Murder Books

Being a native of Johnson City, a graduate of Science Hill High School and East Tennessee State University and knowing the city well, this account of the book brought back many memories to me. Age-wise I was between Ms. Fulton and her brother, Charles, whom I knew as a passing acquaintance during high school. Although I didn't know the main characters, I certainly knew of them and was still living in the Johnson City area at the time of this tragedy. Ms. Fulton adheres to the subject in a manner seldom seen in todays literature. I heard of the book through the grapevine and was certainly not disappointed. I commend her for her writing ability. I followed her as an English Major graduate of ETSU and know that I could not approach her ability to put such an account on paper.
I want to express my congratulations to her and add my recommendation. I consider this account a must-read for anyone with roots in the Johnson City area during that tragic time.

I just got finished reading the book. When I purchased the book, it was suggested that I not start it late at night, because I'd want to finish it... Truer words never spoken.

Though these people were strangers to me, I found myself really getting into the details of the family. Patty's writing is so personable and easy to read... I was quickly transported to how life was in the early years of our American cities.

What an incredible life Mr. Smithdeal had ~ his entrepreneurial vision, the courage he exhibited in such varied adventures, from Yellow Cabs, political interests, dog breeder, Utopia Farms owner... What vision, what determination and belief in himself! The details are many and the pictures are a wonderful addition to the story. (When I saw the photo of the bearskins hanging up, I was reminded of the great bear stew recipe in ...and garnish with Memories, another excellent Fulton book.) I empathized with his sorrow in the wake of a horribly disturbed man who was bent on destroying him and then the way that this whole tragic event affected him.

The end of this story is so appropriate ~ stand straight and speak proudly of the man who brought so much to so many. I know that this will be a treasured book for the whole family through the coming generations. As your mom said, we all have skeletons... the only difference is in how we handle them. Patty has chosen well.

"Let the Record Show" is the quintessential southern gothic story, with the added benefit of being completely true. Patty Fulton has captured the tenor of a time and place that no longer exists. I know, because I grew up in that place and I knew, and know, many of the people mentioned.

To say that Ms. Fulton demonstrated an uncommon bravery by recounting this story that so touched her own life would be true, but incomplete. In a small southern town the issues touched upon in "Let the Record Show" are those that are most keenly felt. By scratching the scab off, and exposing for us the full panoply of this tragedy, Ms. Fulton has given us a unique insight into the internal workings of a community in extremis.

For those who have become jaded by recent exhibitions in the American Judicial System, "Let the Record Show" is a refreshing reminder that occasionally innocent people are indicted and tried, and it is up to the citizens of a community to see that justice is done.

From a purely personal perspective, I am indebted to Ms. Fulton for helping me to understand an important part of the history of my community that was previously shrouded in mystery.

Karl Curtis is a Wisconsin native (one of our own) who hails from Beloit College and presently lives in Verona, Wisconsin, just outside of Madison. He has degrees in English and Government, and while he was at B.C. he was among the original editors of the Beloit Fiction Journal, now a national forum for short stories. He presently edits a community newspaper in Verona.

In his first mystery, Karl writes about fictional Kesey College, where a co-ed has apparently committed suicide. Mark Magnuson, is the editor of the campus newspaper, and when the higher-ups call him in and order him to censor any stories in the paper about the incident, Mark becomes suspicious. A call from the deceased girl's father and an offer of $10,000 gives Mark the incentive to look into the case, and his considerable knowledge of mysteries acts as a guide. But he must get around the campus cop, Harney, who has orders to keep the suicide story alive:

"'You might as well tell me right out,' Harney said as we were walking from one building to the next. 'You're still not snooping around about this Darcy Redwine suicide thing, are you?' 'I told you! I lost my textbook this afternoon. I went to Fairchild's office to see if I could find it. The door was open. I took a quick look inside, and that's when you showed up. If you don't believe me, call Avis Myerson. I was at her office about fifteen minutes ago looking for the same thing.'"

