If I Did It – The Goldman Family

For anyone who doesn’t know, “If I Did It” is a book written by OJ Simpson about the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and a waiter, Ron Goldman.

Red – Gary Neville

As a life long Manchester United fan I was very much looking forward to reading “Red” and getting the inside story. Unlike a lot of celebrity autobiographies Gary Neville doesn’t really go into his private life at all, it’s very much the story of his football career, the most personal thing he discusses really is being best man at David Beckham’s wedding.

Neville was part of the most successful United Youth team for years, playing alongside, Beckham, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Ryan Giggs to name but a few. He was then also part of the famous “Fergie’s Fledglings” when Neville and some of his other youth team colleagues burst into the first team and Alan Hansen famously predicted “you won’t win anything with kids”. He went on to win many trophies with United, including the Treble in 1999 before his retirement in 2011 and has never made any secret of the fact that he was United through and through. Other players asked why he would commit himself to such long term contracts with United when he could have used the end of a contract to negotiate himself a better deal, either with United or elsewhere if necessary, but it wasn’t about the money for Neville, he was happy playing at United at whatever they wanted to pay him. The only time he complained about money was when his brother, Philip, was offered a contract for less money than him, which Gary didn’t think was fair. Fairness is very important to Neville, he was famously one of the instigators of the proposed strike by the England team in the wake of Rio Ferdinand being dropped from the England squad over a missed drugs test. For Neville it wasn’t about striking because Ferdinand was a United player, he admitted he barely knew him at that time, it was because he was a fellow England player who was being treated badly. No hearing had even taken place regarding the missed drugs test, never mind any disciplinary action been taken, but the FA wanted to leave him out of the squad as if he had already been proven guilty of wrong doing. Let us also not forget that Ferdinand gave a hair follicle test, which proved he was drug free and therefore didn’t skip the original test on purpose but it was a genuine mistake.

Another thing that came across was Neville’s humour. Near the start of the book, when talking about himself, Philip and his sister, Tracey, and their sporting prowess (Tracey was the England Netball Team Captain) and he says when he was a child he used to dream of being the next Bryan Robson, but actually admitted that he wasn’t even the best sports person in his family! I also really enjoyed the stories of the dressing room banter, with players who come across as being pretty quiet being shown to be very different behind closed doors.

One thing Neville does regret is that his International career wasn’t as successful as his Club career. If only some of that success could have passed over. I would imagine most players involved in the England set up have the same regrets but I would say especially for players coming from a club as successful as United it must be hard to be on the losing side internationally.

One thing I love about autobiographies is the picture section and there were certainly some good ones in “Red”. I especially liked the picture from Neville’s testimonial with “Fergie’s Fledglings” playing together one last time.

All in all it was a well written book with some intelligent insights into life inside one of the Premier League’s biggest clubs as well as some funny anecdotes about life in the dressing room. A must for all United fans.

My Horizontal Life – Chelsea Handler

“My Horizontal Life” is a collection of stories about Chelsea’s various sexual adventures over the years. These vary from catching her Mum and Dad having sex as a child to getting a man into bed only to discover he’s had too much cocaine to perform. All the stories are told with her usual level of wit and cynicism and some of them are so ridiculous you wonder whether they could possibly be true, such as the time she is caught by her ex-boyfriend, who also happens to be her Landlord, climbing in through her own window after a night out, dressed as a giant M&M.

Although the book is about her sex life, it’s not erotica, she doesn’t describe any actual sex scenes in great detail, so if you’re looking for smut this is not the book for you. It’s more about how she gets the men into bed and some of the funny things that happen along the way. The book is laugh out loud funny, when she describes her Mormon sister walking in to her hotel room to find a naked dwarf I nearly spat my lunch out! Fans of her show “Chelsea Lately” will recognise the same kind of humour that’s peppered throughout the show and you can completely imagine Chelsea saying some of the things she writes about in the book. It’s very well written and each story leaves you wondering what more she could possibly get up to and makes you want to keep reading until it’s finished. I found it very difficult to put down and when I finished it I wanted to read more. I’ll definitely be looking at getting her other books in the future, if they’re half as funny as this they will be hilarious. I would say, maybe best not to read this book in public as people look at you strange when you suddenly burst out laughing!

A Stolen Life – Jaycee Dugard

“A Stolen Life” is the story of Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped by Nancy and Phillip Garrido at 11 years old, held captive for 18 years and who had 2 children by Garrido whilst in captivity. At times the book is difficult to read, although Dugard obviously doesn’t go into graphic detail about the things Garrido did to her it is not pleasant to read about the rape of an 11 year old girl.

