Book review: The Forest City Killer, by Vanessa Brown (Amazon / Book Depository) Author, bookstore owner, and local historian of London, Ontario Vanessa Brown spent five years researching a series of unsolved, decades-old homicides in her quiet hometown. *Keith Morrison voice* Well, mostly quiet, that is: London had the unofficial and unenviable title of the "serial killer... Continue Reading →
A Crime Reporter and Citizen Sleuth on the Cases and Innovations of His Career
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 →
The Most Terrifying Serial Killer We Didn’t Know Existed
Book Review: American Predator, by Maureen Callahan (Amazon / Book Depository) In March 2012, Texas Highway Patrol needed a reason to stop a man on their highways. He'd been using the ATM card of missing 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, who'd been abducted at gunpoint from the coffee stand where she worked in Anchorage, Alaska. When he... Continue Reading →
Narrative Biography of a Trailblazing Lawyer Turned Detective, Almost Lost to History
Book review: Mrs. Sherlock Holmes, by Brad Ricca (Amazon / Book Depository) Newly told stories of women who have faded into the annals of history despite significant contributions from their life's work are becoming an increasingly popular, welcomed trend. Author Brad Ricca's Mrs. Sherlock Holmes covers one such story - that of Grace Humiston, a... Continue Reading →
The Long Story of an LAPD Cold Case
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 →
An Unflinching Look at An FBI Career in Crimes Against Kids
In the Name of the Children, by Jeffrey Rinek (Amazon / Book Depository) Jeffrey Rinek, retired FBI agent and owner of a majestic mustache, writes a memoir detailing cases he worked during his career, particularly in the area of child sex crimes and the infamous Yosemite murders, where three tourists (Carole and Juli Sund and Silvina... Continue Reading →
On a Career’s Worth of Monsters and Abysses: An FBI Profiler’s Case Stories
Book review: Whoever Fights Monsters, by Robert K. Ressler & Tom Shachtman (Amazon / Book Depository) There is no such thing as the person who at age thirty-five suddenly changes from being perfectly normal and erupts into totally evil, disruptive, murderous behavior. The behaviors that are precursors to murder have been present and developing in... Continue Reading →