Book Description
In Chicago and New York, in sleazy speakeasies and on Easy Street, to the strains of jazz and the beat of the Charleston, the twenties roared. The horrors of the Great War behind it, the decade went mad with abandon—and mad over the movies, radio, telephones, and the motorcar. But beneath the froth and the folly, the razzle and dazzle, lay a darker world, a hard and often violent world, for the twenties belonged as much to the gangster as they did to the flapper. The stories in this vastly entertaining collection of whodunnits crafted by talents like Amy Myers, Robert Randisi, Jon L. Breen, Edward D. Hoch, Marilyn Todd, and Mike Stotter reflect the allures—and the deadly dangers—of both those worlds.
Book Description
Enlisting in the hundred-year-old debate about the identity of the world's first serial killer, this Mammoth investigation introduces the facts of the famous case and presents some of the most convincing, if conflicting, theories of the murderer's identity.
Customer Reviews:
Very good.......2007-09-06
This book presents a different chapter on a different suspect and each argument is very compelling.
This variety means that the reader is always entertained.
Thoroughly enjoyed it and would definately recommend it.
Recommended Reference.......2006-06-04
Half of "The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper" is a reference book about the Whitechapel murders. It contains witness statements, victim biographies, autopsy reports, police opinions, weather at the time of the crime, and much more. I was really glad to read through this material because the facts are so often distorted or ignored in documentaries about Jack the Ripper. This part of the book is a very important read for anyone interested in the Whitechapel/Jack the Ripper murders.
The reason that I gave "The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper" four stars instead of five was because of the other half of the book, entitled "Current Views." This part of the book is made up of modern essays speculating the identity of Jack the Ripper. Most of these essays are (to put it euphemistically) strange and implausible. This is roughly 300 pages in the middle of the book. Martin Fido's essay (David Cohen and the Polish Jew Theory) stood out from the other essays. It was fascinating, well researched, and believable.
Just the facts... a breath of fresh air..........2006-04-24
This was a breath of fresh air in the overwhelmingly polluted atmosphere of stale Ripper-media. Though it is a thick book, it is a very well written easy read in chronological order. Maxim Jakubowski and Nathan Braund do an exquisit job of presenting the facts and documentation of JtR. In order, each victim's case is presented along with transcripts of their respective documents where available, including autopsy reports & police memoranda. There is little to nill of the authors opinions or "out there" hypothesis and theories of "whodunit" that is so cliche in many of the books as of late. Just the facts!
The usual saucy suspects.......2003-10-30
Because the perpetrator of the 1888 London slayings known as the Whitechapel Murders was never convicted as such the case has become the most popular whodunit in history. Every armchair detective in the world has his pet theory as to who the killer was and why he was compelled to slash to death women in the dead of night. Fortunately "The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper", published in 1999, is both informative and fun to read. I say fortunately, because it presents a kaleidoscope of conjectures and contradictions from Ripperologists who here present the theories they have published in different books. (Colin Wilson, whose own essay is the last of 16, takes credit for the term "Ripperologist".) This brotherhood is evidently a very chancy clique, characterized by tense camaraderie and frequent animosity. Shirley Harrison, in discussing an alleged Ripper diary (she's supported by Colin Wilson), says an informed debate sank to "a low level of vitriolic abuse". No wonder, with all these different ideas: Paul Harrison and Bruce Paley agree on their working-class suspect, while Martin Fido concentrates on the Jewish aspect, and Sue and Andy Parlour favor the Freemason angle. (Philip Sugden was either not invited to this party or declined the invitation.) M.J.Trow plays a little prank on the reader to indicate how easy it is to categorize anyone -- you, me, Lewis Carroll -- as a serial killer. Then there is the legend of the Duke of Clarence, who married a "model" of the Catholic faith, siring her child. The potential scandal so spooked the Court it sanctioned a series of homicides. All this has been fodder for some extravagant fiction, but as Simon Whitechapel observes: "If the murders were carried out to silence blackmailers, why were they so brutal? Why, in other words, were they so public?" (His own arcane conspiracy theory combines Roman Empire decadence with Victorian kitsch.) A more stable, if less romantic, explanation is the connection between the Irish Nationalist cause and the Conservative government's awareness of similarities in the Whitechapel murders and Fenian terrorist tactics. "The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper", well-edited by Maxim Jakubowski and Nathan Braund, offers many bonuses, including a chronology and autopsy reports. At the end is a bibliography, listing dozens of Ripper-related books, about 40 since 1988 alone. There is also a filmography, beginning with something called "Farmer Spudd and his Missus Take a Trip to Town" (1915) and including 1953's "Here Come the Girls", in which Bob Hope is threatened by a character named Jack the Slasher. So who was Saucy Jacky? An insane surgeon? An over-zealous reformer? An angry boyfriend? Peter Turnbull states bluntly: "Jack the Ripper was not a man: he was a myth." On the other hand, A.P Wolf has an article titled "Jack the Myth" in which a favorite candidate is promoted. It is A.P. Wolf who invites us to the party: "Go on, check it out," this Ripperologist writes. "The 'Final Solution' could be yours."
