CLEWS Your Home for Historic True Crime

Links in the theme

So while novelist David Peace reminds the fictionists that they really can't make this stuff up,

Author Aphrodite Jones is getting her own TV show, though I swear I read a similar notice long ago,

The Daily Beast will become a true crime publisher with a book about Amanda Knox,

There's an umpteenth online retelling of the White-Thaw-Nesbit affair,

Vanity Fair dredges up Dominick Dunne's report on the Claus von Bulow case,

True crime fans come out of the closet and reveal themselves to be otherwise respected book reviewers, in this instance Julia Keller of the Chicago Tribune,

Everybody says the book is disgusting (including me, actually) but somebody's buying it,

and a TV station did a book review (!) of a true crime paperback (!!) and the lucky author was Diane Fanning.

LInks in the theme

Some of these links are things readers have sent to me or that I've come across, and some may be a little stale, but on a site devoted to historical crime, there are no "best-by" dates.

D.P. Lyle Says I've been enjoying the blog of M.D. and author D.P. Lyle, who comments on today's execution of the "DC Sniper."

Should Police Pay for Failure to Stop a Murderess? The family of one of the victims of infamous New Hampshire murderess Sheila LaBarre has sued the local police for failure to prevent his death, though an opportunity may have presented itself to them just days before the murder. The Union Leader is reporting that the judge denied a motion to dismiss filed by the police, so the case may go to a jury. Is it fair for a court to impose liability on police officers for failing to stop a murder? Should the taxpayers be asked to compensate his family for his horrific death? It's a troubling case, but then Sheila LaBarre caused no end of trouble before she went to prison.

Twin books on Columbine Compared - With some interesting thoughts on why the story galvanized the nation, Dave Van Houwelingen compares the books that hit the shelves this summer.

"New Journalism is Pissing Me Off" I agree with the Daily Kos writer who doesn't like "new journalism" (defined as using fiction techniques to tell a non-fiction story). Although he miscasts Truman Capote as the father of the form (when, in fact, Truman Capote invented nothing whatsoever), his jabs at TV true crime shows are landing blows.

Thoughtful journalism on forensic science (and celebrating 800,000 hits)

The Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media and Public Policy is funding investigative journalism. Well, hurrah for them! It used to be that news organizations performed this critical role, but even with 24 hours a day to work with, they've abdicated their responsibilities.

Some of the in-depth reporting that this think tank has done is in themes of interest to the likes of us. A few recent reports: 

Keystone Cops at the Police Lab: Compromised crime laboratories are a national scandal that can't be set straight until the labs are independent of law enforcement.

As a Detroiter, I found this report absorbing. The crime lab here was shut down, the county prosecutor remarking that if the public knew what was going on there, we would be outraged....

Why Fewer Murder Cases Get Solved These Days: A new study by three FBI officials suggests that cooperation — whether by witnesses or even other departments — is the key to closing more murder cases; by Lewis Beale.

Re-Mapping Forensic Sciences Future: A critical report from the National Academy of Sciences calls for national standards in forensics science, validation of new technology and crime lab ethics; by Sue Russell.

Bias and the Big Fingerprint Dust-Up: Cognitive neuroscientist Itiel Dror finds that analysis of fingerprint data by human examiners can be ruined by unintentional bias. But he offers some relatively simple fixes that can improve the odds of reliable results.

And a CLEWS milestone, this site has rolled 800,000 hits.

The art above is the cover of True Crime True North: The Golden Age of Canadian Pulp Magazines.

Favorite links in the theme

Marcia Clark on Small Towns The famous OJ prosecutor wrote an essay for the Daily Beast: Why Child Killers Love Small Towns. It made me wonder where she grew up.

Green River Comic?? From Publishers Weekly: Entertainment Weekly reporter pens graphic novel on the Green River Killer. And more on that comic.

The Anglo Addict I love the theme of this site offering thoughts on the best in British true crime.

Do Not Fictionalize, Part XXIX I guess we can add another critic to the list of those who don't like it when authors thinly fictionalize true crime cases.  Notes a recent review of a fiction title based on a true story: "[The author] calls the book a novel, but it’s puzzling why she made the decision to write a fiction account. If anyone went to the trouble to write a narrative of the murders, why not make it a true-crime book?"

