Post by scathma on Dec 27, 2017 12:10:33 GMT -5
Disclaimer: I have not read this book, but it sounds interesting to me based on the article below:
"Popular Crime” by Bill James
No two books have brought me more enjoyment in recent years, or stayed with me more, than “Popular Crime” and “Cultural Amnesia.” By coincidence, both authors have the same last name: Bill James wrote the first, Clive James the second.
In addition to being famous as a writer on baseball, Bill James has read nearly every book written about the infamous crime stories of the last two centuries. The book contains his thoughts about those cases and those books. He is, to my mind, a bit defensive about the intellectual worthiness of his interest in his subject, but once he gets his apologia out of the way the book is conversational and fascinating.
His treatment of the Sam Sheppard case is the purest illustration of his general method: Here are the facts that contradict the books that say he murdered his wife; here are the facts that contradict the books that say Richard Eberling did it; here is my theory (Sheppard hired Eberling) that accounts for both sets of facts. Sometimes he adds his thoughts about what the case told us about the times. He applies the method to Lizzie Borden, the Lindbergh baby, JonBenet Ramsey -- nearly every case you have heard of, and many you haven’t.
He is never contrarian for its own sake. Everyone who has studied the matter seriously, he establishes, has concluded that Borden was innocent; so has he. Bruno Richard Hauptmann was executed for the Lindbergh murder. On a 100-point scale of likely guilt, Bill James estimates him at 213. Writing about the Black Dahlia, he cautions us against a common temptation in trying to solve long-ago cases: assuming, without thinking about it, that it must have been someone about whom we have records. (Pretty much every Jack the Ripper theory I’ve ever come across accuses such a person.)
He built enough credibility with me that I was willing to entertain his most contrarian theory, which concerns the Kennedy assassination. Read the book if you want to know what it is: But be warned that you are at risk of becoming an evangelist for the book, as I am.
www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-26/must-read-books-on-serious-evil-are-perfect-for-2018