Where is your nonfiction section please.
In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was picked up for a murder that he not only didn't commit, but that he ridiculously couldn't have committed: he'd been locked into a warehouse working an overnight shift miles away when the robbery and shooting occurred. No problem for the prosecution, though - they just alleged he scaled a... Continue Reading →
Book review: American Sherlock, by Kate Winkler Dawson (Amazon / Book Depository) Innocent men were being hanged while criminals escaped justice. The complicated crimes of the 1920s demanded a special type of sleuth -- an expert with the instincts of a detective in the field, the analytical skills of a forensic scientist in the lab,... Continue Reading →
Book review: Chase Darkness with Me, by Billy Jensen (Amazon / Book Depository) Crime writer and citizen digital detective Billy Jensen is known for his collaborative efforts to finish Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone in the Dark posthumously, but he has an impressive resume of his own in true crime journalism. In this account of... Continue Reading →
Book review: Ghost of the Innocent Man, by Benjamin Rachlin (Amazon / Book Depository) Wrongful conviction narratives are incomparably terrifying. They leave the reader with a lingering unease, that if this could happen to the person profiled, on flimsy or nonexistent evidence in a complex yet error-filled justice system, it could happen to anyone. It's... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Killer Across the Table, by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker (Amazon / Book Depository) This is a book about the way violent predators think - the bedrock of my twenty-five years as an FBI special agent, behavioral profiler, and criminal investigative analyst, as well as the work I have done since my... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Lazarus Files, by Matthew McGough (Amazon / Book Depository) In 2009, a decades-old cold case, the 1986 murder of Sherri Rasmussen, a young newlywed nurse in Van Nuys, heated up when a suspect was finally arrested. As in many recent cases, new testing of old DNA evidence - here, an allegedly misplaced... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Last Stone, by Mark Bowden (Amazon / Book Depository) Mark Bowden is a gem in narrative journalism. I've so often been sucked into reading a longread, that kind of lose-track-of-time story, and see it's his after finally checking the byline. He's a wonderfully compelling storyteller and a thorough, detail-oriented journalist. In The... Continue Reading →
Book review: Mindhunter, by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker (Amazon / Book Depository) It isn’t always easy, and it’s never pleasant, putting yourself in these guys’ shoes —or inside their minds. But that’s what my people and I have to do. We have to try to feel what it was like for each one. When... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Dark Heart, by Joakim Palmkvist (Amazon / Book Depository) At summer's end in 2012, an older, miserly farmer went missing from his farm in the Swedish countryside. The surrounding region is dubbed the "dark heart of Smaland," in reference to its traditional conservatism and religious background. Palmkvist points out that it's an... Continue Reading →
Book review: Incendiary, by Michael Cannell (Amazon / Book Depository) In 1956 there was no such thing as criminal profiling; nobody could recall an instance when the police had consulted a psychiatrist. It was a collaboration fabricated in detective novels, but never found in real life. Every one of today’s profilers, real or televised, traces his... Continue Reading →
Book review: Beneath a Ruthless Sun, by Gilbert King Amazon Gilbert King, 2013 Pulitzer winner for Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, returns to the setting of that book: mid-20th century Florida and the intersection of justice and race relations, to tell a new story from the... Continue Reading →
Book review: Iphigenia in Forest Hills, by Janet Malcolm (Amazon / Book Depository) Iphigenia in Forest Hills is a well reported account of a 2009 murder trial by renowned journalist Janet Malcolm. The victim at the center was dentist Daniel Malakov, who in 2007 was shot on a playground allegedly on the orders of his wife, Mazoltov... Continue Reading →
