Read-Handed is an occasional feature updating you on true-crime books, listens, research etc. that we’re in the middle of right now. We hope you’ll add YOUR recent reads — whether you dug the book or DNF’d it partway through — and what you’re looking forward to, too.
updated 11/10/24
just finished
- Not Just Evil: Murder, Hollywood, and California’s First Insanity Plea, David Wilson // Stiff, overly grand prose; confusing zooms in and out from the titular case (the grisly murder of Marion Parker) and other headlines from 1927; a reference a submarine disaster that took place near “Providence Town,” Massachusetts…it’s not bad, but other readers suggested on Goodreads that Wilson also doesn’t really stick the landing on his theory about Parker’s killer’s obsession with “the pictures,” so I marked it DNF and moved on to the next.
- “The Truths and Distortions of Ruby Franke,” New York // A well-built longread on Franke by Caitlin Moscatello; it’s sort of weird that the dateline on it is September, when Franke was sentenced in February of this year, but it’s extremely readable, and the parallels to Lori Vallow are striking.
Kevin and Ruby filmed themselves taking their preteen daughter bra-shopping, her siblings in tow. When the girl pulled her cardigan in front of her chest and crossed her arms, Kevin asked, “How come you’re all embarrassed?” The Frankes’ eldest daughter’s voice can be heard from off-camera: “Because you’re filming her and you’re her dad?”
Anyone watch the Lifetime movie starring Heather Locklear as Franke? (We’ll be covering it on Again With Again With This in a few weeks.)
- GQ UK’s interview with Richard Gadd
current reads
- Manson, Jeff Guinn // Almost done with this one on audio. The last third of the book isn’t as strong — a lot of “and then; and then” at trial, and recitations of the myriad tiresome ways Manson’s followers found to act up in the gallery — but it occurs to me that this isn’t a function of Guinn’s writing, but of the story and the people at the heart of it. Helter Skelter had the same problem, book and 1975 film: dude’s just exhausting.
next up
- Harry Chapin’s murder ballad about Charles Whitman // Justin Peters probably said all there is to say about it in the linked piece at Slate. I just wanted you to know that this misguided (and long — over nine minutes) song exists.
- The Taking of New York City: Crime on the Screen and in the Streets of the Big Apple in the 1970s, Andrew J. Rausch // Hoping to interview the author at some point this month; if you have questions about how seventies cinema reflected — and/or distorted — NYC’s reality 50 years ago, leave them in the comments.
- The Man Nobody Killed: Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stuart’s New York, Elon Green // I still haven’t finished that JFK inventory at Exhibit B. (which is having a big sale on major-case stuff!), so I still don’t get to start this one until I do.
Any notes on these texts ‘n’ tomes? Need therapy for your teetering TBR stack? Scroll down to the comments.
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English (US) ·