Fatty Arbuckle Redux  A Hollywood man, a pretty actress, a mysterious homicide- long before there was Phil Spector, there was Fatty Arbuckle. No author has touched the case in nearly two decades. But that may soon change. Joan Myers, who has written a fascinating essay about the case, is working on a new look at the Arbuckle affair. She has researched it for years, discovering along the way that some of the previous books about the case are laden with errors and nonsense. The real story, she says, is much more interesting.

Drew Peterson Book Carlton Smith is the author writing a Drew Peterson book per Publisher's Lunch (subscription required).

Links in the theme

McMurder is a website that documents every murder that has taken place at one of the restaurants since the 1940s. What an odd theme. It's very strange to me that people want to hold McDonald's accountable for crimes that take place in or near their restaurants. As a society we should be more worried about the menu.

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If you've ever found yourself wondering how on earth jurors can convict people of horrific crimes in the face of DNA evidence that is clearly exclupatory, you can look no further than here.

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ABC's 20/20 program is looking for interesting crime stories. (I suggested Father Robinson's case but was told that "we just did a DNA show.")

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A literature and culture professor's manifesto argues that we should read the books we want to read instead of forcing ourselves to improve our souls with the so-called classics. In her book The Solitary Vice: Against Reading, Mikita Brottman champions the virtues of the true crime genre while rolling her eyes at the "reading is indispensable" messages we've all had drilled into our heads since early childhood. There's more on this book in a thoughtful review by Joe Clark.

This I've got to read. As the spouse of a man who hasn't read anything but repair manuals in twenty years, and as someone who long ago discarded the Pulitzer Winner list as a guide to my local library (instead just heading straight for the true crime section), I think I'll appreciate her point that one does not have to be a voracious and eclectic reader to have a vibrant, interesting inner life.

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Literary blogger Cullen Gallagher, who appreciates old hard-boiled stories and cover art, came across the collected works of his favorite authors, Murder Plus, and wrote a nice tribute to the book. The stories are non-fiction crime pieces written for the old true crime magazines.

Links to file under Yuck

Mark Hacking murderabilia, including hair, is turning up for sale on the internet.

Chandra Levy's accused killer has a tattoo of her on his body.

Son of Sam Seizure An Australian true crime writer has had his royalty account frozen for writing a true crime book with the cooperation of the criminal, who was named as co-author. That apparently implicates Australia's "Son of Sam" law.

Do Not Fictionalize! When a true crime author quotes from a source that probably fictionalized the details (and fails to disclose that to the reader until the end of the book), readers understandably don't like that.

More blogs in the theme and does anyone want free books?

Cold Cleveland Author James Renner, who is putting Cleveland on the map of criminal history with two books in the theme, has begun a blog called The Coldest Cases. The site reflects his interest in unsolved cases from The Cleve. http://jamesrenner.wordpress.com/

The Innocence Blog A few years ago, stories of the wrongfully convicted did not hold much appeal for me. Like most conservative-leaning, cynical civil defense lawyers, I didn't think -- or want to think -- that travesties of justice were all that common in our criminal courts. Then I watched Father Robinson's murder trial on TV. Now I'm hooked on the blog run by the Innocence Project. Rather than being downers, I consider these to be inspirational stories of triumph. This isn't a new blog, but it's, well, a new interest for me. http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/1925.php

For Librarians, The Early Word A blog aimed at librarians promises to predict which books are going to be in the highest demand at our beloved book-sharing institutions. Recently I wrote to them suggesting a true crime category, since it currently doesn't have one. As I have it, the average true crime section in the average public library is large and circulates heavily. They were kind enough to reply, saying they'd consider the suggestion. Even without it, the site is interesting to bibliophiles and library patrons. http://www.earlyword.com/

Free books? I am flattered with offers of free books for review and giveaways. I don't accept all that many for review because of time constraints, and I've never given any books away on CLEWS. Some other literary sites do competitions and book giveaways.

Just this week I've had two offers for books to give away to CLEWS visitors. If this is something anyone is interested in, I could accept books to give away, either new ones or ones I've read for review purposes.

Normally I keep them, but lately I've just run out of room so I donated a few to my very grateful local library. But they couldn't take them all - they're even tighter on shelf space than I am and already had some of the titles I offered.

If anyone reading this has any ideas on how to manage a competition or how to determine which readers should get them, I am all ears. (Please feel free to email me or leave a comment.) 

The Times Strikes Again

The latest true crime author to be unnecessarily excoriated in the pages of the New York Times in a grandiloquent review is Dave Cullen. He can take comfort in the fact that he joins an exclusive club: Ann Rule, Vincent Bugliosi, and many other authors in our favorite genre have been derided in its pages. 