A Good Start..........2003-01-31
This book features about 16(if I remember correctly)different essays on the identity of JTR. Most are well-written;and while some of the suspects are either ridiculous or proven to be innocent, it is a good starting point for amateur ripperologists. This book shows that there's many different opinions and varied viewpoints on the identity of JTR. We'll probably never know who he was, so I guess this is as good a place to start as any.
Book Description
Using the latest modern technology available to forensic science, crime scene investigators answer questions others never even thought to ask. Here are over 30 fascinating modern cases of forensic detective work, featuring the whole range of forensic techniques: genetic fingerprinting, blood splatter analysis, laser ablation, toxicology, and ballistics analysis. The investigators trust only the evidence to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves: the victims.
These cases, usually successful — but sometimes dangerously flawed — offer a remarkable insight into real-life crime scene investigation.
Book Description
The seventeenth century was a time ripe with murder, anarchy, war, and political and religious intrigue, of which the Gunpowder Plot is only one example. This unputdownable new anthology from Mike Ashley presents 25 whodunits set in those turbulent times—also the age of the Witchfinder General, ‘revenge’ tragedies, and the colonization of America. Stories of murder and mayhem centre on the true role of Guy Fawkes, the English Civil War and the fate of Charles I, plus the lost colony of Roanoke and the tale of Pocahontas. The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunits is a fast paced anthology about a thrilling time in British history.
Customer Reviews:
Another Great Collection of Murder Mysteries!.......2006-08-24
Here's a Reader's Advisory tip you can take to the bank: Whenever you come across a new 'Whodunnits' book edited by Mike Ashley, BUY IT! Ashley has the Midas touch when it comes to assembling crackerjack collections of murder mysteries; He is simply the best at what he does!
Ashley's latest 'Mammoth Book of' features two dozen stories set in England and America in the 17th Century.
This Jacobean era was a rich period of history. Encompassing the reigns of kings James I, James II, Charles I, Charles II, the English Civil War, and settlements in America, these years provide fertile material for many of the stories contained in Ashley's book. The cast of characters includes kings, consorts, lords, ladies and assorted common folk along with the likes of William Shakespeare, Henry Hudson, Walter Raleigh and Francis Bacon involved in murders most foul but also very entertaining!
In stories like 'Satan in the Star Chamber,' 'A Taste for Ducking,' 'The Philadelphia Slaughterman' and 'The Curious Contents of a Coffin,' a stellar group of authors including Susanna Gregory, Peter Tremayne, Ian Morson, Michael Jecks and Deryn Lake offer entertaining tales of murder. Greed, treason, intrigue, revenge and madness drive the action in these page-turners, all of which are cleverly resolved at tale's end.
This A-1 collection will give you many hours of reading enjoyment! Pick up a copy ASAP!
Book Description
This compelling volume presents thirty-five of the most intriguing crime cases that still defy solution, as reported by leading authors and journalists in the field of crime writing. Expanded and updated, this new edition of The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crime includes such recent cases as British backpacker Peter Falconio, lost in the Australian outback, and reporting as diverse as Colin Wilson's look at the Zodiac Killer of California and Russell Miller's examination of the ongoing obsession with LA's Black Dahlia Killer, to Sydney Horley on the woman who was cleared of murdering her husband and went on to become a Broadway star, and Philip Sugden on that most mythic criminal enigma of them all, Jack the Ripper.
