TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: book review

  • Jade’s Book Review: Whisper of Fear

    (Guest post by Jade)

    This time it is my great pleasure to review “Whisper of Fear” by Rhonda B. Saunders and Stephen G. Michaud. Penguin Books (who rules, by the way) was kind enough to send me an advanced copy.

    Rhonda Saunders is the prosecutor who wrote the stalking laws in California and has helped other states and countries write their stalking laws. She takes you through her journey of how she became a corporate attorney then ended up as a prosecutor. Her writing style is very reminiscent of John Douglas, the former FBI profiler.

    Ms. Saunders started prosecuting stalkers around 1993. Little did she know that her first stalking case would continue to haunt her until this day. She prosecuted Madonna’s stalker, Robert Hoskins, and in telling the story also shares amusing anecdotes about trying to get the Material Girl to testify in court.

    She also prosecuted Steven Spielberg’s stalker (a nut-job of the highest order) with help from the director himself. Mr. Spielberg was more than accommodating, even to the point of canceling a session with the Los Angeles Orchestra while recording the “Saving Private Ryan” soundtrack. She found Mr. Spielberg to be a friendly, outgoing person whose only concern was for the safety of his family.

    Prosecuting Gwyneth Paltrow’s stalker proved to be a little easier because he was legitimately insane. Not that that made him any less dangerous.

    Most of the cases she writes about are stalkers who obsess on ordinary people like you and me. Her first stalking case was that of an ordinary woman who was being stalked by a former lover. After being arrested, she continued to stalk her victim and Ms. Saunders. To this day, she still receives threatening messages from this stalker.

    She also has a chapter on how to avoid becoming the victim of a stalker, and what to steps to take if you are being stalked.

    I will not spoil the rest of the book for you, because if you are a true crime fan, this is a MUST READ!!!

    It will be in stores on November 4, which will be an excellent way to get the nasty taste of Election Day out of your head.

    Again, thanks to Penguin Books for giving me the chance to review this book in advance.

    I don’t use a rating system, but if I did it would definitely be 5 out of 5!

  • Jade’s Book Review: “Twisted Confessions” by Charles E. Skollar

    (Guest post by Jade)

    Rarely am I offered the chance to review a stellar true crime book by a publisher. Usually, it is a book I have chosen on my own, or something wretched sent to me by some hack publishing company. It is my great pleasure this time to bring you “Twisted Confessions” by Charles E. Skollar.

    Mr. Skollar was the prosecuting attorney on the Kitty Genovese case in 1964 in Queens, New York. I know most of us have heard of that case, but I myself did not know a lot of the details. This book does not give a lot of details about the case, it’s more about the emotional toll that the trial took on everyone involved.

    To complicate things further, Mr. Skollar had prosecuted and convicted a young man (who had confessed) for the murder of Barbara Kralik, a rising high school junior also from Queens. After a suspect was arrested for the Genovese murder, this suspect also confessed to the Kralik murder and the murder of Annie Mae Johnson.

    Mr. Skollar goes into great detail about the horrendous amount of work involved in trying to untangle one confession from another. I won’t go into detail about how he was finally able to do it. I strongly urge you to read the book for yourself and find out. You will not be disappointed.