The butler did it (or at least, he lit the fire, by taping more than 20 hours of incriminating conversations). And that’s just the first of the many apt clichés about a scandal that has gripped France for a decade.

The story of this convoluted war of wills (pun intended), told with skill by former Time Paris bureau chief Tom Sancton in The Bettencourt Affair, features a cast of characters pulled straight from a Tolstoy novel: L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, the $40 billion-dollar woman; her only child, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, vying for control of her mother’s life (and her money); and the flamboyant, brash photographer François-Marie Banier who, over the course of a quarter-century, befriended the likes of Truman Capote and Salvador Dalí and then insinuated himself into hundreds of millions of the Bettencourt’s fortune.

Nearly deaf since childhood and married to a respectable but acquiescent diplomat, Liliane delighted in Banier’s theatrical manner and his artistic aspirations, lavishing upon him artworks by Picasso and Matisse, insurance policies and cash gifts; she even reportedly considered adopting him. But her family and staff believed he was taking advantage of her age and increasing mental frailty, which was the crux of her daughter’s lawsuit against Banier.

In the end, the lawsuit revealed political hand-offs, money laundering, Swiss and offshore accounts, as well as Fascist and Nazi collaboration. The entire ordeal is known in France as l’affair Bettencourt, which culminated in years of prosecutorial expense, suicides and the downfall of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and several ministers and judges.

This article was originally published in the August 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Top Pick in Nonfiction, July 2017

Abandoned buildings were going up in flames in sleepy Accomack County on Virginia’s Eastern Shore in late 2012 and early 2013. More than 60, one after the other, lighting up the skies in the middle of the night. Neighbors grew suspicious, vigilante groups were formed, and police checkpoints dotted lonely country roads.

In the end, a bizarre story emerged once police captured the culprits, who turned out to be engaged lovers Charlie Smith and Tonya Bundick. The story of the hunt for these Bonnie-and-Clyde arsonists, their capture and trials is mesmerizing, as told by Washington Post feature writer Monica Hesse in American Fire. The chase involved 26,378 hours of work by the Virginia State Police and 14,924 hours of overtime for nearly five months. Teams of men spent nights in tents beside potential targets, hoping to catch the fire starter red-handed.

Hesse happened upon this story when she went looking for an assignment that would simply get her “out of the office for a day.” She got more than she bargained for, spending the next two years researching, writing and trying to understand the why behind the strange crime spree.

She ended up moving to the area for a while, riding on fire trucks, visiting Smith and Bundick in jail, getting to know residents at church potluck suppers and digging deep into the area’s past, present and future, even reading a book about the chicken industry “that is more interesting than any book about chicken farming has a right to be.”

So why did Smith and Bundick commit these crimes? “The answer,” Hesse writes, “inasmuch as there is an answer for these things, involved hope, poverty, pride, Walmart, erectile dysfunction, Steak-umms . . . intrigue, and America.” What more is there to say? American Fire is deftly written and endlessly surprising.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Monica Hesse about American Fire.

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In 1917, the disappearance of an 18-year-old girl named Ruth Cruger caught the nation’s attention. Wearing her blue winter coat and a floppy hat, the recent high school graduate left her family’s Harlem apartment to run errands on a cold February day. At first her family assumed Ruth had gone ice skating, since she’d left with her skates in hopes of getting them sharpened.

But hours later, as the skies darkened and snow fell, Ruth still hadn’t returned home. Retracing Ruth’s steps, her sister tracked down the motorcycle shop where Ruth had left her skates, run by a man named Alfredo Cocchi. A few days later he, too, had vanished.

Police detectives got busy—to no avail. Although they searched Cocchi’s shop, they found nothing. More than two weeks later, authorities concluded that Ruth had simply run away from home. Unwilling to give up, the Crugers hired a lawyer and detective named Grace Humiston, who didn’t rest until the case was solved, months later, with the discovery that Ruth had indeed been murdered at Cocchi’s hands.

Brad Ricca’s account reads like a fictional detective story, with the fascinating figure of Humiston at the center. Although she later faded from public view, Humiston remained dedicated to crimes involving women and girls, even publishing a magazine entitled New Justice, aimed at the protection of girls.

Ricca, a filmmaker and expert on comics, brings an interest in popular culture and media to his narrative, much of which had to be pieced together from newspaper accounts. Ricca’s dramatic, novelistic storytelling makes for a great read. And thanks to his detective work, Humiston and her remarkable commitment to justice have been rescued from obscurity and brought to life.

