Murderabilia: A History of Crime in 100 Objects, by Harold Schechter

Book number 15 for 2024; 5/5 stars.

The general public’s fascination with true crime is not a recent phenomenon, even though it seems to have gained great popularity in the last decade or so. In Murderabilia, Harold Schechter gives a chronological encapsulation of 100 crimes that are associated with some sort of memorabilia from the crime or crime scene.

Long before police learned to isolate crime scenes with that magic yellow tape that somehow keeps people from crossing a line, people flocked to crime scenes by the thousands, trampling evidence, and taking it home with them. The first photo in this book is of the scene of Belle Gunness’s “murder farm,” where “thousands of curiosity-seekers flocked to her burned-down home to gawk at the cellar where her charred corpse and those of her children were found.” In one case, when a criminal was hanged, the noose was cut up and sold for “a guinea per inch.” 

The crimes in this book begin in 1808 with the murder of “Omie Wise” and go, in chronological order, all the way to 2014 and the “Slender Man Stabbing.” Many of these crimes I have heard of. Some are well-known by just about anyone; Bonnie and Clyde (featuring the car in which they were killed), H.H. Holmes (featuring a shovel used to bury two of his victims), The Zodiac Killer (featuring the infamous coded note), and of course, Ted Bundy (featuring his modified VW Bug). There are many I have not heard of, and some I know of because of true crime podcasts that I have listened to in recent years. I was pleased to see that he even included the murder of Kitty Genovese, in NYC in 1964, which was the inspiration of Harlan Ellison’s short story, “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs.” That crime also resulted in our 911 emergency calling system.

There are 100 short chapters (none more than three pages), each one featuring a piece of memorabilia associated with the crime. The book is very well-written and fascinating to read. I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing. It does get rather graphic, at times, and I will say that, while there have been perverse people all throughout history, the crimes tend to get more violent and perverse the further forward in time we go. That certainly makes one wonder about the state of humanity in general.

If you’re into true crime, this is a very accessible read on the subject. 

TTFN, y’all!

Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann

Book number 5 for 2023; 5/5 stars

This is a hard review to write. Not because I didn’t like the book, because I did. I really, really liked it. I had been looking forward to reading this, and in when it was returned to the library, and there were no holds on it, I jumped at the chance.

David Grann has done a magnificent job of chronicling a series of crimes that I had never heard about. This was not something I ever heard about in any history classes (or at least I don’t remember it). Mr. Grann compiled hours and hours of research, much of which required him to travel and find people, interviewing them to find what they remembered.

In the early twentieth century, crimes were perpetrated against the Osage Native Americans, all to steal the rights to the oil under their land. In the late nineteenth century, the Osage were forced to leave their lands in Kansas and were relegated (as was done to so many Native Americans) to a small plot of land in Oklahoma. Ironically, that land turned out to have the richest oil reserve in the country underneath it, and the government had to pay the Osage for it, which made the Osage some of the wealthiest people in the country. White men couldn’t stand that, so they (one, in particular) set out to finagle a way to steal that money from them. 

David Grann has written an excellent narrative about these crimes. It is a jarring story, which, at times, caused me to be ashamed to be a white man. The bigotry and rampant greed, with not even a hint of morality, is disgusting and shocking. But I guess when you don’t consider a race of people to even be people, morals aren’t required.

Grann even helped to solve a couple of the crimes that had remained unsolved, through the years, through his relentless research. It was, of course, too late to bring any justice, as the people involved were long dead, but it provided some answers to lingering questions.

Through this narrative, we also get a glimpse of the beginnings of the FBI, under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover. I found that to be fascinating as well. The Feds had to be brought in because the local and state governments were just as involved in the corruption as the individuals who were committing the crimes.

I now plan to watch the movie that came out last year, to see how it compares.

TTFN, y’all!

Murder USA, by Ken Rossignol

Book number 39 for 2023; 2/5 Goodreads stars

Okay. This book is a hot mess, and I think that’s being generous. The only reason I did not DNF this book was because of the entertainment value.

