties with certain conversations. Still think the book would have been better if he had interviewed some people in Litchfield where it happened!

No comments about Quitting the Mob.

3 comments about Quicksilver: The Ted Binion Murder Case.

1. After reading this book I feel it was RUSHED, and so much of the powerful 'inside' information was left out. I did enjoy the pictures, many not seen before. The story seems to leave out so much of the mystery involved, but is much better than the other book I read. The death of Lonnie 'Ted' Binion was something most people expected - he used and abused Heroin for 20 years, he was 'friendly' with the mob, he was entangled in a family that epitomizes DYSFUNCTIONAL. His father, Benny was one step ahead of the law when he left Texas to begin what ended up an empire his children fought over constantly. Ted was born into Las Vegas royalty, which afforded him every opportunity in life. But it came with a price. When he was younger, he was almost kidnapped. The plot was uncovered and those planning it were dealt with Benny Binion style. When Benny died, Jack and Ted were the 'Big Boys' at the HORSESHOE CASINO, and continued to operate the way Pappa B had in the past. The Gaming Commission was not happy that Ted was at the helm of the casino and didn't play by the rules. The was arrested in 1987, and this paved the way for Teddy's removal from the casino, which thrilled his sister Becky Behnen. She sued brother Jack for control and won. Ted felt he could return, but after continuing his pattern of not following the rules, the Gaming Commission removed him in March of 1998. When Becky took control of the casino, Ted had to remove his SILVER stash from the casino vault and had it placed in a vault on his ranch. Tons and tons of silver were placed in an underground vault that he had hired Rick Tabish to install. His girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, was there with Ted during his battles with drugs and the casino business. She was there when Ted's friend, 'Fat Herbie' Blitzstein was murdered and the FBI warned Ted of a 'hit' that had been placed on him as well. Who placed the hit? Did it have anything to do with Ted backing out of a promise to pay $50,000.00 to have his sister Becky 'whacked'? Who shot at Ted's house in 1997? Why was his sister and nephew dining with the person charged with the shooting after Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish were safely tucked out of the way in prison? Why wasn't ALL the information regarding Ted's life, Sandy's whereabouts, and Rick's lunch appointment on the day Ted died? What caused the attorneys to keep exculpatory evidence out of the trial? What exactly did Ted Binion die from on that day in September, 1998. Why wasn't the man who sold the 12 balloons of Mexican Black Tar Heroin ever indicted? We have the Prosecutor's own 'experts' disagreeing on what killed Ted. Was it the heroin he smoked? Was it the Xanax he asked his neighbor, described as Dr. Feelgood at trial, to call in and Ted himself picked up at the pharmacy? If the mixture of both these drugs didn't kill him what did? How can you prove murder when the victim himself purchased the 'deadly mixture'? You come up with "forced ingestion" and then add 'Burking' by Dr. Michael Baden. Proof of murder? Proof that the family money paid to have someone other than Ted Binion take the fall. It didn't matter that another sister had killed herself a few years back, that Ted had lost his license to run the family casino, even admitted that he was deeply depressed at the loss of his beloved Gaming license...it had to be ruled murder in order to keep Sandy Murphy's hands off of what Ted had left her in his will. Where was Rick Tabish going with the silver he dug up? Who else was supposed to take care of the silver? What attorney was in charge of this SILVER STASH? Whay did Ted keep the silver in a vault on his ranch? Why couldn't he use a bank? Was it due to the RICO charges he might be facing? Ted Binion will be remembered not by what he did in his life, but his death. What a sad story he was.



2. Smith does an excellent job of providing a concise summary of the events that lead to the Binion trial, the most notorious criminal trial in Las Vegas'colorful history.

   However, he falls short in providing insight not already avilable in the archives of this story appearing elsewhere on the World Wide Web. In addition, character and event analysis fall woefully short of expectations, especially those of us familiar with Smith's other works.

   You will enjoy this book if you are vaguely familiar with the trial,and want details. If, however, you know a lot about this case already, you will be disappointed.