This article was originally published in the January 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

While perhaps not quite as well known as the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, was equally full of drama and intrigue. Meticulously researched by Margaret Creighton, a history professor and writer (Colors of Courage), The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City tells the tale of a city altered by the technology, people and events that intermingled at this remarkable venue.

Angling to make the Pan-American Exposition bigger and better than any fair of the age, the folks in Buffalo chose “progress of the Western Hemisphere” as their theme. Electricity was a marvelous new sensation at the time, made even more incredible by the fact that the fair’s power was generated by the mighty Niagara Falls nearby. It lit streetlights, powered streetcars and illuminated bright light and color over the fairgrounds via a huge electric tower.  

But all was not rosy. During the height of the festivities, an assassin shot President William McKinley as he was greeting fairgoers at the Temple of Music. This dastardly deed cast a dark shadow over the fair, particularly since the president lingered for several days after the shooting. And when the murderer was sentenced to death by electric chair, the fair that showcased the advancement of electricity was suddenly linked with the way it could kill.

In fascinating detail, Creighton weaves this story together with those of the fair’s many other characters, such as Annie Taylor, who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel, deceitful animal trainer Frank Bostock and Alice Cenda, the world’s tiniest woman. She describes the midway attractions and various cultures that were “displayed,” such as Native Americans and African people.

The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City is the compelling story of an event that sparked technological advances and spurred new perspectives on social equality and race.

As he looked back on the Yogurt Shop Murders, one former Austin, Texas, detective wanted to emphasize a hard fact: “Confession is a beginning,” he said. “We had 50.”

You read that right—maybe not exactly 50, but there were certainly dozens of confessions to the horrific 1991 killing of four teen girls, who were found naked, bound and shot to death in the yogurt shop where two of them worked. Police know that any big case attracts false confessions from the mentally unstable. They also know that overzealous officers sometimes convince suspects—often very young, ill-educated, suggestible ones—to make false confessions. 

Was this such a case? Beverly Lowry’s gripping re-examination, Who Killed These Girls?, can’t be definitive, but her descriptions of the 1999 “confessions” of two hapless young men raise serious doubts about their statements. Nevertheless, they and two supposed accomplices were arrested. Two were convicted; the other two set free. There was no physical evidence against any of them. After 10 years, the two convicts were freed on appeal, and the D.A. reluctantly admitted that new DNA evidence didn’t implicate any of the four.

Lowry begins the book with moving depictions of the victims, and their still-suffering families are strong presences throughout. But the heart of her narrative is the perhaps-coerced confessions of Mike Scott and Rob Springsteen. Their defenders say they knew nothing about the crime until the police fed them information—and tricked and browbeat them into “admissions.” Lowry’s book is as much about the tactics and culture of American law enforcement as it is about this specific crime. 

The Austin police still insist that the four men were guilty. But Lowry makes an impressive case that thanks to the department’s missteps, we really have no idea who killed those innocent girls.

This article was originally published in the October 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Greenwich Village in the 1970s did not have a shortage of local eccentrics, but one was particularly notorious. Wandering at random, clad in a dirty bathrobe and slippers and adorned with several days’ stubble, Vincent “the Chin” Gigante certainly appeared to be unwell. Yet even when he was on one of many stays in mental hospitals, Gigante was a shot-caller of the first order, the head of the Mafia’s Genovese family. Chin is the story of his mob career and the ruse that kept him out of prison for four decades.

With material this juicy, author Larry McShane could stand to ease off the hard-boiled hyperbole a bit: He describes John Gotti as landing in Chin’s lap “like a frothing pit bull and linger(ing) like a chronic disease,” and a lawyer who “preened like a peacock, but stung like a scorpion,” without elaborating on these qualities. Several chapters are titled after songs in an apparent nod to Martin Scorsese’s films, but the facts alone are sufficient in this jaw-dropping tale.

Gigante managed to feign mental illness so effectively other mafiosi tried to copy him, but he warned them off, laying claim to his hustle. When the feds began to circle, he simply checked himself into the hospital for a “tune-up,” and came home when the coast was clear. When police came to question him his wife let them in (eventually), where they found him standing naked in the shower, holding an umbrella.

During one court appearance, someone pointed out that the tremor in Gigante’s leg was on the wrong side; he switched them without missing a beat. Considering he had two families to support, with a wife and mistress both named Olympia, perhaps the oversight can be forgiven. The Chin was a killer, but like many of his peers in the mafia he was also a larger than life character, successfully feigning dementia while his inner circle knew he was crazy like a fox.

