#harold schecter

[yourbestattempt]

Currently reading:

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Killer Verse: Poems of murder and mayhem by Harold Shechter & Kurt Brown

Sometimes you get so alone it just makes sense by Charles Bukowski 

I need more !! must buy moreeeee!!

[criminous]

Today's True Crime Tuesday is a 2 for 1 mini-review special, thanks to true crime expert Harold Schecter!

Schecter, whose day job is Professor of American Literature, has created/edited two of the best American true crime anthologies in recent years. Psycho USA is Schecter's own compilation of notorious American criminals long forgotten; True Crime is a Library of America anthology he edited featuring the best American true crime writing/writers in our nation's history.  Both volumes are well-researched and presented, and are full of masterly depictions of some of our country's darkest deeds.

Each is a wonderful volume (if you're into this sort of thing, which if you're reading this, is safe to assume--sick bastards). True Crime features famous writers like Mark Twain, Truman Capote, H.L. Mencken alongside true crime pioneers like Edmund Pearson, Ann Rule, and Dominick Dunne. Psycho USA features notorious criminals like Smutty Nose axe murderer Louis Wagner and 'The Man of Two Lives' Edward Ruloff, and tells why 1927 might have been the apex (or nadir, depending on preference) of true crime in America.

Both of these volumes are available in bookstores, and quite affordable. I wish that Psycho USA had a hardcover option, but that's just me.  Both are must-haves for the library of the true-crime aficionado.