   The author does categorically and persuasively state his opinion of this case, which may take some of you by surprise. Sadly, that is the only major new revalation of this book.




3. Ted Binion was a modern-day swashbuckler. Part owner of the Las Vegas Casino--- 'Binion's Horseshoe', he lived much larger than life. That is until he was (most likely) murdered by his beautiful live-in girlfriend Sandy Murphy and her conspiring lover Rick Tabish. Both are now doing bids of 20 to life pending a possible reopening of their case. Unfortunately, the above book doesn't do his tantalizing story justice. His is a cautionary tale about heroine addiction, immense wealth, fast women and shady characters. It includes buried treasure, hard partying and other vices that make eccentric people like him endlessly fascinating. This book however is too short, and honestly reads like what it is--- a compilation of newspaper articles put together by two journalists desperate to quickly cash in on a legend. For all appearances (too many pictures & not enough prose) it looks and reads like something thrown together on the way over to the local Kinko's Copies! It's truly unfortunate because there's enough intrigue in Ted Binion's life and controversial death for a book ten times the size of this one.

5 comments about Texas Death Row Executions in the Modern Era.

1. I read a review of this book in Texas Monthly wherein it was referred to as a "bone-chilling..work of art"...having purchased the book, I must now heartily agree. These portraits, taken directly from the State of Texas' files along with the inmates last words, last meals and description of their crime.. offers a harrowing glimpse into the world of state sponsored death. No matter on which side of the debate your views fall, this book is a powerful point of reference.



2. An excellent resource as to why the death penalty should be carried out. After you read about the crimes for which the prisoners were executed for it is very hard to have much sympathy for them. Too often in the argument against the death penalty the victims and their families tend to be forgotten. The people who were executed in Texas got off far easier than the people they killed. At least they weren't tortured, beaten, stabbed, shot or raped before they were executed.



3. This book in no way is able to educate about the Death Penalty. In my opinion it only tries to satisfy the voyeurism of people who want nourish their feelings of revenge and hatred. Very poor.



4. Regardless of how anyone feels about the death penalty, it is compelling to read and can also be disturbing.
   These are the facts about the book:

   This book catalogs(?) 222 death row inmates. The convicts are listed in cronological order as per their execution dates. The book features profiles of each convict, listing their date of birth, race, physical characteristics, education, prior occupation, and age at which they were executed. Other information that is included: The crime(s) that they were convicted of, their length of time on death row, last meal, and last statement. There are also extended statements in the appendix (extremely compelling/insightful).

   The reason why I find this book compelling: The book is a factual listing of men who have paid a price with their lives. These men were convicted of crimes that warranted the death penalt, Without actually knowing what each specific conviction was based on, ALL we know is that each man listed within this book was found guilty and executed, whether they were rightfully convicted or not. This is why the book is so real. There are human faces put to death here... Regardless of what side of the argument you stand on, FOR or AGAINST the death penalty, there are reasons here to justify both sides. As a law student/amatuer criminologist I would recommend this book to everyone who has an interest in criminal law (prosecutor or defense attorney). This book is of a serious nature and it should not be dismissed.




5. I bought this book because, like many others, I have an interest in the death penalty in the USA. This book is written in a very sensationalist form, which I didn't mind. Knowing what crimes the men and women committed, their last meal etc. is all interesting stuff. However, it was obvious to me that the author of this book gathered the information in it from various internet sites, specifically the official texas death row site.
   
   I found this to be rather unethical, any joe could have written this book and made money off it. Very little research went into the book.
   
   I wouldn't buy this book again, it offered no new information to me that I had not already read about on the net. If you are looking for a sensationalist book with some gory details and aspects of last meals etc. buy this book. If you are looking for in depth information on Texas Death Row do not buy this book. If you want to save money, then visit the Texas Death Row site, which is readily accessible via google.

3 comments about Angels of Death (St. Martin's True Crime Library).

