The Whisper Man by Alex North

Reviewed by Laura

            After the sudden death of his wife, Tom Kennedy feels like a new start in a new town is just the thing to help him and his son, Jake, through their grief process. Unfortunately, he chooses the wrong town. Twenty years ago, a serial killer abducted and killed five children in the town of Featherbank. The murderer, Jack Carver, was known in the press as The Whisper Man due to the fact that he lured children by whispering to them outside their window. Shortly after Tom and Jake arrive, a child disappears in a way reminiscent of these crimes from the past. Jack Carver is still spending time in prison and this new abduction reprises the belief that he did not work alone.

            In addition to this tragic event, Jake is having trouble adjusting to his new school and prefers to sit by himself and draw while talking to his imaginary friend. But is his friend imaginary after all? Things go from bad to worse when Jake begins to hear whispering at his window, as well, and the nightmare begins in earnest.

            This book is listed as a thriller, but could probably earn a horror/thriller classification. There are definitely supernatural elements at work throughout the story. That’s one of the reasons I liked this book so much. There was a human element to the paranormal events that I found especially intriguing. Things are not always what they seem and never more so than in this storyline running chillingly beneath the surface of the central theme. This book will definitely keep your interest, but be warned of the creepy factor ahead of time! You might want to be sure and read it during the light of day, but do give it a read. You won’t be sorry.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

Reviewed by Christy

            The Golden State Killer wasn’t always called that. In fact, his crimes were so widespread and prolific across California that he held many monikers. It wasn’t until Michelle McNamara’s 2013 article for Los Angeles magazine “In the Footsteps of a Killer” did she publicly coin the more cohesive nickname.

            In the mid to late 1970s, Sacramento was terrorized by a man who snuck into couples’ houses late at night, tied up the men, and raped the women. Many victims told of mysterious footprints around their homes in the days leading up to the attack. Neighbors spoke of suspicious men lingering in the neighborhood who maybe didn’t seem suspicious at the time.  Sometimes the perpetrator would make comments during the attack that made the victims believe he might know them personally. At the very least, law enforcement believed he meticulously planned his attacks and monitored his victims for days before striking. From 1976 – 1979 he stalked Sacramento before slowly moving outside of his comfort zone to other cities, occasionally popping back in Sacramento.   He was known as the East Area Rapist, and he is believed to have assaulted approximately 50 women.

            In the fall of 1979 murders with very similar MOs began occurring in southern California: home invasion late at night, man tied up, woman assaulted. Police communication between districts was very poor at this time so no one made the connection. The murderer was dubbed The Original Night Stalker, and it is believed he killed at least 12 people. It wasn’t until the early 2000s with advances in DNA technology that law enforcement realized the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker were one and the same. He then became known as EAR/ONS for short.

            McNamara knew that EAR/ONS was a rather clumsy and confusing nickname. Even among true crime readers, EAR/ONS isn’t nearly as well-known as Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, though his depravity could certainly match both. To get the public’s attention he would need something catchier and more succinct: thus the Golden State Killer.

            In I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, McNamara’s writing is lovely and full of compassion. With so many locations and so much evidence it would be easy to pack the book densely with facts and risk becoming very dry but she avoids doing that. It’s part true crime, part memoir as she examines her obsession with true crime research and briefly touches on her familial relationships. At times it feels a little disorganized but I’m not sure I can really fault anyone for that. While in the middle of writing this book, McNamara died in her sleep from a combination of prescription medication and an undiagnosed heart condition. With encouragement from her husband Patton Oswalt (or begging, as he puts it), her colleagues finished the book as best they could with McNamara’s many, many notes.

            The book is quite sad to read at times for the content alone but also because I felt certain that the Golden State Killer would never be caught. Law enforcement (and McNamara) long thought he could possibly be a police officer or in the military. Being a policeman would explain how he always seemed to be one step ahead of them or how he could possibly track down survivors’ numbers after decades to call them and psychologically torture them once more. It would certainly help keep him above suspicion. But it had been so long. He very likely could be dead. He could go the way of the Zodiac or Jack the Ripper.  I’ve never been happier to be wrong.

            With less than a third of the book to finish, I woke up April 25^th to the unbelievable news that the Golden State Killer had been caught. His name is Joseph James DeAngelo, he’s a 72 years old Vietnam veteran, and he was at one point a police officer. He was arrested at his home in the Sacramento suburb Citrus Heights – where at least six of his crimes took place.

