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November 2004 Calendar of Books on True Crime and Justice
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November
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May
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Murder In Hollywood: Solving A Silent Screen Mystery -- For more than eighty years, the famous unsolved murder of William Desmond Taylor, the legendary bisexual film director, has generated extensive debate and controversy. Now, best-selling author Charles Higham has solved the covered-up crime at last. Murder in Hollywood unveils the astonishing corruption and intrigue of Los Angeles in the Roaring Twenties--and the film industry moguls' complete domination of the city's authorities. When it was discovered that a famous star of the day had probably killed Taylor, a massive cover-up began--from the removal of crucial evidence to the naming of innocent people as killers--which has continued until now to protect the truth. Murder in Hollywood goes beyond the killing to unearth unknown details about the life of Taylor before his arrival in Hollywood, as well as the stories and histories buried by the crooked authorities and criminals involved the case. The author's exclusive interviews with the culpable star, his unique possession of long-vanished police records, and the support of the present-day Los Angeles county coroner--who examined the evidence as if the murder had taken place now--have ensured a hair-raising thriller. Charles Higham successfully presents the most plausible and convincing solution yet to the mystery. In the process he paints a vivid portrait of Hollywood in the 1920s--from its major stars to its bisexual subculture. The result is a compelling answer to a long-standing mystery and a fascinating study of a place, and an industry that, as today, let people reinvent themselves.
The Death Penalty on Trial: Crisis in American Justice -- Bill Kurtis, anchor of the wildly popular true-crime TV series Cold Case Files and American Justice, used to support the death penalty. But after observing the machinations of the justice system for X years, he came to a stunning realization that changed his life: Capital punishment is wrong. There can be no real justice in America until it is abolished. Kurtis takes readers on his most remarkable investigative journey yet. Together, we revisit murder scenes, study the evidence, and explore the tactical decisions made before and during trial, which sent innocent people to death row. We examine the eight main reasons why the wrong people are condemned to death, including overzealous and dishonest prosecutors, corrupt policemen, unreliable witnesses and expert witnesses, incompetent defense attorneys, bias judges, and jailhouse informants. We see why the new jewel of forensic science, DNA, is revealing more than innocence and guilt, opening a window into the criminal justice system that could touch off a revolution of reform. Ultimately we come to a remarkable conclusion: The possibility for error in our justice system is simply too great to allow the death penalty to stand as our ultimate punishment.
Crime Scene Investigation: Crack The Case With Real-Life Experts -- "Concentrate on what cannot lie: the evidence" is sage advice from one of the many popular TV shows based on investigative skills-an audience that now averages 30 million viewers each week and growing. Viewers sit glued to their TVs to watch forensic experts peer through microscopes and dust for fingerprints. Now with this book you, too, can examine every clue, searching for that singular element that can prove invaluable in an investigation.
Go Directly to Jail: the Criminalization of Almost Everything The American criminal justice system is becoming ever more centralized and punitive, owing to rampant federalization and mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines. Go Directly to Jail emxmines these alarming trends and proposes reforms that could rein in a criminal justice apparatus at war with fairness and common sense. a labyrinthine criminal code Cato Institute
Matt Evets is an outlaw literature expert and an accomplished mid-20th century rhythm & blues aficionado. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Whether debonair or despicable, we have always had an enduring fascination for outlaws. They come from lore and from the front pages, but whatever their origin or nature they always seem to loom larger than life, to have just the right embellishments, and to appeal to a certain part of the imagination that delights in wrongdoing. In THE GREATEST OUTLAW STORIES EVER TOLD, Matt Evets has collected the most dashing, bizarre, and fascinating tales about being on the wrong side of the law, with stories by such greats as: Washington Irving, James Hogg, Vladimir Nabokov, Cormac McCarthy, Truman Capote, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Norman Mailer, E. L. Doctorow, Alexandre Dumas, Sir Walter Scott , William Styron, Larry McMurtry, Robert Louis Stephenson, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Who can forget Dr. Jekyll's inner turmoil as he struggles with his alter-ego Mr. Hyde, or Raskolnikov's existential dread as he rationalizes his crime? For some outlaws one bad turn deserves another, as is the case with Rob Roy, who seeks revenge with a highland flair in a classic tale of class warfare. For other outlaws the struggle against the law is borne of fundamental injustice, as in William Styron's dark and brilliant reconstruction of Nat Turner's slave revolt. And who cannot revel in tales of such irredeemable bad boys as Pretty Boy Floyd, Billy Bathgate, Billy the Kid, John Dillinger, and Jesse James?