Nearly all the cases involve one or more acts of murder, and all are left with a question mark hanging over them—real-life whodunits that offer a continuing challenge to all who find fascination in the criminal mind.
Customer Reviews:
it's got variety.......2007-09-06
it's true that since the essays are by many different authors there is a great range in the quality of writing and the validity of the content. However, this is a Mammoth book and enough of the articles are excellent that I realy don't have any qualms recommending this book. Some of the sections are dry and some of the writers seem to have adopted the title of "Armchair Detective" but alot of it is just plain interesting and a good chunk of it is obscure.
Highlights:
The Obsession With the Black Dahlia (The Black Dahlia Murder)
A Coincidence of Corpses (The Brighton Trunk Murders)
Jack the Ripper (The Whitechapel Murders)
Florence Maybrick (The Death of James Maybrick)
however if you're looking for something a bit more constistantly awesome I recommend The Cases That Haunt Us it's by and FBI profiler, so you know he's a bit better than an armchair detective.
not stellar, but retains interest.......2004-08-24
This book's overall effect is uneven, since it's a compilation of many different authors' works. It is definitely not meant as scholarship. Some of the essays (such as Philips Sugden's "Jack the Ripper") give a thorough overview of the case discussed. Many are not so worthwhile. A few of the stories (e.g., F. Tennyson Jesse's "Checkmate" and Morris Markey's "Who Killed Joe Elwell?") present the basic evidence and then draw a wild conclusion that is not necessarily supported by it, while others do no more than express the writer's personal feelings about the crime and suspect (e.g., Sydney Horler's "The Hoop-La Murder Trial"). As the writings were made during various decades, the prejudices of these different times are evident. Authors occasionally assume the reader is well-versed in stories that are only local or have now been forgotten. And because several of the authors writing on American crimes are British, the American reader can amuse herself with their errors and biases. (Horler's essay, originally published in 1940, mentions a barbershop quartet song called "Sweet Adelaide" [Adeline, duh] and refers to "the highly-spiced sex magazines in which American journalism abounds.")
Yet, reading this book gave me some unexpected insights. I was shocked to see how many obvious miscarriages of justice have taken place in the public eye, often due to personal prejudices on the part of judges and officials. (For example, Louis Stark's report on the Sacco and Vanzetti case quotes Governor Fuller as rejecting the testimony of 18 witnesses because "they were all Italians".) And it was instructive to see how the public reacted to these notorious crimes. The outcomes of several trials covered in the book were apparently decided by local opinion. In one story, an innocent man commits suicide because he has received so many anonymous hate letters. And the brilliance of some defense lawyers' testimony shows how difficult it is to actually solve some crimes "beyond a reasonable doubt".
Many of the authors are well-known: they include Damon Runyon, Rebecca West, James Thurber, and Irving Wallace. Fans might enjoy their contributions to crime writing.
Bargain bin blech.......2003-09-28
Thin and perfunctory renderings of common information: an absolutely dull stew with no visceral effect whatsoever. The historical content is vague & undocumented, and only marginally above that of pulp magazines. There are so many better books than this: don't bother!
I just wasn't too impressed . . ........2003-08-31
This book is a compilation of short works written by many different writers over the last 150 years or so. Therefore, the quality of writing varied greatly from chapter to chapter.
Each chapter is devoted to a separate unsolved crime (mostly murders), going all the way back to Jack the Ripper. Some of the chapters were merely a couple of pages, and were unable to do much except describe the bare facts of the case.
I had to give this book 3 stars, because some of the chapters WERE interesting. But some of them were drudgery to get through.
Mammoth Book!!!.......2001-05-08
No truer statement has ever been made! If you like true crime books you MUST pick this one up. Like other Wilkes books it is compiled of essays written about unsolved crime. They are presented VERY well and some are very good reading. The good thing about this book is that they take all kinds of cases and present them to you for your thoughts. Some of the crimes were 'solved' but the evidence was flimsy, at best. Some of the crimes (Jack the Ripper, The Zodiac Killer, etc.) were never solved. For you armchair crime solvers this book has everything you could possibly want.
