Whipped Cream Difficulties

Bill Crider, one of nature’s noblemen, points us to this list of “The 25 Best True Crime Books” from the Forensic Colleges blog.

Blogging about other people’s lists seems to me to be non-productive (de gustibus non disputatum and all that), but I’m making an exception here because this seems to be a pretty solid list. I’ve read 9 out of the 25 listed, and mostly agree with those choices.

Of course, I have a few quibbles:

• I wouldn’t have put both Mark Bowden books on the list, though he is a heck of a good writer. Finders Keepers would be my pick for the list: Doctor Dealer is only a so-so book (and a very early Bowden).
• I confess that I have not read Killer Clown, but it will have to be one heck of a book to beat Buried Dreams on the Gacy front.
• The Amanda Knox case is fascinating and troubling, but it seems a bit early to be putting Angel Face on a best list. I have something of the same quibble about The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher.
• I’ve read Crime and Science – The New Frontier in Criminology, and it seems odd to pick that over Thorwald’s much more famous Century of the Detective. To be fair, though, I’ve only read the latter book in the Reader’s Digest Condensed Edition. I’ve been trying to find a cheap used copy without much luck.
• Blood and Money is actually a 1976 book, though it appears to have been reissued in 2001. (I read that for the first time last year; it is a swell book that belongs on the list.)
• The Onion Field, dammit!

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