When I saw Rob Marshall’s Chicago on my nineteenth birthday, it was a revelation.  I’ve always been enamored with the Victorian Age, but after watching the film, I wanted to be a 1920s Jazz Killer.  I was ready to slink around in sequins and fishnet stockings, break hearts, and get away with murder.  I’ve been fascinated with violent women ever since.  Little did I know that my own fervor paled in comparison to the real appetite Chicago had for murderesses in 1924.

The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago by Douglas Perry exposes the true stories of a string of female-perpetrated murders that rocked Chicago. Belva Gaertner, a striking divorcee and former cabaret entertainer, used her sense of style and her ex-husband’s fortune to evade justice.  In a neighboring cell, Beulah Annan, both an admitted adulteress and the prettiest woman in jail, changed her story until she found one that showed her in the best light.  The facts of the period swirl like a three-ring circus with the murderesses making a play for public sympathy, the city scrambling for a conviction, and the newspapers competing for coverage. Against a landscape of corruption and immorality, pretty women got away with murder by winning the hearts of all-male juries. Not even the men they cuckolded turned against them.

Enter Maurine Watkins, an unlikely crime reporter writing for the Chicago Tribune.  Her cynicism for the system jived with the paper’s notorious “hanging” reputation.  Her peers, mostly members of a group known as “sob sisters,” excused the women’s crimes as a result of exigent circumstances and glamorized their lives. Maurine alone viewed the women, and the system that would let them off, as disgusting.  She eventually funneled her bitterness into a hit Broadway satire, Chicago.

The book reads like a novel, partly because the facts are so absurd, but mostly thanks to Perry’s engaging style. The story doesn’t lag for a moment.  It’s full of salacious details about sex, illicit booze and jazz.  Beulah danced around to her Victrola while her boyfriend, shot in the back, bled out on the floor.  With newspapers chronicling every detail of the murderesses’ lives and escapades, Perry had plenty of source material to draw from.  Fans of the musical will be interested in the background information, but there’s plenty to enjoy regardless.  If you like scandal and ladies behaving badly, you’ll love the Girls of Murder City.

A matronly woman hailed as a saint for her unceasing care of the elderly in early twentieth century New England harbors a deadly secret.  She’s killing off her wards at a rate of about one a month over several years.  She dispatches the helpless, unsuspecting convalescents with arsenic.  Worse, the poison she liberally adds to her fresh lemonade is often obtained for her at the local pharmacy by the very victims it kills!

The devil of The Devil’s Rooming House is Amy Archer, a narcissistic sociopath who killed her two husbands and more than forty wards.  She lived a double-life.  Publicly she managed a private nursing home, carried a bible everywhere and led people to believe that she was a trained nurse (she wasn’t).  Behind closed doors, she manipulated and stole, neglected the wards she crammed into small under-appointed rooms, and had a patient who started asking too many questions committed to a mental hospital.  Apparently mistreatment of the elderly in convalescent homes has been a problem since these homes have existed as private businesses.  People expect old people to die.  But Amy took it too far.

I was lucky to get a review copy of this chilling new book by M. William Phelps.  This is one of the most thorough books about a female serial killer that I have found.  Amy’s brazen lies and contradictions when questioned about suspicious deaths in her home are dizzying.  The book also provides colorful information about the period.  One of the most graphic and fascinating sequences describes an exhumation and autopsy in detail.  Phelps’ strength is providing anecdotal details that bring life to the characters and community.   It’s interesting to see how much things have changed, and how much they have stayed the same in almost a hundred years in this country.

I enjoyed this book, but there were a few points I wish were dealt with in more detail.  If she was stealing money from her wards, filling her house over capacity and feeding them inexpensive slop, why was Amy struggling financially all the time?  Where did the money go?  It would have been helpful to see how much money was coming in and how much went to running the house.  Perhaps a financial comparison of a similar convalescent home where wards were not being killed off would have been helpful.  Also, what happened to the doctor who signed off on all the death certificates?  Why wasn’t he tried for a crime or at least been given a suspended license?  Finally, what were the laws about arsenic in Connecticut at that time?  Why was it so easy to obtain?  Without the answers to these questions, the end of the book left me a little unsatisfied.

