My Review (5 stars out of 5) Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen and his wife, Belle, lived in a rented house at 39 Hilldrop Crescent. Following supper with two of their friends, Crippen appears to have poisoned his wife and cut up her body, burying her under the cellar floor. Moving his mistress, Ethel le Neve,…
Category: True Crime
‘The Poisonous Solicitor’ by Stephen Bates
My Review (5 stars out of 5) In 1922, solicitor Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong was tried and found guilty of killing his wife by poisoning her with arsenic. Hanged for her murder, the case caused a scandal not only in Hay-on-Wye where he lived but across the whole country. My first introduction to this story…
‘Catch Me If You Can’ by Frank W. Abagnale with Stan Redding
My Review (3 stars out of 5) (Audiobook) In the nineteen sixties, American Frank W. Abagnale, while utilising several aliases, became one of the cleverest con men the world has ever seen. Posing as an airline pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, and sociology professor, he forged thousands of cheques, stayed free of charge in hundreds…
‘Little Lindy Is Kidnapped’ by Thomas Doherty
My Review (5 stars out of 5) (Audiobook) On March 1st, 1932, the 20-month-old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was taken from his bedroom in Hopewell, New Jersey. Given Lindbergh’s reputation as an aviator – having been the first person to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic – the American public were appalled that…
‘Missing Presumed Dead’ by Mark Tedeschi
My Review (5 stars out of 5) Australians Dorothy Davis and Kerry Whelan had a lot in common – they both came from middle class, happy families and were well off financially. Unfortunately for them, they also both knew Bruce Burrell. When Dorothy disappeared in 1995 after leaving her home to visit a friend, police…
‘Kitty Genovese’ by Catherine Pelonero
My Review (5 stars out of 5) (Audiobook) Subtitled: A True Account of a Public Murder and its Private Consequences, this is the story of the horrific murder of Kitty Genovese on the street where she lived in Queens, New York in 1964. What proved more horrifying however, was the number of witnesses to her…
‘The Dublin Railway Murder’ by Thomas Morris
My Review (5 stars out of 5) (Audiobook) Dublin, November 1856: When the chief cashier of the Broadstone railway terminus is found dead in his office, his colleagues assume he must have committed suicide. But further investigation uncovers the truth – George Little has been murdered. Most baffling is the fact that Little’s office door…
‘Yorkshire Ripper – The Secret Murders’ by Chris Clark and Tim Tate
My Review (5 stars out of 5) Known as the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe was convicted in 1981 of killing thirteen women. Though it’s long been understood that West Yorkshire police might’ve caught him earlier if they hadn’t only focused on murdered prostitutes, what is generally not known about are all the other murders that…
‘Black Dahlia Avenger’ by Steve Hodel
My Review (5 stars out of 5) The murder of Elizabeth Short (known as the Black Dahlia) has remained unsolved for more than fifty years. Now, former LAPD detective Steve Hodel believes he has uncovered the killer. Following a death in his family, Hodel found documents that set him off on a murder hunt, unearthing…
‘A Passion for Poison’ by Carol Ann Lee
My Review (5 stars out of 5) In post-war Britain, teenager Graham Young developed an interest in poisons. Reading and researching everything he could about his soon-to-be obsession, the fourteen-year-old landed himself in court after trying out his experiments on people. Charged with poisoning a schoolfriend and members of his own family, he was diagnosed…
Colin Garrow 