Hunting Charles Manson: The Quest for Justice in the Days of Helter Skelter, by Lis Wiehl with Caitlin Rother

9780718092085
Thomas Nelson, 2018
336 pp

(arc: my copy from the publisher -- thanks!)

Next year it will have been fifty years since the grotesque murders that shocked America were committed by members of the Manson family.  Although five decades have passed since these killings, interest in Manson and his people hasn't waned a bit -- there are numerous books, websites, movies, tv shows, podcasts, and blogs that have captured public interest and will probably continue to do so long after the fifty-year mark has passed.   And now there's another book on the topic that is about to make its appearance, Hunting Charles Manson, written by Lis Wiehl, a very well-known legal analyst, attorney, author and reporter, along with Caitlin Rother, author, journalist, and noted crime expert.  It is the first book in a planned series of what are being called "nonfiction thrillers" that take a close look at "the awful crimes and acts of terror" of some of the worst criminals ever. 

 Briefly, Wiehl and Rother, who spent countless hours going through a multitude of sources, sitting through interviews and sifting through evidence with "fresh eyes," begin by taking their readers back through time before the Tate-La Bianca murders in 1969, introducing us first to "Charlie the Guru," where we learn that he "began collecting impressionable young women, one at a time," since his parole in 1967.   It also seems that between his release in 1967 and 1969, he had managed to completely con the Los Angeles federal probation office and everyone else up to the US Parole Board in DC, and nobody had the foggiest idea of "what he was up to", including his regular probation officer with whom he would meet repeatedly.  Even though during his meetings with his PO he admitted to several arrests for "minor offenses,"  nothing was done regarding Manson violating his probation until 1969, after the murders had occurred and Manson was hiding out in the desert, out of reach of the authorities.  As the authors note, had someone paid more attention and picked up Manson sooner for even one of these violations,  his nine victims might still be alive.   The story continues on through the investigations into the murders of Gary Hinman, the horrific killings at the house on Cielo Drive, and the La Bianca murders; it also takes us through mistakes made by the Los Angeles police and the LA Sheriff's Department (failure to coordinate information, or to even see patterns connecting the murders even though the press pointed them out),  the arrests and information that led to the trials, and finally on into the sentencing and the parole hearings, and the lingering effects on the families left behind.  The authors also examine various theories that were rejected in favor of the "Helter Skelter" motive that ultimately had its day in court. 

Considering that this book is the first in a series that examines the cases of some of the worst criminals in the world, I think it's fair to say that readers expecting a new,  in-depth, minutely-detailed account of the Manson Family and their crimes should realize that this book doesn't really go there.  One reason they give for writing this book the way they do is to  "bring readers to the present day with as much new information as possible,"  so that they can "tell the story afresh, not rehash the prosecution's narrative as relayed by Vincent Bugliosi in Helter Skelter."  They manage this very nicely, in part, by examining a number of factors that collided within this group of people such as mental illness, the use of hallucinogenic drugs, and most especially the vulnerabilities in the lives of the young women and men  who were involved with Manson that allowed him to gain so much control over their lives.  We still may not grasp the "whys" of it all, but the story as related here by these two women still has the power to chill even though it all happened nearly fifty years ago. 

for readers of intelligent true crime -- here's one right up your alley: Crooked Brooklyn, by Michael Vecchione and Jerry Schmetterer

9781250065186
Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2015
255 pp

hardcover (my copy from the publisher, thank you!)

(also posted at my nonfiction page)

The Rackets Division of the Brooklyn DA's office was where the author (Michael Vecchione) of this absorbing memoir "always wanted to be."  With co-author Jerry Schmetterer, Vecchione invites his readers to join him in a look back at his career.  Vecchione headed the division for over a decade, and was involved in several very high-profile cases that "struck Court Street like an earthquake."  I have to say that it took me longer than normal to read this book, not because of the book itself but because as I started to become more absorbed in his story, I grabbed my iPad and spent quite a bit of time finding more info on these big corruption cases as I read.

To whet potential reader appetites, here's just a very brief preview of a few cases that readers will find in here, most of which had repercussions that spread outward like a ripple in a pond:

• the crooked ADA known as the Undertaker, "the nephew of a community political leader"  
• a judge who held up the disbursement settlement in the case of a "permanently brain-damaged" baby by demanding $250,000 from the family's attorney before signing any papers
• another judge who ruled on the side of whoever would pay him the most, took bribes and gifts from attorneys (this one just killed me -- a woman's custody of her children hung in the balance)
• a huge case that brought down the "corrupt Democratic county leader and number three man in the New York State Assembly," which Vecchione notes would expose "the dirty political machine that ran Brooklyn politics" -- a huge eye opener for me as Vecchione reveals how things worked in Democratic party politics at the time (and face it, probably still works on some level in the same way even now) 
• two "Mafia cops," NYPD detectives who were "carrying out hits for the Mafia" 
• the case of the theft of bones from a funeral home used to build a doctor's fortune

and more.  Personally,  the corruption doesn't surprise me -- I'm sure that these sorts of things continue to happen on a daily basis in cities throughout the United States.  

Crooked Brooklyn makes for compelling reading.  Some of the cases in this book would also make for great movie material.  The downside is that I found it to be a little disorganized in the writing itself -- for example, Vecchione would be talking about a particular case and then in the middle of the story, would go back in time, most of the time talking about something in his personal life that would bring us right up to where he'd left off.  To be very honest, from a reader point of view, when he would do that it was a bit distracting when all I wanted to do was to get back to the cases that to me were the high point of this book.

I have to say that I disagree with the reviewer who wrote about this book in Kirkus Reviews, who stated

"However, the author’s focus on courtroom maneuvering and investigative procedures can become tedious without greater context regarding New York’s labyrinthine government and history of corruption."