It appears that book critic Janet Maslin read both new Columbine books, as she mentions the second book out now by Jeff Kass. It's hard to tell how the two books compare, so the review offers zero guidance to those who want to choose between them. The Associated Press reviewer did a better job in that regard. I am left to wonder if the Times reviewer read both books and decided to write about the one she liked the least. Maybe it's more fun to write nasty reviews?

I am hard-pressed to find a positive review of a true crime book in the New York Times archives -- at least in the last decade. The exception to the rule: Harold Schechter managed to garner three praise-filled reviews in the Times for The Devil's Gentleman. They were well earned reviews, to be sure (I loved the book), though none were penned by Ms. Maslin, who has repeatedly stated that she sees no value in true crime subjects -- and mystifies me by reading and reviewing a "tabloid" genre she obviously loves to hate.

If you've seen any other favorable reviews of a true crime book in the Times since 2000, I'd love to read them. And I keep browsing the paper often, hoping a flattering review of a true crime title might one day again appear there. Will Ms. Maslin ever read a true crime book and like it? I don't think it's a realistic expectation. If Rush Limbaugh joined the Peace Corps, I'd be less surprised.

With my own first book coming out in a month, I hope my publisher will not send a copy to the Times and have asked it not to do so. I have no reason to think the Times would pluck my tome from the heaping pile of submissions but dread the thought that it might not skip a chance to unfavorably compare an umpteenth author to Truman Capote.

Links in the theme

A Rebuff of Roughead Says an exuberant American true crime fan: “As a patriot, I have to say that American murders are better than Scottish murders. And I’m not just talking quantity over quality. When it comes to homicide, America offers a wider range of style and substance.” I say America may have a wider range but Scotland has a greater depth: a better, much longer historical record. And William Roughead.

Clowning Around Now we know who’s buying all that grotesquely tacky serial killer art, which is bad taste even in the broad world of “murderabilia.” It’s this guy.

Rose West - Still At It Recognize the name? Maybe you do. A recent story has it she is still torturing her family – and she’s addicted to true crime documentaries about her own case. Having seen more of them myself than I wish I had, this raised the hairs on my neck.

Links in the theme

A Prosecutorial Complex Publisher’s Weekly loved a new anthology of short legal thrillers put together by the Mystery Writers of America so much that it hopes out loud that MWA will sponsor more collections. Great idea, we'd say.

The anthology is Mystery Writers of America Presents The Prosecution Rests: New Stories about Courtrooms, Criminals, and the Law [Amazon; B&N]. Says Publisher’s Weekly: “The consistently high quality of the 22 selections will lead many to hope the MWA will sponsor more volumes in this vein.” True crime author Morley Swingle (see the CLEWS interview) was singled out for praise.

Say, MWA, how about a true crime collection, eh? (I still haven’t heard back from MWA about a true crime chapter.)

The Mayor’s Civil Suit: The Latest Outrage in Detroit It hasn’t been easy to read a newspaper in this town lately. We all have a collective case of high blood pressure here in Motown. I’ll spare you my opinions on current affairs but can’t resist a legal point in a criminal matter here.

The latest outrage to strike our Motor City is the ongoing embarrassment that was our mayor. The most recent news: our disgraced, ousted, disbarred and jailed former leader is now filing a civil suit against the telecommunications company that released the text messages he sent to his mistress on a city-owned pager. 

Besides the raunchy ones, the mayor's messages included evidence that the pair had colluded to fire police officers and lie under oath about it. And that's besides the evidence of corruption found on those pagers. Now former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has the gall to sue the company that released the evidence of his perjury, treachery, adultery, conspiracy, and perfidy. The company did a great public service in releasing those messages, whether it intended to or not.

I for one (of many, I’m sure) would like to see this lawsuit tossed at once. Here in Michigan, as in much of the Anglo-Saxon legal world, we are the heirs of English common law, and we have a rule in our jurisprudence called The Wrongful Conduct Rule. The rule says that a plaintiff cannot bring a lawsuit if his lawsuit relies on his own illegal or immoral conduct. The mailman may sue you if he is bitten by your dog, but the burglar cannot.

In Kilpatrick’s case, he suffered damages when his text messages were released because they were in and of themselves criminal and proved that he was a criminal. I can’t think of a more perfect application of the Wrongful Conduct Rule.

Kwame ought to be thankful that by some twist of fate or arms he has a job. A lot of people in Detroit these days can't say that much.