Hastened to the Grave
The Gypsy Murder Investigation
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2.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
They were a notorious gypsy family that seeped into their victims' lives like a deadly cancer. And they couldn't be stopped-- until one courageous woman took on the cases no one else would touch...
THE VICTIMS:
Elderly, well-to-do men and women who, due to their failing health, strength, and faculties, could be conned out of their fortunes by heinous neglect, abuse, and possibly even murder.
THE ACCUSED:
Several members of a ruthless family of Gypsies known for their cunning con-games and remarkable ability to extract large sums of money from their unwitting pawns.
THE INVESTIGATOR:
Fay Faron, a beautiful, never-say-die P.I., determined to bring these culprits to justice-- even when the authorities turned a blind eye to the Gypsies' crimes time and time again.
In this shattering expose, bestselling author Jack Olsen follows Fay Faron as she retraces every step of the Gypsy family and the crimes they stand accused of: moving in on their helpless prey, extorting money, signing the fortunes of elderly millionaires into their own names-- and speeding up the death process with sadistic neglect, slow poison, and unspeakable cruelty. Not since Peter Maas' King of the Gypsies has the world of Gypsy crime been exposed in such shocking detail and with more fascinating insight.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Author of 27 books (Salt of the Earth, etc.), Olsen has found a winning protagonist in Fay Faron, the straight-shooting, busty blonde proprietress of Rat Dog Dick, a down-and-out San Francisco detective agency comprised of Faron and her trusty mutt, Beans. Olsen's latest true-crime saga begins when Faron is hired by a lawyer friend to check out Danny Tene, who the lawyer suspects is bilking an elderly client out of her life savings. When the client turns up dead, Faron suspects murder. Her investigation leads her to the shady and mysterious world of the Tene Bimbo clan (the family Peter Maas chronicled in King of the Gypsies), and six more bodies, all elderly men, all seemingly seduced by Tene women as far back as 1984 and duped into giving the women their money and property. Apparently not content to wait for the natural demise of their aging charges, the Tenes allegedly dosed them with the heart medication digitalis, which acts as a slow, difficult-to-detect poison. Faron finally gets the police to act on the evidence she's uncovered; as of the writing of this book, the supposed perpetrator of the so-called Foxglove murderer (named for the plant that produces digitalis) was still to go to trial (Olsen concludes with the November 1997 indictments). As the trial promises to be fascinating in its own right, readers with an interest in the case would have been better served by a definitive account. Even so, Olsen does his usual professional job here, turning in a brisk, well-researched treatment of murders most foul. 8 pages of b&w photos, not seen by PW. Literary Guild, Mystery Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates.
