The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes
-
- $7.99
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
The biggest and best collection of unsolved murder and mystery cases - updated and expanded. This compelling volume presents thirty-five of the most intriguing crime cases that still defy solution, as reported by leading authors and journalists in the field of crime writing. Expanded and updated, this new edition includes the mystery of 'Jack the Stripper' who preyed on prostitutes in Hammersmith in the 1960s, the death of Starr Faithful whose young body was found on Long Island, the vicious murder of Oxford nurse Janet Brown in her own home in 1995, and the case of Lizzie Borden who, according to the rhyme, 'took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks'.
Other cases include: Colin Wilson and the 'Zodiac' killer of California; Russell Miller and the obsession with the Black Dahlia; Rebecca West on the killing of Stanley Setty, and the man who contracted out of humanity; Brian Masters on the killing of Rachel Nickell; Kenneth Alsop on who shot 'Jake' Lingle, and his connection with Al Capone; Philip Sugden on that most famous Victorian enigma, Jack the Ripper; Sydney Horley on the woman who was cleared of killing her husband, and went on to become a Broadway star. Nearly all the cases involve one or more acts of murder, and all are left with a question mark hanging over them with real-life whodunits that offer a continuing challenge to all who find fascination in the criminal mind.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
During the past decade, Carroll & Graf has published more than 40 titles in its Mammoth series, spanning a wide range of subjects, from Arthurian legends, chess, crime and erotica to fairy tales, werewolves and zombies. This crime compendium has been assembled by British broadcast journalist Wilkes, author of three previous true-crime books. He dusts off dossiers of forgotten and familiar cases, those that "have no ending, for they finish curled up in a question-mark." With excerpts from books published over the past 75 years, the anthology displays a diverse lineup of 38 writers and journalists. Wilkes accommodates a wide range of past puzzlements: "They encompass murders by persons or persons unknown, crimes that resulted in no criminal charge, or where (demonstrably) the wrong person was accused or (again, demonstrably) the right person was not." The 16th-century disappearance of Martin Guerre, recently the source of two films and a stage musical, sets the tone with the earliest mystery in the book, which then skips to eight 19th-century cases. The first half of the 20th century provides another 21 cases, but there are only eight from 1952 to 1992. The impressive centerpiece of this collection, notable for both brevity and brilliance, is James Thurber's 1936 revisiting of the "fantastic events and circumstances of the Hall-Mills case," a 1922 New Jersey double murder and trial.