Book Description
Sheriff Dan Rhodes is used to getting calls about escaped cows and missing tractors. When Bud Turley, one of the towns more peculiar characters, entrusts the police department with a big tooth he claims belongs to Bigfoot, Rhodes and his deputies treat it as an amusing breath of fresh air. Things take a more serious turn, however, when they get a call about a Bigfoot sighting, and a dead body. Buds best friend and fellow believer in Bigfoot is lying dead in the woods. Whoever killed him didnt leave a trace. Was it the feral hogs that have been running rampant? Did the two friends have a falling out? Or is there really some legendary creature lurking in that untouched part of Blacklin County? Criders thirteenth mystery for the Texas sheriff gives all the twists, turns, and local color that fans of the series have come to expect.
Customer Reviews:
#13 in the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series.......2007-06-07
Every region has a naturally scary place; and in Blacklin County, Texas, it's Big Woods. That's where the brush is thick, feral hogs run free, little Ronnie Bolton disappeared ten years ago, and -- according to local legend -- Bigfoot still makes his home. So when Sheriff Dan Rhodes gets a call about a dead body found in Big Woods, even he is more than a little apprehensive about the discovery.
The body turns out to belong to Larry Colley, a local semi-handyman who once claimed to have been beamed up by a UFO. To Rhodes' way of thinking, Larry's buddy and fellow Bigfoot-hunter Bud Turley might be to blame. Then again, there's Chester Johnson, who found Larry and was supposedly spooked by Bigfoot at the same time. How about either one of Larry's ex-wives, who don't seem all that broken up by his departure? When the elderly owner of a nearby general store is found dead as well, it's obvious that she saw something incriminating regarding Larry's murder. Are any of these events related to Ronnie Bolton's disappearance, so long ago?
While the good high sheriff is figuring everything out, some local college and high school students are busy with an archaeological dig around some mammoth bones. But another, smaller set of bones surfaces along the adjacent creek bed, and it's a sure bet that Ronnie Bolton has finally been found. What's the truth behind it all, past and present?
This 13th installment of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series takes place, as usual, in a purely rural countryside with an array of quirky individuals who don't even take their caps off in restaurants anymore. Visiting Blackin County is always a treat, even though we always encounter it under less than favorable circumstances. Rhodes' methodical investigations never get tiresome.
Wonderful tale with a strong Texas twang.......2006-10-08
When local troublemaker Bud Turley shows up at the sheriff's office with a huge tooth, about the only thing Sheriff Dan Rhodes is sure of is that it doesn't belong to Bigfoot like Bud thinks it does. Sure enough, the a teacher from the local community college identifies it as belonging to a mammoth--not especially rare in Texas. But before the scientists can organize a dig, a body--this one fully human--shows up not far from the mammoth. The boddy belongs to Bud's best friend and is only the first of two sudden deaths.
Sheriff Rhodes isn't sure what's going on, but he's pretty convinced that the two murders have something to do with each other, and he has a hunch that there's a connection to the long-ago disappearance of a young boy from the same area. He's also pretty sure that bigfoot isn't responsible, even if the man who discovered the body claims he saw a huge shadow that could only belong to bigfoot and even though the Texas bigfoot hunting association is all over the place. Also all over the place are a pair of authors from Dallas who've given up on writing romance and have now decided that they need to write mystery, featuring a handsome Texas Sheriff.
Author Bill Crider spins a wonderful tale with a strong Texas twang. Sheriff Dan Rhodes laconically investigates, struggles with his deputies who can be counted on to deliver as little news as slowly as possible, with his diet--which consists of too many Dairy Queen Blizzards, and with both local troublemakers and those brought in from out of town by the possibility of a bigfoot run amuck. Rhodes isn't the most physical of sheriffs, and he may not even be the smartest, but he's got plenty of small-town common sense, an understanding of the way people work, and the patience to work through the toughest mystery.
A MAMMOTH MURDER is a charming story--one that grows on you as you read, and that keeps up reader interest from start to finish.
superb often humorous police procedural.......2006-04-22
In Blacklin County, Texas Bud Turley finds an enormous ancient looking tooth in a section of woods that only he and his friend Larry Colley frequent as both insist Bigfoot lives in the area and many residents either believe them or just fear these two crazy tough guys. Bud brings his treasure to the police station and asks Sheriff Dan Rhodes to safely hold it until a paleontologist from the nearby community college evaluates what Turley claims is a find that proves that Bigfoot lives in the woods; Rhodes assumes the object is the remains of a prehistoric animal.