In 1885, Austin, Texas, was terrorized by a series of murders so seemingly random and brutal they’re considered the work of the first American serial killer. People were reluctant to pay attention when the victims were servant girls or young women of color, ascribing the crimes to a gang of “bad blacks,” in part because Austin was prosperous and growing; murders in the news were bad publicity. In The Midnight Assassin, Texas Monthly editor Skip Hollandsworth tells the little-known story in riveting fashion, presenting this historical page-turner in spellbinding detail. 

The violence of the killer’s attacks is genuinely horrifying—bodies were slashed so brutally they couldn’t be properly collected for autopsy. When a similar series of crimes began in London, some speculated that Jack the Ripper had used Austin as a training ground, though there’s ample evidence to discount that theory. 

Hollandsworth balances the grim realities—once the citizens of Austin were sufficiently motivated to act, they asked for the right to make “citizen’s arrests,” which in this case would amount to nothing more than lynching on the spot (the request was thankfully denied)—with unexpected humor. The press sensationalized the story, but as the murders continued, one reporter, spelling his name “Frank Einstein” in the rush to print, went so far as to speculate that a real-life equivalent of Mary Shelley’s monster was roaming the streets in a murderous rage. Detectives with highly tenuous relations to the famed Pinkerton agency lived high on the city’s dollar while accomplishing next to nothing. 

The crimes of The Midnight Assassin were never solved, largely owing to the paucity of investigative tools available to law enforcement at the time. Hollandsworth hopes that new evidence may yet come to light and identify the killer, but even left unsolved, this is a case that will leave you freshly grateful for electric lights, fingerprinting and CSI.
 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our interview with Skip Hollandsworth about The Midnight Assassin.
 

This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Award-winning journalist and Princeton University professor David Kushner was 4 years old when he asked his 11-year-old brother to bring home his favorite candy from the convenience store, just a short bike ride away through the woods. He could not have imagined that he would never see Jon again. Neither could his family, or anyone else in 1973 Tampa, Florida, where children were free to explore the outside world and parents fearlessly encouraged it. Jon’s brutal murder killed such innocence. Kushner’s riveting memoir, Alligator Candy, begins by asking how any parent or family can survive such unimaginable evil and devastating grief. 

Growing up in the shadow of Jon’s death, Kushner heard the rumors and imagined all kinds of things, but he resisted learning the factual details of the crime, afraid of asking questions that could resurrect his parents’ grief. When, years later, one of the killers received a parole hearing, Kushner and his oldest brother attended. They learned how horrifically Jon died, how the killers were caught—and what became of the candy Jon never brought home that day.

Kushner interviews those who searched for Jon and hunted down his killers. He taps the memories of those who mourned with and supported his family. His parents at last share their boundless sorrow, and how they survived. “Time goes by,” writes his mother, “and grief finds a niche . . . and goes along, too, included in everything. ‘I’m here,’ says Grief. ‘Never mind me, just go about your business.’ ” Finally, he knows as much as he can about the brother he was barely old enough to remember. 

Now a parent himself, Kushner must balance his fear of random evil against the statistical rarity of child murder. The struggle becomes terrifyingly real when his 3-year-old daughter disappears at a carnival. Yet he goes on to share the joy of her first solo bike ride. Parents today can understand the love, hope and fear he so eloquently describes in this account of one family’s transcendent courage in the face of crushing pain.

This article was originally published in the March 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

On a hot summer night in 2009 in Seattle, a 23-year-old man crept through the bathroom window of the home of 39-year-old Teresa Butz and her partner, 36-year-old Jennifer Hopper. The pair awoke to find the stranger standing over their beds with a knife; he proceeded to rape and stab the women repeatedly. 

They eventually broke free, running into the street, screaming and bleeding, while their attacker fled. It was too late for Teresa Butz, who died from her horrific wounds. Hopper survived, suddenly finding herself planning a funeral instead of the wedding ceremony she and Butz had been looking forward to.

Eli Sanders, an editor of Seattle’s weekly newspaper, The Stranger, received a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of the crime and its aftermath. His expanded book-length coverage, While the City Slept, is an absorbing and meticulous account of how these three lives tragically intersected on July 19, 2009. 

Sanders’ reporting makes for sad but riveting reading. The killer, Isaiah Kalebu, is the son of a Ugandan immigrant who routinely beat Kalebu’s mother. Mental illness ran in his mother’s family, and Kalebu was known to wander the streets spouting grandiose nonsense with his pit bull in tow. He had been diagnosed as bipolar in 2008 but refused treatment and medication.

Sanders describes Hopper’s admirable courage and compassion as she addresses Kalebu at his sentencing: “I do wish you peace, and I do not hate you, and I’m so sorry for whatever it is in your life that brought you to this.” 

