Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1235766 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 320 pages

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Poorly researched and probably harmful to you.
This book is ridiculously awful. It's the worst book I own and it's likely I'll end up giving it to a friend (who in turn, i imagine, will throw it away himself). The Chronicle of Crime traces the last 200 years of crime around the world (principally looking at murders). It's written in a trashy tabloid style, and the author claims this was intended. It's also laid out like a newspaper and covers pretty much everyone you'd want to hear about and then some (although there are quite a few notable exclusions like Ivan Milat, Arthur Shawcross, Rod Ferrel and Richard Ramirez, and some high-profile cases - like the Zodiac - are given less than 200 words). Too, you'd imagine that maybe this book might be enjoyable like reading about Jeffery Dahmer in the National Enquirer or something, but it's not. It's like reading hundreds of poorly written bookjackets. Much of the book is filled with factual errors; for example, he claims uncaptured killer Zodiac wore a balaclava with his symbol sewed to the head (the costume he's known to have worn was reported to have his symbol sewn to his vest), that Dean Corll killed his victims in a boatshed he rented (he actually just buried them there), and describes the capture of Jeffery Dahmer extroadinarily different from how it actually happened (author says Dahmer attacked the police when he found them at his door -- too, no mention is made of Dahmer's death later). As well, the articles (written today) are presented as though they were written at the time of the discovery of the crime. This proves very irritating as the author is utterly unable to handle writing in this tense. The author also tries recreating the feel of the newspapers of the time and often makes attempts at 'entertaining' the audience (to achieve this most sentences end with an exclamation mark). He succeeds in making the book more annoying, of course. It's also safe to say that much of the research for this book comes from the internet and the author's fuzzy memory. Nothing new is presented here (not even in the photographs). I'm positive there's much better books. I cannot stress enough how bad this book is; do not buy.

I have this book always open on my desk
I love this book. It covers all different crimes over the past hundred years or so in a newspaper style format. Most "articles" are quite brief yet still informative and are a great starting point for any further research. Also there are several features covering major crimes such as Jack the Ripper, Jeffery Dahmer and the Manson murders. A great read and a worthwhile addition to any true crime buff's collection.