What was extremely evident from reading this was how many times Dugard was let down by the system. Garrido was a known sex offender on parole yet, despite visiting his house, his parole officer didn’t know about the buildings he had in his garden. On one occasion his parole officer saw one of Dugard’s children in Garrido’s house and, again, despite knowing Garrido’s history it didn’t strike him as strange that there was a child on the premises. Garrido’s mental state towards the end of Dugard’s captivity was rapidly declining and mental health professionals seemed to be ignoring the signs.

The mental abuse Garrido subjected Dugard to was to such an extent that when she was eventually allowed to leave the property on shopping trips with Nancy she never once tried to escape and even on being asked by staff at Garrido’s parole office she was reluctant to say who she really was. He had ground her down over her years of captivity and convinced her she was only safe with him and the outside world was a place to be feared.

I find the behaviour of Nancy to be completely beyond the pale. What must have been going on in her head to not only allow her husband to kidnap a child but to assist him with this and to be complicit in the rape and abuse of that girl for 18 years?

To Dugard’s credit her account is very well written, despite having received very little schooling in her life due to her imprisonment. She comes across as a very intelligent and strong willed woman who, despite all she has gone through, is doing her best to raise her children well and keep them out of the limelight, to the extent that she isn’t always able to do things she would like with them for fear of the media connecting them to her and printing pictures. Media intrusion in cases like this makes me sick, do they not have a heart? Can they not understand that Dugard wants to live the rest of her life in peace and be free to have a normal family life with her children? She is not an actress or a singer who has chosen an occupation that puts her in the public eye, she is a young woman who has been through a horrific ordeal and just wants to put it behind her and move on.

I found this account very interesting and also inspiring, if this young woman can overcome this level of adversity then the little trials and tribulations of my life should be easy to overcome.

Evil Relations – David Smith with Carol Ann Lee

I’ve always been interested in the Moors Murders case, probably because it was local and the story is so well known. Having read Carol Ann Lee’s book “One of Your Own”, which focused mainly on Hindley, when I saw this I knew I had to read it. One thing I’ve always been curious about when it comes to famous criminals, especially serial killers, is what happens to the families of the killers? They are innocent of any crime but just their surname can link them to horrific acts.

David Smith was a normal kid who fell in love with a girl named Maureen. He’d had a fairly troubled childhood but settled down with Maureen. They marry and have a daughter together. They spend some time socialising with Maureen’s sister and her boyfriend but it’s not until their 6 month old daughter, Angela, dies that things spiral out of control. You see, David’s sister-in-law is Myra Hindley and her boyfriend, obviously, Ian Brady. I don’t see how people can lay blame at the door of David and Maureen for actions carried out by Hindley and Brady.

I thought I knew a fair bit about the Moors Murders, I knew Smith was present at the murder of Edward Evans and I knew he was the one who went to the Police and finally put an end to their evil. What I didn’t know was how many people blamed Smith and thought of him as the “Third Moors Murderer”. When Pauline Reade was murdered Smith was 14. Now I know children are capable of horrific things but I find it hard to believe a man like Brady would take on a 14 year old accomplice. Also let’s bear in mind that he hardly knew Smith at that point.

On reading Smith’s account it becomes clear that Brady was grooming him. In these modern times a 26 year old man spending so much time getting drunk with an impressionable 16 year old boy would definitely arouse suspicion but back in 1965 this wasn’t the case. Smith was young and extremely vulnerable following the death of his baby daughter and Brady would drink with him and fill his head with his crazy ideas. He made him read books by the Marquis de Sade and forced his opinions on him every chance he could.

Of the people who think Smith should have stopped the murder of Edward Evans I ask them to do one thing. Put themselves in Smith’s shoes. He’s a 16 year old boy who has arrived at his sister-in-law’s house to find the 26 year old man, who he thinks of as a friend, repeatedly hitting a young man with an axe until he is just about breathing. He then strangles him to make sure he is dead. Smith is alone with Hindley and Brady, how is he supposed to stop them single handedly? The best thing he can do for Evans is keep calm and find a way to get out of that house alive so he can get to the Police.

I was shocked at the level of abuse the Smiths received, continuing long after the trial was over. Maureen couldn’t even take her baby son to the shop without having abuse hurled at her and being spat on, scratched and punched. She was a young woman with a baby in a pram and people thought this was acceptable. Maureen never hurt anyone, she was just unfortunate enough to be related to someone who did.

Even after Hindley admitted they lied in Court to try and implicate David people still believed he was involved. It saddened me to read of his struggles and all because he did the right thing. If he’d kept quiet more children would undoubtedly have been killed. People like Hindley and Brady only stop if they are killed or imprisoned.