1. Best book i have read all year! Mr King puts it all together in a book i could not put down till i was finished! What a horrible tragedy all the way around for this family!Mr. King is a fantastic author! Thank you, kenojude



2. I am an avid true crime reader and I must say, this is one of the worst books I have read in a long time.



3. I am a big fan of Gary C King.I have read all of his books this one was a sad and disturbing account of 2 boys who led a pretty bad life and the father who did the best he could but ended up paying for it with his life..I dont feel that justice was fully served in this case..You'll have to read the book to understand.I look forward to more books by Mr.King this wasnt one of my alltime favorites by Mr King Those would be Driven to Kill, Bloodlust and Web of Deceit. But I recommend it to all True Crime readers!

1 comments about Written in Blood: A History of Forensic Detection.

1. This book is chalk-full of tons of information!! It tells about almost every recorded crime, including famous ones such as The Black Dahlia, Charles Manson, and Jack the Ripper; including an interesting turn on who Jack the Ripper really was. There are also a couple pages of pictures from crime scenes such as Madeline Smith, Leonard Lake, John George Haigh, and the trial of Ted Bundy. If you're looking for an interesting read and you love forensics and crime, then this is the book for you!

5 comments about Die, Grandpa, Die (Pinnacle True Crime).

1. I have nothing but praise for this author, Dale Hudson. He chose a very
   difficult subject to write about, in that who really can say for sure
   if the effects of Zoloft had anything to do with the Pittman's murders.
   I appreciate the fact that he provided the reader both sides of the
   story so we could examine and weigh the facts, as well. A lot of true
   crime books, especially by those written by Ann Rule, have already
   chosen a side and, like it or lump it, we're stuck with that one
   opinion. This is the fourth book I have read by Hudson and I've found
   him to be fair and impartial in every one of them. In this book, DGD,
   I do believe Christopher was fully aware of what he was doing when he
   shot and killed his grandparents. There were just too many variables
   against him that didn't stack up, like the well planned fire that he
   said would give him lead time. I guess I really made my mind up that
   Christopher meant to kill his granparents when he cut the picture out
   of the newspaper and held it against the window in his jail cell for
   his friends to see. He laughed and pointed at the picture as if it was
   a joke! What he did was no joke and I just bet he's not laughing now
   that he has been transferred to the adult prison. Such a shame, this
   kid will spend 30 years in prison and doesn't stand a chance on the
   outside when he is released! Sorry, Christopher, it didn't have to be
   that way. You killed the two people who loved you the most.



2. I agree with other reviewers in that the author went to great length to research and report all the details, and I mean ALL the details. It is indeed a tragic story, but very difficult reading at times. Mr. Hudson's use of all the initials (SSRI, SLED, DJJ) got rather frustrating at times, because maybe I couldn't remember 100 pages and two days later what SSRI stood for, and to go back and try and find the explanation was a bit too much to ask. I have not yet finished the book - Christopher has just spent his first night free - so I'm still not sure how it ends. I don't really remember the case - maybe because I was on Zoloft and couldn't function right. Sarcasm? You betcha! I do understand that everyone reacts differently, but Zoloft was a life-saver for me and thousands of others as well. The other thing I noticed - and this was Pinnacle, not Mr. Hudson, was all the typographical errors. Unbelievable.



3. Dale Hudson, Die, Grandpa, Die (Pinnacle, 2006)
   
   I caught the title of this one in a press release in 2006 and knew that I would eventually have to read it. It's such a gloriously awful title that, really, how could the book be any good? It wasn't a terrible surprise to find out that my suspicions were correct.
   