The next day Bud is found dead with Colley screaming he was the victim of Bigfoot trying to silence him; Rhodes assumes a more human culprit killed Turley or perhaps it was the work of feral hogs. When an elderly woman is murdered nearby, Rhodes ties that death to that of Turley and has no doubt a human is the murderer. However, his effort to determine who is hampered as the crime scenes have been tampered with by Turley and Colley telling the world they can prove Bigfoot exists leading to Bigfoot mania from people coming to Blacklin Country from around the country and a few other spots.
Few authors if any can combine humor with a strong police investigation better than Bill Crider does. In Rhodes' thirteenth appearance, he serves as the serious element working on a murder case while a horde of eccentric outsiders are drawn to the area because of the alleged Bigfoot tooth finding and devastate the crime scene. As Rhodes ponders why him instead of the glamorous TV CSI dudes, A MAMMOTH MURDER is Mr. Crider at his best with a superb often humorous police procedural.
Harriet Klausner
Average customer rating:
- Interesting book of celebrity death
- A Bit Skeptical
- Decent Enough Read
- A Curious Book
|
The Mammoth Book of Celebrity Murder: Murder Played Out in the Spotlight of Maximum Publicity
Chris Ellis , and
Julie Ellis
Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Murder & Mayhem | True Accounts | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
True Crime | True Accounts | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Ellis, Julie | ( E ) | Authors, A-Z | Romance | Subjects | Books
Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
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Book Description
This A-list selection looks in depth at 25 headline murder cases involving those who live their lives in the full beam of the media spotlight, including film starlets, TV actors, music legends, comedians, fashion moguls, movie directors, playwrights, and aristocrats from the start of the twentieth century to the present day. All, from Gianni Versace and John Lennon to Marvin Gaye and Patrizia Gucci, are well known, and in each instance the story of their untimely death is retold and the degree to which fame and its trappings played a part in the final outcome is explored. The Mammoth Book of Celebrity Murder offers a salacious examination of the murders that are played out in the glare of maximum publicity and paparazzi.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting book of celebrity death.......2006-09-15
I found myself hardly able to put this huge book down once I started it. I have to agree with some of the other reviewers, some of the facts of the book are wrong, but overall I found it to be an interesting read. If you are into the true crime genre and are interested in celebrities, then this is the book for you! It proves also that just because you are rich and famous that doesn't exclude you from having something tragic and unexpected happen to you. Enjoy!
A Bit Skeptical.......2006-03-22
The book is a good read. But - I agree with both reviewers below: The editing is atrocious; and the fact-checking was careless. There are some outright doubtful statements. The Lana Turner story involves the shooting of her lover by her daughter. This took place in 1958. The book describes the event as "the new Hollywood scandal which had already been dubbed 'Lanagate'." Lanagate? As in Watergate? The Watergate affair took place in 1972. Those Hollywood types must be psychic, eh?
Decent Enough Read .......2005-09-21
This book is good if you want a synopsis of different murder cases involving celebrities. My only disappointment with this book was the obvious inaccuracies in some of the stories. For instance, Ann Woodward shot her husband in their home in Nassau County, New York - NOT Nassau, in the Bahamas! Also, Tupac Shakur was murdered in 1996 - not 1994. In addition, the book refers to O.J. Simpson as a former football player with the LA Lakers team - anyone who follows sports knows that the Lakers is NOT a football, but a BASKETBALL team!
Although these inaccuracies annoyed me a bit, it didn't stop me from reading it. I'd still recommend this book if you are a true crime buff.
A Curious Book.......2005-08-04
I'd like to know the story behind the publication of this book, if there is one. It is one of the most fascinating, engrossing books I have read, yet the editing/proofreading is just atrocious. It's as if the authors wrote their first draft and the copy person grabbed it from their hands and dashed it down to the typesetting office in an effort to make the 5:00 train. While much of the language is obviously British, and therefore some of the spellings are variations of American spellings, there are words that are just flat out wrong, including wrong meanings, verb tenses, spellings, etc. However, all of that doesn't negate the incredible fascination of the stories told and the details in the telling. The authors obviously know their stuff, and they provide much more of the facts than we ever got in the papers. Fun stuff.