Wised Up -- by Charlie Wilhelm, Joan Jacobson
Starkweather: Inside the Mind of a Teenage Killer by William Allen Nebraska, 1958: nineteen-year-old Charlie Starkweather massacres eleven people in a grisly murder spree. Emerging into the crime scene spotlight, Starkweather and his fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Caril Fugate, enflame America's growing fears about restless youth and rebellious teens. A classic of investigative reporting in the tradition of In Cold Blood, this revised edition of the New York Times bestseller sheds new light on the mind of a young spree killer. Newly released notes from Starkweather's prison journal, plus transcripts of prison interviews between Starkweather and the prison psychologist, take us inside the young murderer's mental state and provide insight into a mind over the edge. Allen also provides further evidence to support his claims that Fugate, often regarded as a kidnap victim, was indeed an accomplice in the murders.
Cold Blooded Carlton Smith -- California attorney Larry McNabney was a wealthy and well-connected legal ace and the proud owner of a champion show horse. When his wife Elisa reported him missing in September, 2001, she claimed he abandoned her after a heated argument and joined a cult. When Larry's body was found in a shallow grave three months later, Elisa was gone. Driving a red convertible Jaguar, her brown hair bleached blonde, Mrs. McNabney was already speeding toward a new life in Florida-and a new identity. She was a female fugitive wanted in the murder of her trusting husband. She was an insinuating beauty with 38 aliases, and a rap sheet 113 pages long whose criminal career was about to come undone. But in the wake of Elisa's stunning confession and conviction, there was one more shocking surprise yet to come from the poisonous black widow.
Murder In Hollywood: The Solution Of Hollywood's Greatest Murder Mystery by Charles Higham -- For more than eighty years, the famous unsolved murder of William Desmond Taylor, the legendary bisexual film director, has generated debate and controversy. Now, best-selling author Charles Higham has solved the crime. Higham uncovers the corruption and intrigue of Los Angeles in the Roaring Twenties—and the film industry moguls' complete domination of the city's authorities. When it was discovered that a famous star of the day had probably killed Taylor, a massive cover-up began—from the removal of crucial evidence to the naming of innocent people as killers—which has continued until now to protect the truth. Murder in Hollywood goes beyond the killing to unearth unknown details about the life of Taylor before his arrival in Hollywood, as well as the stories and histories buried by the crooked authorities and criminals involved the case. The author's exclusive interviews with the culpable star, his unique possession of long-vanished police records, and the support of the present-day Los Angeles county coroner—who examined the evidence as if the murder had taken place now—have ensured a hair-raising thriller. Charles Higham successfully presents the most plausible and convincing solution yet to the mystery. In the process he paints a vivid portrait of Hollywood in the 1920s—from its major stars to its bisexual subculture. The result is a compelling answer to a long-standing mystery and a fascinating study of a place, and an industry that, as today, let people reinvent themselves. Murder in Hollywood is more extraordinary than any crime of fiction and more exciting than any action adventure movie.
Killer with a Badge by Chuck Hustmyre November 1, 2004
Wised Up by Charlie Wilhelm, Joanne Jacobson
The Pig Farm Murders by Mike Lewis
Over The Edge: A True Story Of Marriage, Money And A Shocking Death -- Michael Fleeman covers show business for People magazine in Los Angeles. Before joining People , he worked for the Associated Press, covering such high-profile stories as the two O.J. Simpson trials and the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh. He lives in Altadena, California, with his wife Barbara, and their two children, Katherine and Scott. He is also the author of "If I Die..." , The Stranger in My Bed, and Laci. November 2, 2004The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-Century New York City -- In the summer of 1909, the gruesome murder of nineteen-year-old Elsie Sigel sent shock waves through New York City and the nation at large. The young woman's strangled corpse was discovered inside a trunk in the midtown Manhattan apartment of her reputed former Sunday school student and lover, a Chinese man named Leon Ling. Through the lens of this unsolved murder, Mary Ting Yi Lui offers a fascinating snapshot of social and sexual relations between Chinese and non-Chinese populations in turn-of-the-century New York City. Sigel's murder was more than a notorious crime, Lui contends. It was a clear signal that attempts to maintain geographical and social boundaries between the city's Chinese male and white female populations had failed. When police discovered Sigel and Leon Ling's love letters, giving rise to the theory that Leon Ling killed his lover in a fit of jealous rage, this idea became even more embedded in the public consciousness. New Yorkers condemned the work of Chinese missions and eagerly participated in the massive national and international manhunt to locate the vanished Leon Ling. Lui explores how the narratives of racial and sexual danger that arose from the Sigel murder revealed widespread concerns about interracial social and sexual mixing during the era. She also examines how they provoked far-reaching skepticism about regulatory efforts to limit the social and physical mobility of Chinese immigrants and white working-class and middle-class women. Through her thorough re-examination of this notorious murder, Lui reveals in unprecedented detail how contemporary politics of race, gender, and sexuality shaped public responses to the presence of Chinese immigrants during the Chinese exclusion era.
Gangs (The International Library of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Penology) by JACQUELINE SCHNEIDER
The Struggle Against Corruption: A Comparative Study (Perspectives in Comparative Politics)
Policing the City: Crime and Legal Authority in London, C. 1780-1840 (the history of crime and criminal justice) by Andrew T. Harris November 13, 2004