Like many others I had one question on my mind: what was it that led investigators to DeAngelo? Since at least five years ago lead investigator Paul Holes was using genealogy websites in hopes of getting a hit on the Golden State Killer or, more likely, a relative. While they could only use genetic markers, as opposed to genetic material, Holes and McNamara were convinced the answer lay somewhere in those sites. The possibility kept McNamara up at night. But Ancestry.com and 23andMe would not work with law enforcement in cases such as these, citing their privacy policies. But GEDMatch, per their terms of use, is an open-source genealogy site. After homing in a on a relative, law enforcement put DeAngelo under surveillance. After collecting a discarded DNA sample, they finally got a match.

It’s an ending that Michelle McNamara often imagined.  Oswalt firmly believes that her 2013 article helped renew the public’s interest which ultimately lead to his capture. A task force was brought together in 2016, and he was caught two short years later, so it’s certainly plausible. Regardless, the fact that the “Golden State Killer” has become the go-to nomenclature in regards to DeAngelo speaks to McNamara’s influence.

McNamara didn’t care who caught him, she just wanted him caught. In her book she ends with “A Letter to An Old Man” and describes how she imagines that day would go: a car pulls up in the driveway, the doorbell rings…

 “This is how it ends for you.

‘You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark,’ you threatened a victim once.

Open the door. Show us your face. Step into the light.”

The Man From the Train by Bill James and Rachel James

Reviewed by Jeanne

(Note:  while two authors are credited, Bill James’ is the dominant voice, so instead of trying to tease out who said what, I’m just going to use “he” and “James” to indicate author.)

While public fascination with serial killers is fairly modern, such killers are not: Jack the Ripper, H.H. Holmes, Mary Ann Cotton, and Jesse Pomeroy were all active pre-1900. Bill James, best known as a baseball analyst, became interested in two historical murder cases. The first was a horrific murder in June, 1912, in which a family was massacred in Villisca, Iowa. Several books have been written about this one, as the perpetrator was never found.  Just about a year earlier, there were two families murdered by axe on the same night in Colorado Springs.  In all these cases, the murderer was organized and brutally efficient—professional, almost.  James hired his daughter to research newspaper databases of the era to try to discover if there were other such murders.

There were. During the course of the book, James describes a number of cases, noting similarities and deviations, and invites the reader to join in the speculation.  At the end, James believes he has found a definite pattern, and, indeed, a suspect.

I read a bit of true crime, but I prefer historical cases rather than contemporary; this book appeared to fit the bill.  I opened the book to discover that the first instance was in a little town in rural southwest Virginia called Hurley—about 95 miles from Bristol.

Naturally, I was hooked.

In some of the cases, people were actually convicted of the crime and executed, but often on very little evidence.  For example, while robbery was the usual motive given, but in many instances money and other valuables were found in plain sight.  This became one hallmark James used to sift through the cases.  Other features included use of the blunt end of an axe in commission of the crime, the events usually taking place late at night, victims found in their beds with their faces covered by a cloth, indications that the murderer spent time in the house after committing the crime, locking doors, and covering windows.

Of course, the main feature that connected these murders was the proximity of the home to railroad tracks.  James’ theory (and others) is that the murderer would hop a train and leave town, hence the title of the book.

Some reviewers took exception to the light tone James employs in describing events, but as he explains, the book is about occurrences so dreadful that the only way to deal with the continuous horror is to try to lighten the mood. I agree with his choice, but others may not.  He also doesn’t linger over details except when they pertain to his pattern, so he avoids gruesome images inasmuch as possible.

Another thing I appreciated is that James doesn’t take the stance that he is right in all instances but allows the reader to agree or disagree.  Some cases may have four or five features in common with the profile but have others that seem to be at odds with it.  James gives his reasons for including or excluding that event but doesn’t insist that others agree with his conclusion. I have to say this is rather unusual in my experience.  Often, an author is fixated on getting the reader to conclude that the author’s explanation is the only possible one. (It seems to me that this is especially true of books about Jack the Ripper, but isn’t limited to those.)

Part of what I like about historical mysteries is that usually the author sets the stage by telling us about the social, economic, and/or governmental situation of the day.  In James’ book, we get a bit of a lesson in how police departments and crime scene investigation evolved, not to mention the role of the press.  It’s not surprising that in several cases when the crime is “solved,” the accepted solution is usually a person of color or low social standing in the community. Some of the accused were lynched before a trial could take place. As I mentioned at the beginning, serial killers have been around a long time, but the concept that someone could be murdering people for the thrill of it is newer.  This hampered many investigations because authorities were certain the perpetrator had to have some connection with the victims; even when two families were murdered in very similar ways in the same area, the police looked for connections between the families, not really considering the attack could have been from a stranger. I think most eye-opening to me was the information about detectives, a job for which there were very few (if any) qualifications except a desire to make a buck.

