01-02-2013, 11:31 AM | #16 |
Bookaholic
Posts: 70
Karma: 210104
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Italy
Device: Cybook Opus, PocketBook Touch
|
Thank you for the suggestion!
|
01-02-2013, 11:53 AM | #17 |
eBook Enthusiast
Posts: 85,544
Karma: 93383043
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: UK
Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6
|
I have to admit that I do find books about modern true crime distasteful. They seem to me to be an attempt to profit from the suffering of others.
|
01-02-2013, 11:53 AM | #18 |
I am what I am
Posts: 6,625
Karma: 62235665
Join Date: Sep 2011
Device: iPad3, Voyage
|
Prestidigitweeze - how fortunate you were to have befriended him. I lament the poor writing in true crime books released in the past several years and can't help but miss his unique writing talent in this genre.
|
01-02-2013, 12:13 PM | #19 |
I am what I am
Posts: 6,625
Karma: 62235665
Join Date: Sep 2011
Device: iPad3, Voyage
|
The majority of modern true crime books give the victim's family/friends a chance to tell their side of the story. Authors such as Ann Rule and Kathryn Casey spend much time with relatives to get the back story, which goes a long way to explain the "why" of a crime. It's not really a matter of profiting from other's suffering, but more an attempt to have the reader understand what happened and perhaps prevent similar crimes.
Last edited by JoHunt; 01-02-2013 at 12:24 PM. |
01-02-2013, 12:22 PM | #20 | |
Home Guard
Posts: 4,730
Karma: 86721650
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Alpha Ralpha Boulevard
Device: Kindle Oasis 3G, iPhone 6
|
Quote:
http://news.yahoo.com/cold-blood-mur...182425075.html |
|
01-02-2013, 02:02 PM | #21 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 7,356
Karma: 52612287
Join Date: Oct 2010
Device: Kindle Fire, Kindle Paperwhite, AGPTek Bluetooth Clip
|
Quote:
|
|
01-04-2013, 01:11 PM | #22 |
Media Junkie
Posts: 278
Karma: 2039392
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Device: Kobo Libra H20, Kindle PW
|
I heartily recommend The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi. It's about a series of unsolved murders in Italy in the 80's that are assumed to be by the same individual. The two authors investigate and uncover new information, experience a very unsettling coversation with someone that was never investigated by the police but who they think may have been the Monster. And Mario Spezi, the co-author, is actually arrested and accused of being the Monster!
This book is absolutely riveting and extremely creepy, and the story of all of the suspects that were accused at one point or another, police corruption and incompetence, and the whole sequence of events that occurred over the years is truly mindblowing. Hope I didn't oversell it, but it is great true crime! |
01-05-2013, 04:44 PM | #23 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 11,309
Karma: 43993832
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Monroe Wisconsin
Device: K3, Kindle Paperwhite, Calibre, and Mobipocket for Pc (netbook)
|
I Have Lived in the Monster & Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI both by Robert K. Ressler.
Spoiler:
|
01-09-2013, 03:37 AM | #24 | |
Fledgling Demagogue
Posts: 2,384
Karma: 31132263
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: White Plains
Device: Clara HD; Oasis 2; Aura HD; iPad Air; PRS-350; Galaxy S7.
|
Quote:
For unintentional comedy, I've always liked Ressler's story about choosing to be alone with Ed Kemper and what Kemper took that opportunity to say and do. It was a mistake the author never made again when interviewing any other incarcerated murderer. |
|
01-09-2013, 04:32 AM | #25 | |
Close to the Edit!
Posts: 9,797
Karma: 267994408
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: UK
Device: Kindle Oasis, Amazon Fire 8", Kindle 6"
|
Quote:
I recently fininshed In Cold Blood, which wasn't as good as I was hoping, given its "classic" status. I guess it's all been emulated since and so doesn't feel as fresh as it would have done in its time. Not that I regret reading it - still an absorbing account. |
|
01-10-2013, 06:15 AM | #26 | |
Fledgling Demagogue
Posts: 2,384
Karma: 31132263
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: White Plains
Device: Clara HD; Oasis 2; Aura HD; iPad Air; PRS-350; Galaxy S7.
|
Quote:
Part of what's good about the Capote is the quality of the style and atmosphere, and the echoes of the author himself in the portrayal of one of the two killers (read that book and then peruse the bits of autobiography in Music for Chameleons). I wouldn't expect to find new insights about forensics or psychopathology in an account from 1996. ===================================== I've always been fascinated by David Parker Ray -- partly because of the detailed mechanisms of his cruelty, partly because of the obscurity of his murders despite evidence taken from his $100,00 torture chamber that suggests he must have been a prolific killer (his suspected body count is around sixty), and partly because he managed to manipulate investigators to his advantage without revealing anything about his crimes or further victims. Even when accomplices tried to point authorities to burial sites, Ray had already moved the bodies to obscure locations. I could never figure out why no one made a film about Ray in that golden period of our culture's obsession with super-psychopaths, the '90s. Ray's "Toybox" (as he called it) is the closest thing in real life to the baroque excess of the sets in David Fincher's Se7en. Ray's eclectic sadism -- his assortment of instruments wrought and bought, his multimedia-enhanced scenarios, his use of tape recorders to make victims aware of his voice -- at first -- as a mere representation of the horror to come, his forcing victims to watch projections of their own dehumanization while it was happening -- all of that makes Gary Wissner's Peter-Joel-Witkins-inspired art direction and Fincher's implausible storyline seem almost credible. The between-mirrors voyeurism also reminds me of Michael Powell's infinitely better film, Peeping Tom. It's a pity that, of the only three books about Ray, Fielder's is print-only and pedestrian and Glatt's is written in a witheringly bad style. I've yet to look at the one by J. E. Sparks. Last edited by Prestidigitweeze; 01-10-2013 at 06:53 AM. |
|
01-10-2013, 11:06 AM | #27 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 11,309
Karma: 43993832
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Monroe Wisconsin
Device: K3, Kindle Paperwhite, Calibre, and Mobipocket for Pc (netbook)
|
Quote:
|
|
01-11-2013, 02:20 AM | #28 | |||
Fledgling Demagogue
Posts: 2,384
Karma: 31132263
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: White Plains
Device: Clara HD; Oasis 2; Aura HD; iPad Air; PRS-350; Galaxy S7.
|
Quote:
I believe in doing away with glossiness and cues wherever possible and letting the audience formulate their own conclusions. I've always loved what Nelson Algren said in his Paris Review interview: Quote:
Quote:
Three people in my family are practicing psychologists. The one I'm closest to has the job you see in true crime shows: He's the person who does evaluations of violent criminals. His field is stippled with investigators, nurses and therapists who underestimate the danger of individuals like Kemper and some of them make disastrous mistakes -- not only for themselves, but for others who are then endangered. Last edited by Prestidigitweeze; 01-11-2013 at 02:35 AM. |
|||
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
True Crime Story Picked up by NBC Universal | aakozy | Self-Promotions by Authors and Publishers | 0 | 12-02-2011 06:15 PM |
Nook Daily Find 10/30 Helter Skelter $2.99 (US) [True Crime] | NightBird | Deals and Resources (No Self-Promotion or Affiliate Links) | 7 | 10-31-2011 10:22 AM |
True Crime writer says hello | Rose | Introduce Yourself | 10 | 05-21-2010 02:06 PM |
Seriously thoughtful Men and Women who Kill - True Crime Discussion | Dr. Drib | Lounge | 20 | 04-18-2009 10:58 AM |