Curtis infuses this tale with all the swagger of a college student's fresh perspective into a tainted environment of institutional public relations. Mark Magnuson is the perfect "everyman" college student, although he does have unusual access for the benefit of the story. Still, Curtis leads the reader through a tangled maze which ends in a neat little package. Magnuson's saucy relationship with fiance Rachel spices up the story, as does his scuffles with the powers that be.

All in all, THE LIBERAL ART OF MURDER is an entertaining little ditty that will play well to Midwestern audiences, who are all too familiar with the culture of undergraduates who are struggling against the odds to make it through school. A big thumbs up!

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

The Liberal art of Murder was to me a very good book to read sitting in an easy chair and a cup of tea at my side. I was surprised at how well it was written considering this is a first book for the Author. Mark Magnuson shows his stuff when he comes across a murder that the college is trying to hide. He couldn't stomach the thought of letting a murderer get away scot free. Through trial and error he picks his way tO the murderer. Many parts of the book gave me a good chuckle. Looking forward to hopefully another book by the Author Karl Curtis.

I picked up The Liberal Art of Murder on a Friday afternoon, planning to read it over the weekend. The single, vast mistake I made was opening the book to take a look at the first few pages on the walk home; I spent the next so-many hours with my nose in the novel like a regular bookworm.

Meet Mark Magnuson, a typical college fraternity student, with desperate hopes of passing tomorrow's Shakespeare exam. He is the editor of his school's newspaper who - when a girl in his class is found dead at the base of the science building - receives a phone call from the deceased's father. He asks Mark to put an advertisement in the school newspaper, offering a reward of $10,000 to anyone who can prove his daughter's death was not her own doing. Despite the fact that the college administration has given Mark strict orders to keep the girl's death out of the paper, he doesn't have the heart to turn down the advertisement, leaving Mark to figure the death out himself or explain to a heartbroken man that he has no authority to run the ad.

Mark, along with his fiancé Rachel, carry the novel at a quick pace. The dialog is entertaining and clever, and clues lead to one another in a quick-witted, domino-like plot. As a narrator, Mark keeps nothing from the reader, which allows amateur sleuths to follow along and attempt to beat him tot he murderer. By the end of this novel, he has teachers filing harassment complaints against him, classmates picking fights with him in between classes, and the college administration threatening to pull his academic loan.

The Liberal Art of Murder is a charming, fast-paced mystery novel that will keep any reader awake until the very last page.

Even better than I'd hoped for . . . this book is a fast paced thriller that was impossible for me to put down. The author does an excellent job developing the characters and paints vivid imagery for the reader. The book evokes a wide range of emotions from delight to horror, joy to sorrow, hope to despair. Looking forward to reading more novels from this author.

This is a spellbinding mystery drama whose characters, including a serial killer, could be your neighbors. The story includes abuse, addiction, and murder -- a didactic, psychological thriller that is both horrifying and poignant as the characters develop. The reader will feel shock, revulsion, and horror as a pretty and precocious girl with three-dimensional, perhaps psychic, abilities has strange dreams that intensify as she develops into adulthood. The sub-plots alternate and leave the reader spellbound at the end of each chapter, with difficulty stopping as the stories unfold.

A fast fun thriller. The author does a wonderful job of character development. Recommended.

One morning Annie is pulled from class to learn now both her parents are dead and she and her brother are to live with grandparents they never really knew. How can anything be normal again, now that everything she's known has vanished? And, death means forever; nothing will ever be the same. A poignant story of vast changes and new beginnings.

One morning Annie is pulled from class to learn now both her parents are dead and she and her brother are to live with grandparents they never really knew. How can anything be normal again, now that everything she's known has vanished? And, death means forever; nothing will ever be the same. A poignant story of vast changes and new beginnings.

One morning Annie is pulled from class to learn now both her parents are dead and she and her brother are to live with grandparents they never really knew. How can anything be normal again, now that everything she's known has vanished? And, death means forever; nothing will ever be the same. A poignant story of vast changes and new beginnings.