Customer Reviews:
Irritating philosophical discursions ruin good narrative.......2002-12-02
This book is a long, leisurely ramble through the gruesome history of murder and sex crime, starting with the Roman Emperors and ending at 7 AM on January 24, 1989 when Ted Bundy was led into the execution chamber at Starke Prison, Florida. Long sections are devoted to the Ismailis and the Order of Assassins, Vlad the Impaler, the Marquis de Sade, and the author's philosophical speculations on why men become criminals. His theory of criminology is influenced by A.E. van Vogt's speculations on "the right man" and the "dominant five percent," and on Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. (After reading this book, I'm sure that Colin Wilson would classify the motive for the recent sniper killings as the need for self-esteem).
Maslow believed that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and that certain lower needs need to be satisfied before higher needs can be addressed. There is a hierarchy of needs (physiological, safety, love, and esteem) that must be satisfied before a person can act unselfishly. As long as we are motivated to satisfy these cravings, we are moving toward self-actualization. Satisfying needs is healthy. Blocking gratification makes us sick or evil.
Wilson attempts to use Maslow's hierarchy of needs to find historical patterns in crime. For instance if men are starving or homeless, they might commit crimes to satisfy their physiological needs. According to the author, men didn't start indulging in sex crimes (to satisfy the need for love or self-esteem) until they were clothed, fed, and housed, i.e. sometime after the Industrial Revolution.
The Victorians invented rape? I don't think so.
If it weren't for the author's philosophical discursions and his attitude toward victims versus the "dominant five percent" of society (CEOs, Prime Ministers, and leaders of all sorts, including criminals), I'd give "The Mammoth Book of True Crime 2" another star. Colin Wilson is a masterful narrator when he sticks to the actual facts of the crimes. But his tendency to denigrate victims ("they were just prostitutes," "she had a face like a horse") and defend certain mass murderers, e.g. Hasan bin Sabbah (who founded the Order of Assassins, and became the first Old Man of the Mountain), Vlad the Impaler, and Charlie Manson, leads me to recommend against reading this book unless you already have strong convictions of your own concerning murderer versus victim.
A much better, more coherent book about crime is "Forty Years of Murder" by the British forensic pathologist, Keith Simpson.
Amazon.com
Proving once again that fact is scarier than fiction, British writer Colin Wilson presents this seam-bursting collection of depravity through the ages. From Ivan the Terrible to Jack the Ripper to Ted Bundy, this haunting cast of characters will have you leaving the lights on all night. Organized by century and types of killers--assassins, pirates, serial killers, and the like--the book traces the evolution of crime within the context of greater societal changes. The author blames the birth of sex crimes on too much leisure time in the 19th century and credits big cities and their crowded conditions for the emergence of the modern serial killer. He also offers a whirlwind tour of torture and cruelty in answering the question, "What makes a monster?"
Wilson is one of the most prolific and eclectic writers of our time, with more than 80 books to his credit on subjects as varied as existential fiction, philosophy, the occult, aliens, and the life of Aleister Crowley. Though often dismissed by critics as an obsessive crackpot, Wilson maintains a large following around the world due to his captivating, conversational writing style and ability to synthesize an impressive amount of esoteric information. The Mammoth Book of the History of Murder is an illuminating volume on a dark subject, written by a born storyteller.
Book Description
Murder provided public entertainment for the Caesars of ancient Rome, and executions drew huge, enthusiastic crowds in Elizabethan England and at the Bastille in revolutionary France. The thirst for blood and cry for deadly vengeance lie deep in humankind, as criminologist Colin Wilson authoritatively illustrates in this millennial history of the most heinous of human crimes. Analyzing the tangle of motives behind murder and examining an astonishing variety of homicidal methods over the past twenty centuries, Wilson not only profiles infamous historical figures like Vlad the Impaler, Ivan the Terrible, Gilles de Rais, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, Marquis de Sade, and Jack the Ripper, but also studies particular categories of homicide and such phenomena as the Jacobean witch hunts and gangland killings of America's Jazz Age. Wilson's chronicle includes, too, the serial killings, random shooting sprees, and cult murders that have troubled more recent times. The comprehensive history and illuminating analysis of how humans kill, and why, make crime-expert Wilson's volume one that no true-crime fan or student of criminology will want to miss.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting subject...mediocre execution.......2005-06-13
The History of Murder is a book that tells a lot of tales of crimes through the centuries in roughly chronological order. Though called a history, there is not much real historical education that one can get from this book. Instead, we get tales of the more sensational crimes with just enough vague discussion about trends in homicide to justify the "history" title.
