I’m not being dramatic. I burst into tears during my lunch break reading Åsne Seierstad’s devastating and chilling account of the 2011 terrorist attack in Norway. I thought about closing my book and pulling myself together, but I was too invested. Instead, I just let my hair cover my face and hope no one noticed. One of Us starts with two teenagers running for their lives. They’re being hunted by a strange man in a police officer’s uniform on a small Norwegian island. Unable to find […]
The devil is bathed in blue light, rides a white horse, and is voted into office.
As the sun descended in the west, a restless crowd gathered before a cedar tree. There was a chill in the December air, and it was thick with the tangy smell of sweat, fear and anticipation for what was about to happen. Boxed in by cars, a young 20 year old man named Cordie Cheek stood before a ladder with a rope around his neck. A teeming mass of men, women, and children threw epithets at him, and shared a palpable sense that justice was […]
The sea will tell, if it can get a word in edgewise
Vincent Bugliosi sure did think a lot of himself. And he had every right to–he’s the guy who put Charles Manson away. He won almost every case he tried, whether as prosecutor or defense attorney. He wrote Helter Skelter, a fantastic book that enthralled and terrified me in equal measure. And the Sea Will Tell, however, is a bit of a different story. Covering the Palmyra murders case, the book starts off promisingly enough with the tale of two couples sailing separately to the distant island of Palmyra, both hoping […]
Achieving New Heights of Incompetency
It’s starting to bug that every true crime book now has to be the “crime of the century” or, in this case, “the kidnapping that changed America”. Want to know what big change this historic kidnapping caused? The crime of kidnapping was changed from a misdemeanor to a felony. That’s it! That was pretty much its only legacy; no one that bungled this case even learned their lesson. A bunch of people failed spectacularly here and the only outcome was that kidnapping now had a […]
Good Intentions, Horrible Execution (No Pun Intended) (I Probably Shouldn’t Make Serial Killer Puns)
It’s important that I stress this first: Larry Crompton seems like a wonderful person and his dedication to the victims, even after his retirement from law enforcement, is more than admirable. That said, and even he agrees with me in the introduction, a writer he is not. And I don’t place the blame entirely on his shoulders either; the publisher should not just fire their editors, but draw and quarter them and then literally set them on fire. When the possessive form of “it” makes […]
It was Arthur Leigh Allen. I Just Saved You Time.
Graysmith wrote what is considered the definitive book on the Zodiac back in the 80’s. It was so well researched and well done that when someone in a police department retired and another officer inherited the Zodiac case, that book was required reading. This is not that book. Due to libel, Graysmith wasn’t able to publish the circumstantial evidence that made Arthur Leigh Allen the best bet for the Zodiac. So once Allen kicked it (yeah, I know I shouldn’t be so flippant, but Allen […]