Genre News

'The Monster of Florence' Move over, John Grisham. An emerging trend in the true crime genre sees thriller writers turning to true crimes for hardcover purposes. This year, noted fiction writer Douglas J. Preston adds his name to the fiction-to-fact cadre.

Preston has made a noteworthy career for himself by penning fictional bestsellers with his partner de plume, Lincoln Child. His new book, written with the help of Italian journalist Mario Spezi, was the product of a sudden obsession. A few years ago, Preston moved his family to Florence, Italy. Then he discovered that his new home had been the scene of one in a string of exceptionally grisly murders committed decades ago. The new book, The Monster of Florence [Amazon; B&N], is the product of his inquiries. While reviewers relish the prose and suspense, I stand in awe of any author who can sell a story that is not only decades old and unsolved, but is set in Europe - violating the constraints that some continually attempt to impose on the genre.

(Art via)

The Big Apple's Bad Seeds The latest title from New York City crime historian Pat Downey is Bad Seeds in the Big Apple: Bandits, Killers, and Chaos in New York City, 1920-40 [Amazon; B&N]. If it's anything like his prior releases, it's full of rich slang and larger-than-life gangsters. The author's blog features plenty of humor and Weegee-type photography.

'While they Slept' Kathryn Harrison's true account of the survivor of a familicide continues to attract attention. It's While They Slept: An Inquiry into the Murder of a Family [Amazon; B&N]. The Los Angeles Times wrote a long review.

New Mafia Journal Crime historian and author Tom Hunt has launched a new quarterly magazine that promises to feature scholarship on organized crime. It's The Informer: The Journal of American Mafia History, supported by his Blogspot website.

Along those lines, a new book is coming out about Detroit's Purple Gang. Not many books have ever come out about Detroit's colorful Prohibition-era gangsters (Wikipedia). The new title, Detroit's Infamous Purple Gang [Amazon; B&N] is a photographic look at the bloody bootleggers and author Paul Kavieff's second book about the gang.

'Lay This Body Down' It came out a few years ago but escaped my notice: Gregory A. Freeman's book Lay This Body Down: The 1921 Murders of Eleven Plantation Slaves [Amazon; B&N] concerns the mass murder of twentieth-century slaves (or "peons") at a plantation in Georgia. The author has a nicely done website that includes excerpts, reviews, and some of the original newspaper coverage. Remarked Kirkus Reviews:"Freeman's book has a subtitle calculated to bring readers up short. Plantation slaves in 1921?? Therein lies a horrifying tale of the Old South."