I thought this was a great volume and I can't wait to get the next one!

Ths suspense of knowing more about the mysterious battle unit named Soubi is driving me crazy.

Loveless is one of the best manga ever. I loved it so much, that I rushed to buy every one the bookstore had one sale. Ritsuka is hilariously cute. Soubi is just hilarious in general.

Volume 2 of Yun Kouga's popular series does not disappoint.

For those unfamiliar with this series, Loveless is a strange BL/Shonen-ai manga series by the same author as Earthian, which revolves around the story of a boy named Ritsuka who at the age of ten lost all his memories. Two years later his mother denies he is her son and beats him, and his only support, his brother Seimei, dies mysteriously. A mysterious man appears, Soubi, who claims to have known Seimei and cryptically implies that he knows more, but won't divulge anything. Soubi declares his love for Ritsuka and that he now belongs to the boy, and the two enter down a path for answers through mysterious battles using words as spells, secret names of power, and people as sacrifices and fighters.

For people only familiar with the manga, the plot thickens in volume 2 as Ritsuka and Soubi's relationship grows uncomfortably closer and Ritsuka finally lets down some of his guards and makes friends at school. His teacher becomes increasingly concerned about the bruises on his body. New enemies appear that have cryptic information for Ritsuka about Seimei and Soubi continues to dodge questions about it. Later, Soubi encounters even more powerful enemies without Ritsuka, but we'll have to wait for volume 3 to see how that battle turns out.

If you have seen the TV series, this volume covers the plot through volume 2 (eps 5-8) plus the side story from volume 3 where Soubi stalks Ritsuka out with his friends in Yokohama. Things to note that are a bit different from the TV series are in the BL themes of the relationship between Soubi and Ristuka. In the manga it goes a bit beyond the suggestiveness of the anime. During a particularly, I struggle with the desire to use the word "disturbing," scene where Ritsuka wants this note containing information about his deceased brother, he prompts Soubi to destroy the enemies holding the note using both stern orders, which he at all other times is unwilling to provide to the man, and a level of seductiveness absent from the anime. I can only imagine how the scene from volume three of the anime with Soubi and Ritsuka in Soubi's apartment will turn out in the manga. If the subdued sexual tension in the anime from the manga continues it should prove to be even more uncomfortable.

My only complaint about this series is the slow release schedule. I can't stand that it will be fall before we see volume 3, and even longer before we get into plot that takes us beyond what was revealed in the anime.

Although a fictionalized account, this is a truth revealing book. Self-proclaimed experts, hysteria, and a full range of human behaviors emanating from ignorance, fear, compassion, bewilderment and pain are explored. A shocking testimony to what has been allowed to occur, and an awakening to be wary of similar manipulations of hysteria in our own time and place, for although the book cover calls this is a story of a "Dark Age," it is neither so long ago nor far from occurring again in another guise. I highly recommend this book for the historical rendering, the good story telling, and for further reflection.

This book is shocking in that it reveals the prejudices & dearth of understanding still prevalent into the 20th century. I live in the area of the crime and I'm acquainted with the very fine present-day members of the G. family. Just by coincidence, when I was a child, I met the expert witness Dr. Bernstein as I had close relatives who worked in the colony system of the Rome State School.

This was a book I could not put down - it kept me up late because I just had to finish it. Based on the actual 1914 murder trial of 16 year old Jean Gianini, Dr. Siegel has woven a tale which is at once a psychological thriller, a murder mystery, and an indictment of medical misdiagnosis in the early 1900's. I strongly recommend this as a fascinating "can't-put-down" read. My sister, to whom I lent the book, had the same experience as I did, by the way- she also could not put it down!

Mama's Boy tells the story of a cop's worst nightmare: His family are the victims and his only witness is mute, on top of it all the killer is a CIA agent gone haywire, able to see the traps set for him, and avoid capture at all odds. A well rounded read, Mama's Boy sits up there with the best.

I read this a long time ago and have always remembered it. I read a LOT of thrillers and this one was one of the best. Very obscure but worth the look.