That might have been okay. I actually picked up this book for the sensational aspects, not really hoping for any great insights. Unfortunately, the author Colin Wilson is not a very good writer, and he drains a lot of the life out of this work, making it not more than a two-star effort.
Wilson's biggest problem is that he thinks he's a better writer than he really is. So what we get is a lot of shallow sociological and psychological commentary that is of doubtful value and is generally boring. He also interjects himself into the book quite a bit, removing any objectivity a work like this should have. In addition, he can be redundant.
Add to this the lack of an index or any sort of notes or bibliography, and this book is neither good as a history or as entertainment. The stories themselves often merit enough interest to make the book semi-readable, but generally, this is a book to not even start.
A good read.......2004-07-19
Recommendation
I recommend this book to anyone who are in sixth grade and up because it is a book about friendship. For an example, Rocky helped Molly get her dog Petula back from Nockman. "I will help you get Petula back. That is what friends do." Another example is when Molly, Rocky, Petula, and Nockman went back to England Rocky said, "Now we can be one big happy family." I learned that your best friend could be part of your family. In conclusion, if you like mystery and fiction this is the book for you.
If I can still keep reading it..........2003-04-18
I thought that this book was insightful and very informative...it may not have gone to every detail of each of the murders, murderers and crimes...it kept me reading on and on...and I still read...If I can still read the book over and over, then to me its a very good book.
FRIGHTENING.......2000-11-14
It's unfathomable the evil that man is capable of. Yes, I've read the sensational headlines of serial killers, mass murderers, etc. but this book gives full details of the realization of these crimes. To read blow by blow descriptions of the paths that these individuals take is shocking to say the least; especially the descriptions of the cannibalism. I like gory, horror stories but true life horror and gore is terrifying. A book not for the feint hearted. Even though I cringed throughout the book, it was like looking at a scary movie with my hands over my eyes - I had to keep peeking just to see what would happen. Truth is stranger than fiction.
A very big book with very little credibility.......2000-07-04
I found this book in the sociology section, but it belongs among works of fiction. For instance, although the book is over 600 pages long, it contains no footnotes, a red flag to a critical reader. Alas, the author looses all credibility when he asserts that mentally ill people may not be ill at all; rather, they have telepathic abilities beyond society's ken. This book, however, is not a total waste; it is lurid and macarbe. Steven King fans would be delighted.
Book Description
A compelling true-crime collection of infamous murder cases cracked by forensic know-how. In the tradition of the popular top-sellers The Mammoth Book of True Crime and The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crime, this volume offers an absorbing anthology of thirty actual murder cases in which forensic evidence ensured criminal justice - from the blood evidence in the murder trial of Dr. Sam Sheppard, the case that inspired the TV series The Fugitive, to the bite marks on the daughter of Lindy Chamberlain, the Australian woman who claimed her child had been abducted by a dingo, to the handwriting that convicted Texas attorney Albert T. Patrick of a millionaire businessman's murder.
Books:
- The Master Cleanser
- The Prey: A Novel
- The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: Poems for Men
- The Sandman: Endless Nights
- The Soul Catcher: A Maggie O'Dell Novel
- The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game (Everyman's Library)
- the Torso
- The Wisdom of Crowds
- The Wrong Stuff: Flying on the Edge of Disaster
- Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations...One School at a Time
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Recommended Books
- Princess Mononoke
- Hey, Little Ant
- Trichoderma And Gliocladium
- Advances in Natural Computation: Second International Conference, ICNC 2006, Xi'an, China, September
- Art Deco Interiors: Decoration and Design Classics of the 1920s and 1930s
- Fundamentals of Acoustics
- Catworld: A Feline Encyclopedia
- Architecture and Design Library: Bungalow Style
- 250 Years of Lomonosov Porcelain: St. Petersburg 1744-1994
- A field guide to Melaleucas
The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories
The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunnits: 24 Murder Mysteries from the Age of Gunpowder, Treason and Plot (Mammoth Book)
The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunits
The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries (Mammoth Book of)
Pulp Masters
