Tracks to Murder

Jonathan Goodman

Description

A witty and informative look at classic American murder casesOn a 6,000-mile train trip across the North American continent from New York City to the West Coast, then back to New York over a southern route, prizewinning English crime historian Jonathan Goodman visited a number of sites where notorious murders occurred-the Kingsbury Run torso murders in Cleveland; the murder by "thrill-killers" Leopold and Loeb, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and the escapades of Al Capone in Chicago; the Henwood-VonPhul-Springer affair in Denver; the murders of Marian Williams and Blanche Lamont in the Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Francisco; and Kate Townsend's murder in New Orleans. Goodman masterfully fuses two literary genres that reach back into the nineteenth century: the true crime essay fathered by Thomas De Quincy and travel reports popularized by Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.As a true crime book, Tracks to Murder is witty and informative and enriches these classic American murder cases by placing them within their original settings. Goodman also plays them against their locations as they are today, resulting in a series of character sketches both contemporary and historical. As a travel book, it presents the seasoned reflections of a cultivated English writer on American manners and morals observed during his serendipitous transcontinental journey.

Sujets

• True crime

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 06 mai 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612774237
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

Extrait

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Tracks to Murder

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TRUE CRI ME S ERI ES Albert Borowitz, Editor

Terrorism for Self-Glorification: The Herostratos Syndrome Albert Borowitz

Tracks to Murder Jonathan Goodman

Twilight of Innocence: The Disappearance of Beverly Potts James Jessen Badal

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Tracks to Murder

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Jonathan Goodman

The Kent State University Press

ke nt and l ondon

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©2005The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio44242 a l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d Library of Congress Catalog Card Number2004026038 isbn 0873388259 Manufactured in the United States of America

Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations are from the author’s collection.

Designed by Christine Brooks and set in9.7/14Stone Serif. Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc.

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l i b r a r y o f c o n g r e s s c ata l o g i n g  i n  p u b l i c a t i o n data Goodman, Jonathan. Tracks to murder / Jonathan Goodman. p. cm.— (True crime series (Kent, Ohio)) Includes index. isbn 0873388259(pbk. : alk. paper)∞ 1. Murder—United States—Case studies. I. Title. II. Series. hv6529.g66 2005 364. 152'3'0973—dc22 2004026038

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication data are available.

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For William Hildebrand and Dean Keller,

who put me on the right lines

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Contents

The Reasons Why

1Going West

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2In Cleveland and Kent

3To Chicago

4To Denver

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5Slowly to Oakland

6In San Francisco

7To Benson

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8To New Orleans

9To Atlanta

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10In Washington, D.C.

Index

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The Reasons Why

s is so, I believe, with most Big Moments in most people’s tho A ught that it might not have happened—that, considering the cir- lives, the one that sparked a large part of my destiny, of being a crime historian, did not seem big when it happened. The cumstances, it shouldn’t have—still sometimes gives me the unsettling feeling that perhaps the notion of ordained fate is not to be scoffed at. The Moment was of the late1950s. That I cannot be more exact goes to show how uninfluential it seemed at the time and for a long while afterward. I was the stage director, occasionally, precociously,thedirec- tor, at the Liverpool Playhouse, home of that seaside city’s repertory company, the oldest in the world (since the eleventh day of the elev- enth month of1911—even I, with my now ramshackle memory, have no trouble remembering that). It was usual after the evening show— though not on Thursdays or Saturdays, when there was a matinee as well as a morning rehearsal, leaving us all dog-tired (a fact that at least reduces the days of the week for the Big Moment by a third)—for some of us to gather in the green room or in the band room under the stage, either just to chat over a bottle of wine or to play poker or pontoon for

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