“Evil Relations” gives an incredible insight into what it is like to be related to a serial killer. I would definitely recommend it for anyone who, like me, is curious about this. At times the subject matter is hard to read but it’s very well written and really gives you a feel for the man who stopped the Moors Murderers.

After writing this review I found out that, sadly, David Smith died this week from cancer. My thoughts are with his family and I hope he can find the peace in death that he rarely had in life.

I would also like to use this opportunity to remind people that although Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans have been laid to rest, Keith Bennett is still missing. I hope one day he will also be found and laid to rest.

A Night to Remember – Walter Lord

I’ve had a fascination with Titanic since watching the James Cameron film when I was a teenager. It wasn’t the love story between Jack and Rose that got to me, it was the tragedy of the real events. Obviously there was much talk of the real story of Titanic around the time of the film coming out, with complaints of liberties taken by Cameron to make the story of Titanic more dramatic. This drove me to read books and research on the internet but I hadn’t read Walter Lord’s “A Night to Remember” during that time. When I saw it in Tesco in the weeks before the anniversary I knew I had to buy it.

Lord doesn’t waste much time with tales from the beginning of Titanic’s journey, he starts the story pretty much from where she hits the iceberg. Obviously it is the time from the collision at 11:40pm to the eventual sinking at 2:20am the next morning that is most interesting so it makes the most sense to start the story there. It is clear from his writing that Lord has spent a good deal of time researching the events of that fateful night and I agree with many others who say this is the definitive account of that night. Clearly, it would be very difficult to get a completely true account of every single event as witness accounts differ due to individual perception, memory, etc, and, as we know, many of the people involved did not make it back to tell their side of the story. Accounts of the band playing “Nearer my God to Thee” as the ship sank have been disputed by some people but agreed with by others, the number of people who say they left on “the last lifeboat” is clearly erroneous as otherwise the last lifeboat would have contained at least 60% of the survivors and various accounts of a male first class passenger escaping in a lifeboat by dressing in women’s clothing have also been largely discounted, although interestingly Daniel Buckley, a third class passenger, openly admitted sitting in a lifeboat with a woman’s shawl, that he says Madeleine Astor gave him, over his head. Many people know the famous stories of Titanic, the band playing right til the end, Benjamin Guggenheim dressing in his finest clothes and resigning himself to going down with the ship and John Jacob Astor sitting quietly with his wife, Madeleine, and cutting open a lifejacket to show her what is inside, but it is the stories of the third class passengers that most interest me. These were people who were largely abandoned to find their own way to parts of the ship they had never been to before or even, in some cases, locked down in “their” part of the ship and prevented from even trying to get to the boat deck above. Class was very much a big issue back in 1912, some of the first class passengers would have been horrified to have to share a lifeboat with even a second class passenger, never mind someone from steerage.

The tales of bravery from passengers as well as crew are as heart warming as the tales of tragedy are heart breaking. Molly Brown attempting to force the crew member in charge of her lifeboat to go back for survivors after the sinking and then encouraging the other women in her boat to row to keep warm, Second Officer Lightoller keeping a number of survivors safely afloat an upturned lifeboat until help came and Captain Smith, who according to some reports was last seen trying to save a child before going down with his ship. Families were torn apart, others lost entirely in the icy water after Titanic went down and it was all so needless. As we all know, there weren’t enough lifeboats for all passengers. Add this to the fact that many left with only a fraction of the number of people they could hold, one containing just 12 people, and you have a great many more people who could have been saved.

I think Lord captured the events of 14th – 15th April 1912 as well as anyone could ever hope to. In cases where information could not be verified by more than one source he points that out. He also acknowledges discrepancies between different accounts, which are completely understandable. I doubt I could remember events with complete accuracy if the “unsinkable” ship I had been travelling on had sunk from underneath me and I had spent a very long, cold night in a lifeboat waiting to be saved. The only thing to be thankful for is the number of changes the disaster brought about, although it is sad that it always seems to take a horrific disaster to bring in adequate safety measures in situations like this.

I would certainly recommend “A Night to Remember” to anyone with so much as a passing interest in the events of Titanic. It is certainly more in depth than any other I have read and seems to be one of the best on the market. It is good to see that even 100 years later the story of Titanic lives on.