If you’re looking for a book that will make your skin crawl even after you’ve put it down, this is it. I recommend The Devil’s Rooming House to people who like true crime and to anyone who doesn’t believe women can be cold-blooded killers.

Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies: Compendium Monstrum is a steal at $9.95

Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies: Compendium Monstrum is one of those books that once you get it, you don’t know how you lived without it. I was fortunate enough to receive a review copy this weekend from Peter Pauper Press.

The book is a digest of centuries of wisdom passed down about vampires, werewolves and zombies. I’m astonished with how much information is packed into such a small volume. About six inches long and four inches wide it’s the perfect size to tuck into your vampire killing kit or carry-on.

While it’s by no means an exhaustive manual, it offers the type of information you might need to access quickly and it presents it in an organized and aesthetically pleasing fashion.  Along with map inserts depicting where varieties of each monster are typically located, the book explains how to identify and destroy these dangerous adversaries. Whether you need to look up how to say, “Do not go in the castle” in Romanian or “Can you help us kill them please?” in Creole, you’ll find it easily.  I’m not sure anyone can afford to leave home without it.

Here are some of the things I learned reading this book:

• Legends about vampires, werewolves and zombies can be found for thousands of years in every corner of the globe.  So basically, nowhere is safe.
• There are more than 1,100 types of bats, but only three are known to feed on blood.
• I need to plan a trip to Transylvania, Romania to see ruins and sites associated with Vlad the Impaler and retrace the journey made by Dracula and his hunters in Bram Stoker’s novel.  Don’t worry; I’ll pack lots of garlic.
• Clinical Lycanthropy is a mental disorder that causes sufferers to believe that they are wolves.  They walk on all fours, roam in wilderness and howl at the moon.  Some posit these symptoms were actually caused by consumption of the toxic fungus, ergot, which causes delusions.
• I’d heard of witch trials, but it turns out thousands were also tried as werewolves in France during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
• When the zombie apocalypse arrives, it would be wise to find a big mart store full of supplies such as food, water and weapons, (Costco for example) and barricade oneself in.

The other thing that makes this book so special is the artwork.  Many pictures from obscure texts accompany historical background.  Original illustrations by Bruce Waldman are beautifully rendered and compliment the text.  They helped me visualize some of the more obscure varieties of vampires and zombies from around the globe.

Overall this is a great resource for anyone interested in the supernatural and it may even save your life.

Recently released novel, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, has already been acquired by filmmakers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov to be made into a feature film.  Burton and Bekmambetov previously co-produced 9.  Based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, the film will tell the story of Abraham Lincoln’s secret fight against vampires when he learns that one killed his mother.  Grahame-Smith, who also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, will adapt the screenplay. At least it won’t be boring.

Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies: Compendium Monstrum for $9.95 is a new pocket sized volume that allows you to travel with a treasury of monstrology at your fingertips.

Four sections:

• Vampires: There Will Be Blood
• A Vampire Hunter’s Guide to Transylvania: The Land Beyond the Forest
• Werewolves: What Big Teeth You Have!’
• Zombies: They. Are. Coming.

Material Includes:

• Notes and Sketches
• Transylvania travel section
• Fold-out maps
• ”Tracking the Beasties” visual aid
• ”For Further Investigation” resource list
• Index
• ”Sightings Record Pages,” in which readers can record their own encounters, location, moon phase, weapons, etc.
• Red ribbon marker
• Foil-enhanced covers
• Gothic/Victorian-style endpapers

Okay Twi-hards, put down Twilight (surely you know it by heart anyway) and pick up Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.  I ordered this book after falling in love with the gorgeous cover and having my interest piqued by a brief plot synopsis on Amazon.  Beautiful Creatures has many of the elements of Twilight: a love story between a supernatural being and a mortal, a twist on a classic supernatural type (vampire in Twilight and witch in Beautiful Creatures), teenage angst, and mystery.  But it also adds elements to the genre with a historical fiction subplot, regional trivia and familial sacrifice.