Charles King has the ability to keep one turning page after page no matter how horrifying the previous scene was. An accomplishment worthy of praise especially when the reader mostly reads historical romance which is a far cry from intricate murder mysteries that keep one on the edge of one's seat!

1982: Oregon businessman Phil Champagne, age 52, dies in a tragic boating accident off Lopez Island. He is survived by one ex-wife, four adult children, an octogenarian mother, and two despondent brothers. Phil didn't know he was dead until he read it in the paper. All things considered, he took it rather well. So did Phil's brother, Mitch, the beneficiary of a 1.5 million dollar policy on Phil's life.

1992: Wastington restauranteur Harold Stegeman, famous for his thick, juicy steaks, is arrested by the Secret Service for printing counterfeit United States currency in an Idaho shed. In addition to the bogus bills, Stegeman also has a fraudulently obtained passport, a fabricated Cayman Island drivers license, and Phil Champagne's fingerprints.

When the uproarious reality of Harold Stegeman's secret identity hit the headlines, the counterfeit resurrection of Phil Champagne became one of the most celebrated and hysterically funny true-crime stories of the twentieth century. And while every supermarket tabloid and television talk show hounded after the untold story, only Edgar Award winner Burl Barer captured Champagne's confidence and received permission to detail Phil's post-mortem career of fraud, deception, trickery, lies, and fine prime rib, bringing to life the exploits of a man his family thought dead over a decade ago.
--- excerpt from book's dustjacket

This true-crime story is told with humor, pacing and drama to rival the best fictional works. The writing is great, the "characters" are SUCH characters you cannot believe they are real, and the plot twists keep you turning pages all night long. This book is a blast!

Man Overboard: The Counterfeit Ressurection of Phil Champagne is one of the best written true crime books out there. I would recommend it to anyone who is craving a good story with lots of twists and turns. From the first page Burl Barer has you hooked. A must read for any true crime fan. RECOMMENDED!

I originally read the book because I happened to work for the author, and as such have a personalized copy. However, it is well written. Great story line, kept my attention through the whole book. I too was surprised at the ending and never saw it coming. I can't wait to read his next book.

It was also nice to see Ann Arbor, MI as the basis for a book as opposed to the standard, New York, LA, Chicago, DC, etc...

I really enjoyed this book! I liked the suspense of not knowing who the killer was. I hope there will be a sequel, I can't wait to read it!!!

If you love murder mysteries, this is the book for you! It has got everything, murder, romance, suspence. A Grisham for the modern healthcare industry.

Completely fascinating. Most Americans don't even know we had hundreds of camps all over the U.S. that housed German POWs. We study all the heros and villains of the war in broad terms, and tend to forget that there were thousands of little events that to the people involved were every bit as important as the publicized events. The U.S. Army executed a group of Germans who did what the American Army itself would have expected of its soldiers, and hushed up if American POWs did exactly the same thing. This is a frightening study of how the military bureaucracy is a law unto its own purposes. "The Killing of Corporal Kunz" and "Extreme Justice" are further fascinating looks at the same kind of situation.

Martial Justice: The Last Mass Execution in the United States is a compelling account of a conflict between honor and the fight against tyranny. A historical tragedy of German Submariner POW Werner Drechsler who was willing to sacrifice the bond of comradeship to save his homeland. On the other side, seven fellow German Submariner POWs who see Drechsler as a traitor. The actions taken by the seven leads them down a twisted wartime legal path that ends with their execution after the surrender of Germany. The book examines the strong bonds of loyalty shared amongst these young men. A close-knit fraternity which became stronger through adversity. The many questions left unanswered by history begs the reader to examine the tarnished legacy left behind by the prisoner of war experience in the United States.

Captivating, I couldn't put it down. Very well researched and extremely well written and easy to read. Any student of the U-boat was would do well to read this sad chapter in the history of the Ubootwaffe. It really gets into the mindset of the crews. Human nature is a fascinating beast and Martial Justice is a great study in the good and bad in us all.