Criminal Minds: Sociopaths, Serial Killers and Other Deviants – Jeff Mariotte

This book is ostensibly a TV show tie-in book but could also be categorised as true crime as it catalogues different serial killers and other offenders who have been mentioned in the show, “Criminal Minds”. These killers are split into categories and Mariotte explains a little about their background before their offending began and then also details their offences, how they escaped detection initially and how they were eventually caught. He also details which episodes they have been mentioned in and in some cases how they resemble the killers on the show. Obviously the cases on “Criminal Minds” aren’t real but some of them have been inspired by real events and this is all covered in Mariotte’s book.

As far as a work of true crime goes, Mariotte covers that many cases he is unable to go into any of them in a huge amount of detail, some cases warrant more attention than others but even the longest entries don’t give you all the details. It is a good starting point though, if you wanted to know more about a specific person or case you could then get books based specifically on them or turn to the Internet for more information. It is also very detailed as far as referencing which episodes each case is mentioned in, up to the show’s 5th season, which is obviously when this book was written.

I found his writing style very enjoyable and thought he did a good job covering all the cases mentioned on the show, even some of the slightly more obscure ones. Would definitely recommend it to any fan of the show or if you were looking for a starting point in getting to know more about serial killers but there are definitely better books out there if you’re a bit of a true crime buff.

The Bus Stop Killer – Geoffrey Wansell

“The Bus Stop Killer” by Geoffrey Wansell tells the story of serial killer, Levi Bellfield. It starts with his arrest for the murders of Amelie Delagrange and Marsha McDonnell and then goes back to cover his entire life up to his conviction for the abduction and murder of Milly Dowler in 2011. The worst kind of killer, Bellfield had no connection to his victims at all and covered his tracks well so it’s no surprise it took the Police so long to find him let alone build a case against him.

Wansell weaves a tale of a man who needs to be in control at all times, he had multiple partners and kept each of them living in fear of what would happen if they tried to leave him with a constant barrage of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

As can happen with books of this nature where we know Bellfield committed the crimes in question, I did find Wansell’s habit of attempting to use every event in his life to foreshadow the murders a little annoying. I don’t feel there is any need to sensationalise what happened, 3 young girls are dead and the lives of many more people have been irrevocably changed by this man for no discernible reason. When I’m reading books about true crimes I like them to stick more to the facts, I can read the press coverage if I want the sensationalised, shock stories. Obviously people read these types of books for different reasons and I’m sure plenty of people will have found this book to their liking but it wasn’t really written in the style I usually like.

I think the inclusion of Milly Dowler’s name, in big, bold capitals on the cover was a deliberate attempt to use the more well known victim to encourage people to buy it but her case was really only a small part in the life of this evil man. I wonder how many other women there may be who have been attacked, or even killed, by Bellfield and whether we will ever know the true extent of his crimes. As with other serial killers intent on control, Bellfield will not even disclose details of the crimes he has been convicted of and is extremely unlikely to confess to any additional crimes. Seeing the trauma he, via his Barrister, put the Dowler family through at his trial for Milly’s abduction and murder, was heartbreaking and revealed the lengths he would go to to escape punishment for his crimes.

If you just want to learn a little more about the Milly Dowler case or her killer then definitely read it but I don’t think there was much in the book you couldn’t discover yourself with a little internet research and Wansell’s style of writing definitely wasn’t for me.

Columbine: A True Crime Story – Jeff Kass

On 20th April 1999 two students at Columbine High School would carry out, at that point, the worst school shooting in America. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people that day before committing suicide.

I’m sure most people reading this blog post will know the story of Columbine so I’m not really going to summarise Kass’ book.

I was 14 when it happened, just starting to pay more attention to current affairs and could not believe what I was seeing on the news. Obviously gun laws in the UK are a lot more strict but it just seemed crazy to me that these 2 kids had gone into their school and managed to kill so many people. Obviously we now know that, horrific as it was, the death toll could have been much higher had their plan worked. Bombs were set in the cafeteria, if they had detonated as planned hundreds would have died. They had left bombs in their cars, designed to kill emergency services responding to the attack, fortunately these did not detonate either. What is also clear from Kass’ book is that these were not rich kids, they funded the attack with part time jobs in a pizza place amongst others, I don’t even want to think about what could have happened if they had access to more money.

Kass’ book covers a little of the history of both the Harris and Klebold families, goes into Eric and Dylan’s earlier life and obviously covers their lives and friendship right up to 20th April 1999. He also looks at the issue of blame, obviously this is a book review and I don’t want to get too much into blame here, obviously we know Eric and Dylan were responsible for the attack but Kass looks at whether they could have been stopped, did the families or law enforcement miss the signs. Personally, I don’t believe the families could have known. I know what I can be like with my parents and if I don’t want them to know something I will do my very best to make sure they don’t find out. I think it’s easy to sit back and say the parents should have seen this coming but it’s not like Eric Harris was walking into the house with a gun under his arm and saying “Hi Mom, just gonna keep this in my bedroom until it’s time for me to use it to kill a load of people”. Both Dylan and Eric were very clever and extremely deceptive. Only months before Columbine they convinced the Diversion programme that they were changed people and fit to be released from the programme early. There were mistakes made by law enforcement but I don’t think anybody could have predicted what they were going to do.