   Die, Grandpa, Die reads less like a true crime book than it does a badly-written and entirely unedited first draft of a courtroom-drama novel, the kind of thing that borders on Law and Order fan fiction. Worse, it seems as if no one at Pinnacle had the time to do any copy-editing whatsoever; I've seen errors in releases from large presses, and they are getting more numerous all the time, but this is the first time I've ever seen a large-press book that contains more errors than I'm used to seeing in vanity press and self-published books. It's hard to find a page that does not contain some sort of easily-catchable spelling error (for instance, one witness talks about a dog's "oldactory" sense), and the first paragraph of almost every chapter contains some sort of outlandish sentence that's just painful to read. My favorite is at the beginning of Chapter 32: "Filling the courtroom were a lot of familiar faces, but there were also a lot of people who looked as if they were from drug companies and there in incognito [sic]." I'm certainly not a professional copy editor, but even I can see at least a dozen changes that could be made to that sentence to make it more readable; it'd be easier to just rewrite the silly thing altogether. In addition to this, the book's 383 pages could have easily been rendered in 150; excising the book's almost constant repetition would have made a great difference not only in length but in enjoyment for the hapless readers of this tome.
   
   For all that, I did not abandon the book, as I had almost decided to do earlier this week; I finished it. Why? Well, I'm not quite sure of that myself, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that this book, for all its repetition and error, has a kind of Da Vinci Code reading level about it. You don't keep turning the pages because you want to know what will happen, but because the writing is already so awful that you can't help but wonder what errors the next page will offer for you to laugh at.
   
   A thoroughly execrable book. (half)



4. I read what a few reviewers have written about this book and agree that the title is awful and there are some copy editing errors and mispelled words , however, it is not fair to fault the author for this. From what I understand, true crime authors do not choose their own titles nor do they have the final say so in the finished product, as all of this is
   ultimately the responsibility of the publishers. Outside of what has already been mentioned about the publisher, the author did a great job in researching and writing this story. I imagine a story about a 12-year-old kid who murdered his grandparents is not an easy one to write. Come on people, this is not great subject matter we're talking about here. This is not a novel, where you can manipulate the characters and story line to give it a happy ending. I cringe everytime I think of Christopher Pittman sneaking into his grandparents' bedroom and murdering them with a 12-guage shotgun. My heart ached for Joe and Joy Pittman as I read about this horrible act of murder. I believe Christopher was influenced by his medication the night of the murder and would not have done this had he been thinking clearly, yet it is still a horrible tragedy for this family. And what a nightmare for Christopher's father to face, knowing that your son was responsible for the murder of your parents. I think of my own son and how I would have felt had it happened to me. Die, Grandpa, Die is not an easy book to read, as it stirs up a lot of emotion, but it is a story that happens more and more each day. We now live in a world where parents fail to accept the responsibility of rearing their own children and, for whatever reason, grandparents are having to pick up the slack. It is difficult for grandparents to raise their grandchildren, as kids now-a-days live by a different code of conduct. I feel sorry for Christopher, but he took the lives of people and he now has to accept the punishment for the crime. May God have mercy on him for the next 30 years.



5. This book was so poorly written and edited that I was unable to get even halfway through it. Another reviewer has already gone into detail about this, but I feel compelled to chime in because I am flabbergasted by this book's 4-star average rating.
   True crime is not a genre known for its spectacularly written books, but most of the time the books are written well enough to keep the reader interested and to convey the story in a comprehensible manner.
   The sheer volume of grammatical and spelling errors, as well as the author's (or editor's? or both?) unfortunate fondness for the comma render this book unreadable.

2 comments about The Mystique of Conspiracy: Oswald, Castro, and the CIA.

1. As the leading civilian authority on the U.S. Secret Service (and President Kennedy's interaction with the agency), I was much interested in this book by Brian Bugge; his pedigree speaks for itself. If you are at all interested in the anti-Castro Cuban connection to the case, as well as the CIA's responsibilities in this area, you will not go wrong in purchasing this work. Vince Palamara



2. Actually this essentially "no conspiracy" book is rather good in that the author especially given his background, shares useful insights into the minds of the intelligence agencies and indicates how unlikely it would have been that Oswald was part of a plot. The author is open minded enough to accept possible conspiracy. A rare level headed book on a subject that invariable gets clouded by myth, blurred fact and fiction and heated passionate but frequently ill informed debate.