I didn't find this to be the case -- a) he does briefly touch on the Tammany machine in this book, b) it is certainly not at all tedious; in fact, the opposite is true, and c) "New York's labyrinthine government and history of corruption" are not the focus of this book, so I don't think that the reviewer is playing fair here. The dustjacket blurb says that this book is "perfect for fans of television shows like Law & Order, readers of true crime, and those hungry for details about the system that keeps us safe." Having watched hundreds of hours of Law and Order  in my day (the original -- not the spinoffs), and cheering on Jack McCoy in his long-running (but not always successful)  crusade for justice, I'd say that the blurber gets it right.
Recommended.

*Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker

9780062183637
Harper, 2013
399 pp

hardcover


I'm not the biggest fan of modern true crime -- my interests in this area really lie in older, historical true crime, but once in a while a book comes along that I just have to recommend.  Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery is one of them.  You won't find any grisly details or any sort of recounting of horrendous murders here, simply because the mystery behind the deaths of the five young women around which this book is focused has not yet been solved.  This is a book that from page one will draw you in and keep you there because it's that good. The author's writing and handling of the subject matter haunted me on a human level, and while the book is centered around a series of crimes, it's also a look at how each and every one of these "lost girls" and their families were failed by the system due to officials' indifference toward them, primarily based on what they did for a living.

If you've been on the fence about this one, or if you've been thinking you'd wait to see what other people have to say, wait no more. There is no sensationalism here, no lurid details, nothing you'd find in what I consider crappy true crime books -- on the contrary, it is a book that is intelligent, sophisticated, and one that you will be thinking about long after you've finished it.

You can read more of what I have to say here; as far as I'm concerned, it's one of the best true crime books that's come along in a very long time. 

*Classic Crimes, by William Roughead

0940322463
NYRB Classics
2000
560 pp

Classic Crimes really appeals to my deeply-entrenched fascination with true crimes of the past, and was such a pleasure to read that its 560 pages just flew by in no time.  Rarely does a book of nonfiction this large maintain my interest so intently, but for some reason, I hated having to put this one down. And it just goes to show that crime hasn't really changed over the centuries -- the prime motives of murder (sex and money) are timeless.  Before I even get to the end here, let me just say that if you are at all interested in famous crimes from times gone by, especially from the UK, this is a book you should consider reading.

The author of this book is William Roughead (1870-1952) a lawyer in Scotland who was quite well known for his interest in the history of crime.  He was a contributor to the Notable Scottish Trials and Notable British Trials series, friend to Henry James, and in one famous case of the era (that of Oscar Slater), he joined such notables as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in trying to get justice for what they considered to be a trumped-up case and an incorrect verdict that sentenced a man to death.  Roughead does more than chronicle the cases in this book; at many junctures he injects his wit and sarcasm and tries to appeal to his readers' sense of justice in cases where the guilty walked away and the innocent were wrongly convicted. Using the official court documents of each case, he takes the reader through the commission of the crime (with all personalities involved), witness statements, the arrest and trial, and the aftermath.  Roughead's version of true crime reporting is nothing at all like some of today's accounts that promise titillating tattle, you know, the ones with the catchy titles and lurid covers -- he offers  facts, his opinions and manages to keep the reader interested throughout. As Luc Sante, who introduces this book, notes:

He is relentlessly discursive, his asides convincingly sounding as if they are being whispered along a bench, and digressive too. But his sense of timing is superb: though he'll take the reader on a walk through the past or through the neighborhood, he will always be back in time for the crucial next question.

There are an even dozen cases in this book, all of which occurred in Scotland, some of which have been well publicized via books, television, and movies, including:

• The case of Madeleine Smith, who was tried for murder in 1857 after her secret lover had been poisoned.

• The case of Constance Kent, whose half-brother (the son of her recently-widowed father and his new wife, the former governess) went missing one night and was found dead in the morning

• The case of Florence Bravo, a young newlywed whose husband died mysteriously from poisoning one night

• The case of Oscar Slater, who was convicted of a brutal murder solely on the basis of a pawn ticket and mistaken identity

and some I'd not heard of before, including

• The case of Katherine Nairn in the 18th century, suspected of murdering her husband by poison

• The case of Deacon Brodie in the 18th century, respected gentleman by day, burglar by night

• The case of Jessie McLachlan, who was supposed to have killed one of the maids of the Fleming household, and laid the blame on the eldest member of the Fleming family

• The case of Dr. Pritchard, whose wife and mother-in-law both died under very mysterious circumstances, probably at his hands

• One of my favorite cases in this book, "The Arran Murder," in which two men on holiday climb up a mountain and only one comes down

• An incredibly twisted case known here as "The Ardlamont Mystery," involving the mysterious shooting death of a young man and a rather slimy con man of sorts

• The case of John Donald Merrett, who went off to a dance hall while his mother was dying of a bullet to the head

Classic Crimes is a treasure trove of true crime and treachery, one of the best I've ever read.  I found myself heading to the Internet on several occasions to see if there were other books, television dramas or movies based on any of these cases and threw a few into my Netflix queue and onto my Amazon wishlist. On the negative side of my praise for this book, however, the language throughout is a bit stilted and may turn many readers off.  Again, by Luc Sante:

You can open the book anywhere and light on a random sentence -- for instance, 'The secret marauder came and went without a trace, save for the empty till, the rifled scrutoire, or the displenished plate-chest that testified to his visitation...' The usages herein may often send the reader to the dictionary, sometimes even to the OED.

However, if you can get used to Roughhead's manner of speech, the cases themselves will provide you with hours of entertainment, if true crimes of the past are one of your interests. Highly recommended.