Genre News & A Review of the New Brinks Book

A Look at the Perry March Case Author Jeanne King has an impressive resume for a true crime writer: She's been covering the criminal court beat for four decades. She wrote a book several years ago about Sante and Kenneth Kimes (Dead End) that was very well reviewed. Now she's written a second book for St. Martin's True Crime Library. The newest title is Never Seen Again: A Ruthless Lawyer, His Beautiful Wife, and the Murder that Tore a Family Apart [Amazon; B&N]. Between my fondness (some might say weakness) for spousal murder stories and the author's impressive credentials, I think this will be an interesting book.

Kitty Genovese Revisited The case that gave a terrible meaning to the words "Bystander Effect" is the subject of a new book written by the man who prosecuted the case. Charles E. Skoller tells the story behind the infamous "prosecution nightmare" that began when a young woman was fatally stabbed in Queens while onlookers did nothing. The author also relays the story of connected crimes. The book is Twisted Confessions: The True Story Behind the Kitty Genovese and Barbara Kralik Murder Trials [Amazon; B&N].

(Art via Men's Vogue slideshow of true crime covers)

A Review of the New Brinks Book It can fairly be called the robbery of the century, if not, as the title suggests, The Crime of the Century: How the Brinks Robbers Stole Millions and the Hearts of Boston [Amazon; B&N]. The theft of millions from the Brink's vault in Boston on January 17, 1950, has been the subject of countless books and films. Now a new book by Boston journalist and author Stephanie Schorow takes another look back at "the Brink's job."

"This is Brink's. We are cleaned out. We are cleaned out." That's how the world first learned of what was then the largest heist in U.S. history - 350 pounds of money was taken by a gang of masked bandits that managed to pull the job without hurting anyone (not until afterward, anyway, when a series of mysterious deaths in the underworld left some to wonder).

The many students of this immortal crime and spectacular trial are well served by this most recent retelling. Newly opened police archives lend new detail, dozens of photos are included, and the author is a superb storyteller. Her prose is carefully polished, the descriptions are evocative, and her portraits of the inveterate thieves and hustlers who did it is deft and engaging.

The Brink's guards, suspected of involvement, were "grilled to the point of trauma." The author captures the public reaction so well ("What was not to admire? No one was hurt. The guards were shaken up, sure, but not a shot was fired. And Brink's -- what was Brink's but a Chicago-based company that didn't live up to its reputation as a bastion of well-oiled, fortress-tight security? Brink's was the real culprit.")  And any author who can manage to make the history of Brink's interesting deserves a medal.

This was a meticulously planned heist with such shocking results. The newspapers pulled out their biggest type. And despite the fact that the subsequent trial was "an all-men show" -- the first great criminal trial without sex or romance, "without even a woman's shadow" (Boston Post), the theft has garnered a fortune for more than the gang who did it. As the author states, "If you lined up all those who profited from the million-dollar Brink's heist, the robbers would probably stand at the end of the line. For decades reporters, writers, and moviemakers have seen green in the dramatization of the robbery." Now Stephanie Schorow can add her own name to that list, but unlike the original band of thugs, she earned her reward.

To top this book, a future author would have to find the still-missing loot -- and even then would have a more awesome challenge trying to best the storytelling skills on display here.

For more, visit the author's website.