As the narrative unfolds, Sanders also deftly explores the tangled roles played by the social services, mental health and prison systems, calculating that the public will end up paying over $3 million for Kalebu’s trial and continued incarceration. While the City Slept offers a comprehensive look at a tragedy that is sadly all too common.

This article was originally published in the February 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

True crime fans know the formula when it comes to serial killers: Take one messed up childhood, add a domineering mother and shake repeatedly until something snaps. It was certainly true in the case of Michael Ross, who raped and murdered eight women before he was caught, tried and ultimately put to death. By the time journalist Martha Elliott met Ross in prison, he'd received extensive treatment and refused a new trial on the grounds that he didn't want the families of his victims to be further traumatized.

The Man in the Monster, Elliott’s account of getting to know Ross, is not an easy read on any level. The crimes that Ross committed, and the fantasies that he obsessed over, are horrifying. The anguish and rage of his victims' families is chilling. Elliott is initially terrified to even speak to Ross on the phone, but over time they develop a friendship. She questions him in depth and is quick to call him out when he becomes manipulative or defensive.

He would sometimes call her at home and, hearing her toddlers asking for her attention, bark at her to tell them to wait; she’s quick to put his arrogance in check at times like this. Seeing Ross in his entirety makes it impossible to ignore the human being standing behind the rap sheet, which may be the most disturbing thing of all.

It's never crystal clear whether Ross refused retrial to spare the victims' families or as a form of state-sanctioned suicide. He believed, and many who examined him concurred, that he was mentally ill, making institutionalization, not imprisonment, a more appropriate sentence.

True crime usually allows the reader to think of criminals as unlike the rest of us; no such luck here. Ross committed horrible acts, yes, but we can't look away from his humanity. The Man in the Monster is arresting at every turn.

In this fascinating explanation of the techniques of forensic science, Val McDermid takes readers on an “evidential journey” that begins at the crime scene and ends in the courtroom. McDermid, a Scottish crime fiction writer and former newspaper crime reporter, turns out to be a remarkably intelligent and witty guide for a tour of such gruesome subjects as blood spatter, DNA analysis, toxicology exams and forensic entomology, a discipline that McDermid writes, mordantly, is “based on one grisly fact: a corpse makes a good lunch.”

In each chapter of Forensics, McDermid’s approach is to narrate a short history of the discipline in question, weave in the views of contemporary investigators, then offer a procedural step-by-step on how a fire scene investigator, for example, would gather evidence to determine the cause of a fire. None of this is ever formulaic, because, as McDermid writes, “it takes a sensational case to establish a new forensic technique in the public consciousness.” And McDermid is particularly good at illustrating Forensics with quirky, sometimes spine-chilling cases that were solved because of a particular technique of forensic investigation.

Did I say solved? Another enticing aspect of Forensics is the skepticism McDermid brings to these investigative sciences. It’s a skepticism shared by the best current practitioners, who now couch their interpretations of data in language not meant to dazzle juries so much as contribute to the search for the truth. But, as McDermid’s final chapter about expert forensic testimony in the courtroom points out, our adversarial justice system is sometimes more about winning than arriving at the truth.

This is a sobering end to a riveting book that armchair sleuths and anyone interested in the inner workings of crime detection will want to read.

This article was originally published in the July 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Poet Carl Sandburg described Chicago as “course and strong and cunning.” Novelist Nelson Algren characterized Chicago as a “city on the make.”

Author Dean Jobb cements Chicago’s gritty reputation in Empire of Deception. Not since Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City  has an author so eloquently captured the shadowy character of the city. Jobb tells the true story of Leo Koretz, a silver-tongued attorney from the Roaring ’20s who swindled Chicagoans, Bernie Madoff-style, through a get-rich-quick investment scheme. In an era when Al Capone made his money through liquor, gambling and violent retribution, Koretz made his fortune in more subtle ways: carefully cultivating Chicago’s rich and famous.

After wining and dining his wealthy clientele, he sold them shares in a phony venture to extract timber and oil in the jungles of Panama. In reality, Koretz was running a Ponzi scheme: using the money from new investors to pay off earlier investors.

Once discovered, Koretz disappeared, only to be caught a year later by a man of equal ambition: Robert Crowe, a Chicago prosecutor hell-bent on law and order and making a name for himself. Jobb does a masterful turn chronicling the parallel career arcs of Koretz and Crowe.

Empire of Deception does a remarkable job of capturing the essence of Chicago in the 1920s, a town filled with hustlers and hucksters, lawless gangsters and corrupt politicians. At once informative and entertaining, the fast-moving narrative tells an age-old story about our capacity to be conned.