Kass has done a lot of research to write this book, obviously over the last 13 years a lot of information about Columbine has been released to the public so he’s had a lot to go through. I found the book very sensitively written, towards the victims families and the Harris’ and Klebold’s. At the end of they day, I don’t believe you can punish the families for what those 2 boys did, if they knew for a fact they were going to do this and did nothing then that is a different story but there is no evidence that this is the case. As I said before I started reading I did have a fair bit of knowledge about Columbine from my own research over the years and also from Dave Cullen’s book about the subject and I wouldn’t say Kass has really added a great deal to that but it was very well researched and written and also it was interesting to learn more about Michael Shoels, whose son Isaiah was the sole black victim of Columbine, and his campaign to raise awareness of school shootings and the causes behind them. To hear of him going to Virginia Tech in 2007 after the shooting there just days before the 8th anniversary of Columbine was both heartbreaking and heartwarming, that he could put aside his own grief to try and help others was inspiring to see.

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interesting in true crime or even just the Columbine case.

John Follain – Death in Perugia

“Death in Perugia” is an account of the Meredith Kercher case, detailing from the time Meredith arrived in Perugia right up to the acquittal of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox. Firstly, I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but considering the book is about the murder of Meredith Kercher the picture on the cover is of Amanda Knox crying shortly after hearing her conviction had been overturned. I worry that in all the press and the attempts to write about what happened the fact that a young girl is dead, and was murdered in an extremely brutal fashion, has been kind of lost along the way.

I don’t think I need to summarise the book in any great detail, it starts with Meredith’s, and later Amanda’s, arrival in Perugia and details how they got on and what life was like in the cottage they shared with 2 Italian women. It goes on to tell of Meredith’s last few hours, then details the discovery of her body, the investigation, trial and eventual conviction of Guede, Knox and Sollecito. It then concludes with the appeal hearing and acquittal of Knox and Sollecito.

I don’t want to get into a lengthy debate about the guilt or innocence of Knox and Sollecito as the Prosecution in Italy are currently launching an appeal against their acquittal, I still have my doubts as to their innocence, although I will admit I am less sure as to the level of their involvement as I previously was and I’m open to reading more into this case over the coming months as time allows.

I think this book was very well written, Follain has clearly had access to all parties as the book contains excerpts from Knox’s diaries and also comments from Meredith’s friends and family. He has certainly done his research. I think when it comes to books of this nature it is easy to try and impress your own agenda on the story but I thought this was quite an unbiased account. He did not draw conclusions as to whether the acquittal was just or not and leaves that up to the reader. I feel this is the best way to go in cases such as this as obviously only the person/people actually involved in Meredith’s murder know what happened that night and it is easy with hindsight for me to say, for example “how could Knox have had a shower in the cottage after finding the door open and blood in the bathroom?” as obviously I know at that time Meredith was lying dead in her bedroom but I can concede that your first thought on finding a small amount of blood in the bathroom would not be that someone could be dead. A favourite saying of mine is the old quote “when you hear hoof beats think horses not zebras” in other words, unless there is other evidence, assume the ordinary rather than the unusual. As for the behaviour of Knox and Sollecito after the murder, who can say how they would react to finding out their flatmate has been murdered unless it has happened and who can say what is the right or wrong way to behave when you are grieving? I think Rudy Guede, currently the only person convicted of and serving a sentence for Meredith’s murder, knows more than he has told the Courts. Personally, I believe there was more than one person present at the time she was killed and therefore Guede must know who they are.

Follain’s book has certainly given me a lot to think about and several times had me checking the internet to gain a better understanding of some of the facts in this case. I love books that make me think and get me to research topics to gain a better understanding and this book has certainly done that.

The people I feel for in this case are Meredith’s family and friends. As I said previously, I think they have been sort of pushed to the back in this case, I remember a lot of the press around the time of the trial focussed on “Foxy Knoxy”, and I think it is important to remember Meredith’s family and friends are still trying to piece their lives together without her and are currently unsure as to whether justice has been done. If Knox and Sollecito have any compassion for the Kercher family they will disappear from the limelight now they have been granted their freedom.

I’m open to suggestions on further reading on this case and would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about this intriguing case.