My only real complaint about the book is the lack of an index.  With so many cases and so much ground to cover, I sometimes wanted to refresh my memory on details but locating specifics was difficult without aforementioned index. A more minor complaint is the lack of a bibliography.  Sources are cited, and due credit is given to authors (Beth Klingensmith gets especial thanks) and newspapers but sometimes a bit more information would have been helpful if someone wanted to read the original material. 

Overall, I found this to be a fascinating book and recommend it. I will say it’s sometimes enjoyed best in small doses as the body count rises; even the light tone adopted can’t gloss over the fact that a large number of people are brutally murdered, usually in their beds.  It went down much better when  read during the day and not in the evenings. This would be a good book for a reader’s group, wherein people could debate the various murders and decide which ones were part of a pattern and which weren’t.

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

Reviewed by Ambrea

Jane Steele, like her heroine Jane Eyre, endures abuse at the hands of her horrible aunt and her predatory cousin; however, unlike her more demure literary contemporary, Jane Steele takes matters into her own hands—and retaliates.  She fights for her life at a grim school, before she escapes to London and leaves her tormentors behind, and spends her time writing “last confessions” and penny dreadfuls.

One day, she discovers an advertisement, an opening as a governess at Highgate House—her familial home, her understood birthright—for a Mr. Charles Thornfield, an army doctor recently returned from the Sikh Wars.  Using the pseudonym Jane Stone, she steps into her old childhood home and meets some of the most unusual people—and she finds herself feeling at home for the first time in her life.  But, as she begins to fall in love with Mr. Thornfield, a gruff and tragic figure to rival Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester, she realizes with growing panic that the bodies she left behind are not buried as deep as she hoped.

As I am an ardent fan of Jane Eyre, I found myself equally enchanted by Lyndsay Faye’s Jane Steele, but for entirely different reasons.  Unlike Jane Eyre, who lives with the hand she is dealt, who makes the best of a bad situation, who is uncompromising in her faith and her belief in herself (and, more importantly, holds herself to a rigorous moral standard), Jane Steele is a grievously flawed individual—and, most notably, a murderer.

She takes justice into her own hands, killing those who threaten and torment her.  She’s a very different sort from the quiet, plain Jane Eyre who wins the heart of Edward Rochester and readers alike; rather, Jane Steele is tough and brazen, she’s street smart and savvy, and she’s a crafty, witty narrator who refuses to back down from a challenge.

I liked her.

Not as much as Jane Eyre, mind you.  There’s something about Miss Eyre that makes her incomparable, something about her stalwart character that appeals to me on a personal level.  She remains true to herself and her heart.  And, for the era in which she lived, she’s exceptional in that regard—and she will always seem exceptional to me.

But Jane Steele was enjoyable in her own way, because, when she decides to make her own way in the world, she thwarts social convention.  Like Jane Eyre, she stays true to herself (even if it’s her more “wicked” desires that manifest).  Perverse and humorous, Jane Steele is an interesting storyteller with a vicious wit and unflinching honesty.  She recounts every gory detail, letting readers soak in the viciousness of her character—and the inordinate satisfaction of seeing justice served to those who believe they will suffer no consequence for their actions.

Jane Steele has a smart mouth and a strong (rather foul) vocabulary, and she has an unexpected talent for storytelling.  She’s clear, she’s concise, and she’s candid, which makes her an excellent narrator and her story all the more riveting, the mysteries surrounding her all the more compelling.  I enjoyed watching her story unfold, enjoyed watching as mysteries unraveled and the plot came to a bloody climax.

And, yes, there is quite a lot of blood and gore.  I mean, it’s not entirely unexpected, since Jane Steele makes a point of warning readers at the beginning of the book that she’s a serial killer.  She doesn’t attempt to hide her true colors—or any number of sins she commits.

However, I will point out that I wasn’t bothered as much by the gore as the fact that Jane Steele is something of a spin-off of a favorite classic, which reflects in the writing.  It falls into much the same category as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and Meowmorphosis, but, luckily, Faye’s novel does manage to set itself apart.  It has some similar qualities, maybe even familiar names and text; however, I will note that Jane Steele is unique enough and filled with original writing that makes it enjoyable without feeling the work borders on plagiarism.

Overall, I was thrilled with Jane Steele.  It’s certainly given me something to think about in regards to the pair of Janes who both adorn my bookshelf and who have managed to find a place in my heart.