No, murder is not entertaining. But this author’s writing is. It’s entertaining because it’s so BAD!

Most of the chapters in this book are comprised of articles written for the author’s tabloid “newspaper,” called St. Mary’s Today (which is almost impossible to find online). It looks very similar to things like The National Enquirer and World News, or whatever those other tabloids are called.

The worst thing about this book is the editing and grammatical mistakes. There are sentences that don’t make sense, wrong verb tenses, and so on. In addition, there is scarcely a story in there that he doesn’t editorialize with his extreme bigoted opinion. He hates the police, he hates the sheriff’s department, he hates the criminals. Does he like anyone? I’m not sure.

Here’s an example of the bad editing, a dangling participle, I believe. “A conversion van then drove up to the store, which had driven into the parking lot from the direction of Clements on Rt. 234.” I’m pretty sure that the store did not drive into the parking lot.

Here’s one sentence that makes no sense: “But the Maryland authorities who allowed him out of a mental hospital and pronounced him sane, raped and murder Devine the same year he was released.”

And another: “The gun which was discovered nearby the store, if indeed it had been carried by Bowles as part of his break-in to the store, giving anyone in the store who saw an armed man breaking into the front door, sufficient cause to fire.”

There was one place where he described “woods and grass surrounding the lake” as “moving parts.”

Some of the stories are truly, in and of themselves, horrific tales of violence. It’s the way they are presented that just doesn’t satisfy. Some, however, are truly hilarious, because both the people committing the crime, as well as the victims, are terrible (and perhaps mentally challenged) human beings.

There are enough really good true crime books out there to not have to waste your time on this. I had another of this author’s books in my list, somewhere, and have subsequently deleted it.

TTFN, y’all!

Murder Book: a graphic memoir of a true crime obsession, by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell

To a large degree, I found myself in this book. Except, of course, that I’m not a woman.

But I am very much “in touch with my feminine side,” and might actually be a “feminist.”

In Murder Book, Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell chronicles the history of her obsession with true crime, and pretty much blames it all on her mother.

I have developed a similar obsession, but can’t blame my mother at all. I actually blame our oldest daughter, because she’s the one who introduced us to My Favorite Murder, a few years ago.

Hilary, in delightful graphic novel form, takes us from the beginning of her true crime obsession, all the way back to her days of watching Law and Order with her mom. I understand that Law and Order, and shows like it, such as CSI, NCIS, and Criminal Minds, are not “true crime.” However, they frequently use true crimes as bases for their episodes.

Hilary evolved from Law and Order to shows like Forensic Files, which, she claims, is always on somewhere. The craze, itself, has blossomed into a veritable plethora of media, though, from those TV shows to Netflix original movies and miniseries, to the inevitable Podcast, which is where Karen and Georgia come in, with My Favorite Murder. My wife and I (and that aforementioned oldest daughter) have seen Karen and Georgia live, by the way, in Dallas. It was quite a show.

Hilary’s obsession actually began with the Zodiac. Her mother lived through that era, along with all the other serial killers in the late sixties and early seventies. I, myself, do not remember the Zodiac murders, but I do remember being terrified of Charles Manson and his “family.” Anyway, she got obsessed with Zodiac, and it simply grew from there.

So the book pretty much starts out with Zodiac, then goes into movies and TV shows that were based on true crime cases. After that, she discusses Ted Bundy and, of course, many peoples’ true crime hero, Ann Rule, who wrote The Stranger Beside Me, because she actually worked right next to Ted Bundy and thought that he was a really nice guy and that they must have been mistaken when all the evidence pointed to him.

Then there is a section about Anne Marie Fahey, about whom I had never heard before reading this book. She was another victim who disappeared in the late nineties. Actually, that section began by discussing podcasts, of which Serial seems to be the groundbreaker in the true crime arena. Karen and Georgia came along and pretty much normalized the true crime podcast with My Favorite Murder.

I thoroughly enjoyed this graphic novel memoir and would recommend it to anyone who has found themselves mesmerized by this craze of true crime that has struck us in the past decade or so.

TTFN, y’all!