Crime Books
Updated:
Book ‘Em: Crime Magazine's Review of
True-Crime Books, Vol 26 by Anneli Rufus
(01/06/08)
Another year begins, and with it the crime statistics for each
city restart at zero. Whether true-crime books evoke, for you, a strange faraway
realm or whether they evoke people and places that are all too close to home,
here are a few new ones for a new year.
New:
Review of
Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain, and Injustice by
Maureen Faulkner and Michael A. Smerconish by
J. Patrick O’Connor (12/19/2007)
New:
The Raid in Teaneck, the prologue from
Ron Chepesiuk
and Anthony Gonzalez's upcoming book, Superfly: The True Untold Story
of Frank Lucas, American Gangster. (A major movie about Lucas entitled American Gangster and starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe will be
in theaters beginning Nov. 2, 2007.) The book investigates Lucas's life and
criminal career and the claims to fame the movie makes about him. This includes Lucas's relationship with legendary
Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson, his connection to La Cosa Nostra, the money he
made in the drug trade and the development of the Asian drug pipeline. Lucas's
life as a government informant is also examined. Beginning Oct. 25, 2007,
Superfly can be purchased from the web site
franklucasamericangangster.com. A documentary is also available.
Crime
Books of Note.
Crime Magazine's list of favorite books on crime,
criminals, and criminal justice sorted by author. NEW: View list sorted
alphabetically by title or by
category.
The Labs That Made It Snow by
Ron Chepesiuk. (06/15/03)
This is the prologue to the upcoming book
The Bullet or the
Bribe: Taking Down Colombia's Cali Drug Cartel by Ron Chepesiuk, the story
of the rise of the powerful Cali Cartel and the long and often frustrating
campaign that U.S. and international law enforcement waged to take it down. The
book details the cartel’s rise to international prominence and the lifestyles of
its godfathers, its efforts to buy Colombia, its death struggle with legendary
Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, its brilliant strategy to portray
itself as the kinder, gentler drug cartel from Colombia, and the mistakes that
ultimately led to the crumbling of its well-oiled organization. The book will be
published by Praeger, a member of the Greenwood Publishing Group,
in the fall of 2003.
New:
Part Two: The
Mysterious Death of CIA Scientist Frank Olson by
H. P. Albarelli Jr. (05/19/03)
In 1996, Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau
opened a new investigation into CIA Scientist Frank Olson's 1953 "suicide,"
assigning the case to a special Cold Case Unit staffed by two veteran
prosecutors. Details about the activities and findings of that ongoing inquiry
have never before been revealed. Investigative journalist and writer H.P.
Albarelli Jr. conducted his own seven-year examination into Olson's death. In
Part Two, he reports his findings about one of the U.S. government's greatest
conspiracies and unsolved mysteries.
Part One: The Mysterious Death of CIA Scientist Frank
Olson by H. P. Albarelli Jr.
(12/14/02)
When CIA Scientist Frank Olson plunged to his death from the 10th floor of a New York hotel in 1953, his death was ruled a suicide. Twenty-two years later a special Presidential Commission investigating the CIA's development of potent drugs for use in biological warfare and assassinations revealed shocking new details about Olson’s death. In 1996 Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau opened a new investigation into Olson’s death based on startling discoveries uncovered by forensic sleuth James Starrs that put to lie the CIA’s version of how Olson died.
Tainting
Evidence: Inside the Scandals at the FBI Crime Lab
by John F. Kelly and Phillip K. Wearne.
The FBI's vaunted crime lab is a scandal of atrocious forensic science. Its "junk science" permeates the U.S. criminal justice system as it bogus "findings" routinely punish the innocent and set the guilty free, affecting thousands of lives in the process.
James Ellroy
by Patrick Quinn Ellroy, the author of major crime
novels such as L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia and his
non-fiction account of his search for his mother's killer, My Dark Places,
is a fascinating story himself.
A new look at In Cold Blood,
by J.J. Maloney. Truman Capote's ground-breaking "non-fiction" novel about the murder of a Kansas
farm family. We take the position that the book is not only flawed, but dishonest.
Sharon Kinne
by J.J.
Maloney. She was one of the most remarkable criminals in U.S. history. A
housewife, she turned cold-blooded killer. In 1969 she escaped from a Mexican
prison and disappeared without a trace.
Kansas City’s Dirty Harry by J.J.
Maloney. In his book The Battle Behind the Badge, former
police Cap. Robert Heinen portrays himself as a hero of mythic proportions in
rooting out corruption in the Kansas City Police Department. He may have set out
to get the bad guys, but in the process he became one himself.