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl

Reviewed by Ambrea

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl opens in Boston at the close of the Civil War in 1865.  With the country trying to piece itself together again, Boston is coming to terms with the return of soldiers, wounded and damaged by a horrific war, and a brand new political landscape—and then the murders begin.  Modeled after the horrible, grotesque tortures of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, these murders shock Boston society and send the Dante Club—a group of like-minded men who seek to translate and publish Dante’s work—scrambling to pick up the pieces and stop a killer before it’s too late.

I was hooked by the premise of The Dante Club:  a crazed killer haunting the streets of Boston, a group of literary men (including poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) piecing together a gruesome puzzle, a marginalized detective with a knack for mysteries, and a police force wracked with corruption.  It’s a darkly compelling book that combines literature, history, mystery, drama and suspense.

Although Pearl weaves a beguiling story and recruits fascinating literary characters, I have to say I liked his character Nicholas Rey the best.  As the primary detective in the novel, Rey was critical to the story.  His side of the investigation, which ran parallel to the events in the Dante Club, helps piece together clues and shows an actual police investigation.

More to the point, however, I liked Rey for the fact that he is a spectacular detective despite the restriction of his corrupt police department and the prejudices of his peers.  He’s faced with a level of adversity that the members of the Dante Club do not encounter, but he still manages to perform his duties as an investigator.  He is one of the most driven, most competent and intelligent characters in Pearl’s novel—and, by far, he’s my favorite.

As a murder-mystery, The Dante Club is intriguing and intense; however, I should point out that it’s a tale riddled with blood and gore.  Going into the novel, I expected carnage.  What I didn’t expect was Pearl’s insight into the lives of soldiers who survived the Civil War.  I grasped the social and historical context of the novel, but I didn’t realize the detail the author would put into his work.  Pearl takes a long hard look at the soldiers who survived the war and sheds unexpected light on the horrors that plagued the United States during such a tumultuous time—and provides a level of precise detail that left me feeling emotionally drained.

In short, The Dante Club is a decent murder-mystery with interesting characters (an exceptional detective, I think) and a terrifying serial killer that’s sure to give the reader chills.

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Reviewed by Jeanne

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is in part the story of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, the "White City" of the title. Chicago was stretching its muscles, vying for a place not just on the national stage against New York, but for a piece of the international spotlight.  Paris had just hosted a very successful Fair, one in which an enormous tower built by Gustav Eiffel had captured the world’s imagination.  Now the United States wanted to do the same thing.  Several cities were competing for the chance to take center stage and prove that America was as innovative, as cosmopolitan, and as prosperous as any country in Europe. New York was the obvious choice, as it already had a reputation as an international city but other places begged to differ.

Chicago was one.  Chicago was a robust city, famed for its slaughterhouses and its industry, and it was ready to prove that it could be a sophisticated metropolis on a par with the East Coast cities.  When Chicago was awarded the Fair, architect Daniel Burnham was named the director.  It was his job to bring a unified vision to the Fair, properly the World’s Fair:  Columbian Exposition.  Burnham brought in Frederick Law Olmstead, the elderly but influential landscape architect, along with a number of other architects, inventors, engineers, and vendors in order to realize their goal.

While this may not sound like the most exciting of endeavors, Larson’s telling makes it so.  He has a knack for recreating a time and place.  Just as he did with Isaac’s Storm, Larson keeps readers on the edge of their seats wondering how something is going to unfold, even if we already know how it ends. One scene in particular resonated with me, when some brave souls step aboard an untried vehicle about to ascend hundreds of feet off the ground.  He captured the uncertainty, the thrill and the faith it took to try this for the first time EVER. Then there was the sheer number of new products and innovations that were introduced at the Fair, things that still influence us today, from foods, amusements, and the radical idea of putting electric lights on some of the buildings. The designs of the buildings and landscaping set the standard for municipal construction for years to come, for better or (in some views) for worse.

Oh, and did I mention there was a serial killer on the loose?

In fact, some have described this book as a sort of dual biography, comparing and contrasting Daniel Burnham, man with a glorious vision of what a city should be, with one Herman Webster Mudgett aka H.H. Holmes who came to Chicago with a different but no less ambitious agenda.  Holmes was just as thorough, just as creative, and with his own vision of perfection: his just involved murdering people for pleasure and for profit. One of the surprises for me was just how modern some of his ideas were-- very effective and efficient.

Unlike many true crime books, Larson doesn’t wallow in the gory details, though he doesn't shy away from them, either.  He presents the facts as well as he could learn them; he says in his notes that the times he had to speculate he did so based on information from the best available sources.  His restraint makes the retelling no less powerful or chilling.  

Larson has a gift for evoking a time and place through wonderful details, and his research is thorough.  He can make seemingly dull subjects both vibrant and relevant.  This is non-fiction that reads almost like fiction. In short, I highly recommend Devil in the White City.