A Brief History of Seven Killings
592880
There are books for which a review is almost superfluous: you can tell, just from the cover copy and an excerpt, how you're going to feel about them. Marlon James's new novel is such a case. An ambitious, epic, intense exploration of Jamaica's recent history, told in multiple voices and spanning decades and nations? Such a thing appeals or it doesn't, especially after one samples a few of the voices and discovers the dense complexity of James's prose. This is a novel that requires a commitment of time and intellectual energy, but as is so often the case perseverance will be rewarded, with a terribly vivid evocation of place that is also a portrait of how violence perpetuates itself, and how people learn to live with that. There is, perhaps, a fine line between a novel of great scope and a novel that's overstuffed, but in an age where literary ambition too often involves streamlining one's imagination into elegant nothingness, overstuffed may be preferable. This history is not brief, and there are definitely more than seven killings, but that's far from a bad thing.
2154002
I randomly saw this book online and decided to purchase it, and it was an interesting buy. A true crime novel, this is a collection of stories about newlyweds who are murdered during the first year of marriage. In all cases, there is overwhelming evidence that the spouse is the one who committed the murder, or paid someone else to do so. However, even with evidence, there are a few cases where someone who you suspect is a killer walks free.

JJ Slate does a good job at providing the evidence in a form that is both interesting and straight-forward. While the stories are slightly biased against the (suspected) murderer, it's difficult not to let the emotions of the grieving families and their frustrations reflect in the writing.

Overall, this is a well-written and researched collection of tales of when the honeymoon ends early... or perhaps never started at all.
murder true crime 2015
2118250
R.J. Rummel has spent his career assembling data on genocide, politicide and other government mass murder (studying more than 8,200 reports with estimates). He introduced a concept he calls "democide" which includes genocide, politicide, mass murder, and indiscriminate killing of civilians. It does not include battle deaths or collateral damage. He is using a scientific methodology that he applies consistently to come up with consistent mid-range estimates for democide. His findings are horrifying. 170 million people were murdered in the 20th century alone. Later he revised this number to 262 million. For comparison, it is estimated that 70 million people died from famine in the 20th century, 25 million has died from AIDS, 250 million died from Malaria in the 20th century, and 300 million from small pox. In conclusion democide killed considerably more people than war, famine, and AIDS and as much people as the two worst 20th century diseases. It should also be noted that previous centuries were just as democidal.

Rummels book "Statistics of Democide" presents his findings in great detail (very long lists of statistics), and additional information can be found on his web site. This book "Death by Government" gives some statistics on the topic, but the focus of the book is not on the statistics but descriptions of the democides and the regimes that perpetrated them. Therefore this book is easier to read and perhaps a bit more interesting (but just as gruesome) compared to "Statistics of Democide". However, "Statistics of Democide" is a better factoid resource.

In this book he describes the following murder regimes and their democides in more detail: Soviet Gulag State (62M), Chinese Communist Anthill (35M later revised to 78M),  The Nazi Genocide State (21M mostly genocide), The Depraved Nationalist Regime, KMT (10M), Japans Savage Military (6M), The Hell State Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge (2M), Turkeys Genocidal Purges (1.9M), The Vietnamese War State (Vietcong) (1.7M), Poland's Ethnic Cleansing after the war (1.6M), The Pakistani Cutthroat state (1.5M), Titos Slaughter House (1.1M), Orwellian North Korea (1.7M), Barbarous Mexico (1.4M), Feudal Russia (1.1M). M=million killed.

The descriptions of the democides are horrific and very sad. The big questions are how can these things happen? People can be very cruel and brutal towards each other that is for sure, but regimes that hold a lot of power over their citizens are the regimes that will commit these crimes. To quote from Rummels web site: "Why do dictators kill and make war? Is it for glory; for things, for beliefs, for hatred, for power? Yes, but more, because they can". Regimes that can't do it won't. Democratic regimes, especially liberal democracies commit very little democide.
2993949
There are a great many true crime stories in this volume.  I enjoyed reading about some cases that I was not familiar with.  Some of them are hair-raising, some are heartbreaking, especially the cases involving children.

142+
4740218
I enjoyed reading this book which contains five fictional stories based on actual events.  I like to read about vintage crime cases, and these were well done.

19
4689871
Great mini book about the Unsolved Case of The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run aka The Cleveland Torso Killer. Between 1935 and 1938 at least 12 people were murdered and dismembered and dumped around the Cleveland, OH area. The Killer was never apprehended but the case is fascinating
2223845
Very well written and covers some of their life prior to them becoming serial killers.
4607918
Crime buffs and trivia nuts alike will enjoy this English import first published in 2007. It provides a magical misery tour of criminal records logged in the last thousand years.

FIRSTS, LASTS & ONLYS, CRIME is chock-a-block full of noteworthy - mostly British Empire - murders, hangings, double hangings, triple hangings, duels, beheadings, drawing-and-quarterings, pressed-to-deaths, kidnappings, escapes, pardons and what not.  Authors Beadle and Harrison divide their material into Firsts, Lasts and Onlys categories and then, within each category, proceed in a straight chronological arrangement. The first Onlys entry, for example, dates from 1417; the last from 1993.

So, if you're interested in learning details of...

the last witch executed in Europe,
the only mass escape from America's death row,
the last beheadings in Great Britain,
the first criminal caught by fingerprint evidence,
the last royal execution in Great Britain,
the first killing by a Sky Marshal,
the only English queen arrested for being a witch,
the first mobster to conceal a weapon in an instrument case,
the only albino executed for murder in Great Britain,
the last woman boiled alive in Great Britain,
the only couple hanged for adultery in America,
the last criminal hanged in Scotland for stealing sheep...

this is the book for you.

