So what better time than Halloween to snuggle up with a scary murder mystery? If you like your murder tucked in with rich cultural history and warmed up with a bit of social commentary, try this short list of compelling true crime. Enjoy! – Lynne
The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired Chicago, by Douglas Perry. It’s 1924 and life was cheaper than a quart of bathtub gin in the gangland capital of the world. “Crackling” with social history that presents the freewheeling spirit of the Jazz Age, this is the story that inspired the musical, Chicago.
Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town, by Elyssa East. An abandoned, isolated Colonial ruin set on 3000 wooded acres in Gloucester, Massachusetts, has been compared to Stonehenge and is haunted by tales of witches, pirates, former slaves, and the dogs of destitute Revolutionary War widows. In 1984, a brutal murder deepened the mystery surrounding this ghost town.
American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the “It,” Girl and the Crime of the Century, by Paula Uruburu. Money, madness, romance, and murder illuminate New York in the Gilded Age. The tragic story of beautiful Gibson Girl Evelyn Nesbit reveals a love triangle that resulted in the murder of her lover by her husband. Known as “the girl in the red velvet swing,” Evelyn’s story inspired E. L. Doctorow’s novel, Ragtime.
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, by Erik Larson. Set against the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, this page-turner reads like fiction as it unfolds the story of a cunning serial killer who used the Fair to lure his victims to their death. If you already think carnivals are slightly creepy, this one will push you over the edge.
The Murder Room: the Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World’s Most Perplexing Cold Cases, by Michael Capuzzo. Three of America’s finest sleuths, along with forensic experts from around the world, regularly meet for lunch in Philadelphia and work pro bono to solve the vilest cold cases imaginable. In this account, you’ll follow the founders of the exclusive Vidocq Society, named for the flamboyant 19th Century Paris detective, Eugene Francois Vidocq, whose life inspired the creation of detective fiction.
The Devil’s Rooming House: the True Story of America’s Deadliest Female Serial Killer, by M. William Phelps. In the summer of 1911, New England is in the grip of a powerful heat wave. Over 2000 people have died and not only of heat exhaustion. The heat is so relentless that dozens of people escape by drowning themselves, jumping off bridges, even slashing their own throats. As if that’s not bad enough, something is rotten in Hartford, Connecticut. Mrs. Amy Archer, respected nurse, owner and proprietor of the Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids, has evidently dispatched over 60 souls, including two of her husbands, to their eternal rest. Her MO is serving lemonade spiked with arsenic. This is the true story that inspired the classic – you guessed it – Arsenic and Old Lace.
Wisconsin Death Trip, by Michael Lesy. And finally, a book that goes beyond murder, this fin-de-siècle examination of violence, poverty, insanity, and the gap between rich and poor in rural Jackson County, Wisconsin, at the dawn of the 20th Century is one wild ride. Now a cult favorite, Wisconsin Death Trip is available in both print and DVD. It is also the backdrop for a really good novel titled, A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick.
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