{"id":10074,"date":"2010-05-04T09:25:20","date_gmt":"2010-05-04T13:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=10074"},"modified":"2022-12-25T07:52:02","modified_gmt":"2022-12-25T12:52:02","slug":"true-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=10074","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Beast: Best True Crime Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite genres is True Crime, and I loved to read this compilation on Daily Beast of the Best True Crime books<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have read all of those, and in the case of In Cold Blood<\/a>\"\"<\/i> and HELTER SKELTER<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, I have read them multiple times. Ann Rule’s book about Ted Bundy (whom she knew briefly), The Stranger Beside Me<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, is fantastic. I was not as admiring of The Executioner’s Song<\/a>\"\"<\/i> as many others are – I think maybe I should give it another go. I loved the movie. But I wanted to cut about 150 pages out of that book. I couldn’t wait for Gilmore to die so I could stop having to be in his presence. While certainly you don’t need to “relate” to the people doing the crimes in these books, I have to say that I found Dick Hickock and Perry Miller more interesting<\/i> than Gary Gilmore, although that may just be a tribute to Capote’s writing (which I like better than Mailer’s, although Mailer is awesome as well).<\/p>\n

An interesting case is the case of Fatal Vision<\/a>\"\"<\/i> (excerpt here<\/a>), by Joe McGuinness about Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret surgeon accused of murdering his wife and children. He is in jail to this day. He maintains his innocence. He insists that a group of hippies broke into his house and slaughtered his family – while he, a massively strong Green Beret remained unharmed. Joe McGuinness actually befriended MacDonald when he was out on appeal, gained his trust, and got unbelievable access to the man, in the form of long nostalgic interviews, first-person, that are strategically placed throughout the book, which is, in actuality, a damning account of MacDonald’s crime, and pretty much buries him. It was an act that some found distasteful, even in light of MacDonald’s crimes – that McGuinness would deceive his subject to such a degree, that MacDonald would think he was talking to a friend, when actually he was talking to someone who was building a case against him. Janet Malcolm, of the New York Times, was incensed by McGuinness’s behavior, and wrote a book about it: The Journalist and the Murderer<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, an awesome read in and of itself. Whatever side you fall on (McGuinness was just doing what journalists do and of course he saw value in making MacDonald trust him and open up to him – because it would make a better book, or McGuinness behaved dishonorably in leading MacDonald to believe that the book would exonerate him or at least tell “his side”), it is a fascinating conversation, and I highly recommend both books. I know I came away from Fatal Vision<\/i> thinking, beyond a shadow of a doubt, this man DID IT. Malcolm doesn’t dispute the facts of the case. She is not trying to prove MacDonald’s innocence. She is interested in journalistic integrity. Many feathers got ruffled over the publication of Fatal Vision<\/i>, and the war of words about it continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite genres is True Crime, and I loved to read this compilation on Daily Beast of the Best True Crime books. I have read all of those, and in the case of In Cold Blood and HELTER … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[2685,80],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10074"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184253,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10074\/revisions\/184253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}