In short, FIRSTS, LASTS & ONLYS, CRIME is a macabre yet informative chronicle sure to fascinate the armchair detective in all of us. I just wish they had included an index! Recommended.
******

#925.
3570387
Nature has its own lethal armory in the form of plagues exploding into epidemics that spread over global areas as pandemics.  In this very short introduction to diseases that have ravaged populations, University of Virginia History  Professor Christian McMillen chronicles the background of seven feared infections, starting with the historic Plague and continuing on to the dreaded Smallpox, Cholera, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Influenza, and finally HIV/AIDS.  Some of these outbreaks are periodic such as the flu, while others like malaria and HIV persist over time.  With the advance of medical science some diseases have come under control with vaccines, medications, sanitation, and education.  This short but comprehensive study of pandemics reviews the economic, social, and political factors that operate when the  disease strikes and the precautions adopted to limit contagion and reoccurrence.  Poverty, dense populations, cultural beliefs, and increased mobility of the population enable the human vector to transmit the infective organism. The history of past and present pandemics is impressively described, and the author cautions that this history should serve as a lesson for possible future incidents that may arise especially as crowding and mobility increase.  The reader might reflect on the Zika, Ebola viruses and the unpredictable mutagenic strains of the influenza bug along with other potential threats.
3747415
a a sociological take on killing groups obsessionally presented
3761154
As history has shown, the anti-gun Brits have found plenty of other ways to do someone to death.  With rocks, hammers, belts, string, knives, and poison, the monsters in this volume managed to accumulate quite a body count.

From murderous baby farmers to black widows to annoyed nurses killing troublesome elderly patients, these murderers will chill your blood.
1547574
On November 9th, 1971 a monster came alive in an elegant mansion in an exclusive New Jersey town called Westfield and cold-bloodedly murdered his entire family.  Then, with the corpses for company, he had a little dinner, washed the dishes, and went upstairs to sleep.

'Righteous Carnage' is the true story of John Emil List, a quiet and mild mannered accountant who systematically murdered his mother, his wife, and his own three children.  He walked away the next day, and managed to elude police for eighteen years before the TV show 'America's Most Wanted' flushed him out of his hiding place.  While his family rotted, List created a new life and even remarried, enjoying his freedom.

One of the more gruesome pieces of evidence in this case is a letter left by John List addressed to his pastor, in which he confesses to killing his family.  This book contains that entire letter, plus the lengthy sentencing by Judge Wertheimer, along with eight pages of black-and-white photos.

While the story is extremely interesting, and the authors cover all the angles, there are times that the prose drags and some of the writing takes on the feeling of being "filler".  Overall, if you're a fan of true crime, this book is a must-have for collector, being the story of a true monster who walks among us.  Enjoy!
3146257
This is the second book I read about the Glensheen murders. It's short and a pretty good summary. I'd recommend it over Glensheen's Daughter for that reason alone. You get the main facts without reading through all the testimony.
2007721
The "Colfax Massacre," not much known outside Louisiana, took place in Grant Parish on Easter Sunday, 1873, and even today, interpretation of the bloody events of that day -- which were either vigilantism or self-defense, depending on who you believe -- depends largely on the narrator's personal politics. The ingredients of the violence included a growing community of ex-slaves, a handful of white supremacists, and an abundance of corrupt politicians (some of them Northern carpetbaggers, some of them homegrown). The result was three dead white men and at least sixty dead black men. And that was followed by a series of show trials in New Orleans, in which the white defendants, though prosecuted strenuously by U.S Attorney James Beckwith, nevertheless managed to "influence" the witnesses' recollection of events in Colfax. The case finally ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which handed down a decision that effectively took the federal government out of civil rights enforcement for several generations, weakened the 14th Amendment, and left race relations up to the states. Which, of course, helped end Reconstruction and ushered in the era of Jim Crow. The effects of Colfax stretched more than a century into the future. Lane, an extremely well-experienced political journalist with considerable knowledge of Supreme Court history, has constructed a deft and gripping narrative based on exhaustingly researched historical evidence and considerable insight. This is the best sort of "popular" history. There's also a lengthy bibliography if you want to pursue the subject further.
551521
The captioned book is extremely well written, detailed, and historically on point. I am a student of 1960-70's left-wing groups, and their involvement in homicide.  This volume offers an insight into a group that could be considered mass murderers, serial killers and bombers, all "in the name of politics".

I think a valuable tip for Homeland Security types, as well as students of multiple murder, is to study the machinations of the groups such as the Japanese Red Army to look for answers.

Kudos to all that take on the challenge.

The Homicidologist
1473488
Is there a connection with the large number of murders?  If so what is it? If you go to one with questions about the other the inquiry is repeated.  How can you solve the murders when those that should help are the problem.

You will have to read to find out.  Good read
3341681
This was the sad retelling of the still unsolved murder of the Grimes sisters. No one really knows what happened to them after they left their house on a cold December 1956 evening to go to the movies only to have their nude bodies turn up three weeks later miles from where they were last seen. It is also an example of the horrible police work that occurred back there with police from different locations and cities and on lookers trampling through the unsecured crime scene. This book details, with photos, witnesses reports that only added to the confusion, reports of possible changes to police reports, to the firing of key people that started work on the case. It also talks about the similarities to three other child murders that happened within a time frame of 8 years. A good book with a good amount of information. Since I read the paperback version I have to say I love the different font that was used a compared to other books, it was so clear and crisp and made me think of the writing of an old newspaper.