The story unfolds through the eyes of a quiet teenage boy who is marking time until he can escape the small southern town where he has lived his whole life.  When the first new girl in years comes to the local high school, Lena, Ethan realizes that even though he’s never seen her before, he’s been having nightmares about her for months.  They discover that they have a telepathic connection and quickly become entangled in a mystery that takes over everything.  Along the way, the rest of the town weighs in adding to the drama.

I enjoyed this book.  It was a fun escapist read and I look forward to the sequel. The rich text begs for a film version.  Some of the side-characters were more interesting than the main characters.  Ethan’s longtime caretaker, Amma, and his great-aunts are a riot.  Lena’s uncle and cousin dominated the scenes they appeared in.

My main criticism is that the narrator Ethan has a feminine voice.  I don’t always buy him as a teenage boy.  True he plays basketball, but he barely gives it a thought off the court.  He also takes his introduction to Lena’s supernatural side in unbelievable stride.  If I was confronted with the things he saw, I’d be checking myself into the looney bin post-haste.

Otherwise, if you can suspend disbelief and dive into the fantasy, this book is a wondrous way to while away some winter hours.

The Forgotten Garden is a riveting mystery by Australian writer Kate Morton.  The book tells the tale of multiple generations of a cursed family through the Victorian era until modern times.  Opening with a lost four year old girl abandoned on a dock in Australia the story quickly becomes much more complicated then a case of unknown identity.  That four year old becomes an adult who is forced to abandon her quest to figure out where she came from when she becomes her granddaughter’s guardian.  It seems none of the women in the family will ever find peace and happiness until they reckon with the shady past.

No matter how often they leave, or how far across the world they travel, the claws of a sprawling, inpenetrable Cornish Estate  with a hidden garden and a dilapidated cabin keep pulling them back.  Gothic fairy-tales, curses, games featuring Jack the Ripper and medical trauma all feature into the dark tale.

I’m sorry this review is a little vague.  I loathe to give anything away since the joy of the book for me was constructing the puzzle piece by delicious piece.  Even when I foresaw answers to certain questions, other aspects of the story resurfaced with surprising results. Most of the main characters are women and it was gratifying to see multi-dimensional female characters with believable motivations.

The book has garnered comparisons to the Secret Garden, and while I can understand why, I think it also draws heavily from other Romantic sources such as Rebecca and Jane Eyre.  I loved this book and hated leaving the world at the end.  I haven’t read Kate Morton’s first novel, The House at Riverton, but I ordered a used copy from Amazon that should be here any day now.

Despite the knowledge that we live in a weird and wonderfully diverse world, I’m often amazed at the books available that teach niche skill sets.  Some of these skills are downright freaky and it’s bad enough that the author is into it, but the publisher was convinced other people would be too. Other times, the skill itself is not so bad, but the presentation is cringe-inducing.  I’ve made a few little comments in italics, but you be the judge…

Ccw: Carrying Concealed Weapons : How to Carry Concealed Weapons and Know When Others Are available for $14.95: That guy looks like the weird neighbor that keeps to himself and has strange smells wafting out of his windows.

How Not to Die: Surprising Lessons from America’s Favorite Medical Examiner available for $10.20: JAN GARAVAGLIA, M.D., is the chief examiner for the District 9 Medical Examiner’s Office in Florida, presiding over 1,100 autopsies a year.  Garavaglia uses unusual case studies of autopsies she’s done to provoke people into taking better care of themselves.  The list of trivial decisions we make that might lead to our deaths is so long that it’s a miracle any of us are still alive.

How To Become a Schizophrenic: The Case Against Biological Psychiatry available for $25.95: Reviewer Cesar Tort (hijo) wrote: “John Modrow has written the best book describing how parents can drive a son mad.”  I was hoping someone would take care of that.

Is God In Your Bedroom?: (Volume 1) available for $12.95: revealing plain instruction from the Bible concerning God’s creative expression of unconditional love toward man—the gift of sexuality.  Do sexuality and the stigmata really need to mix?

Knitting With Dog Hair: Better A Sweater From A Dog You Know and Love Than From A Sheep You’ll Never Meet available from $18.85:  This book has instructions about gathering animal fur and spinning it into yarn and then using it in projects.

A Customer on Amazon wrote: “Everyone in my house thought I was crazy until I brought home Kendall Crolius’ book.”  Until?

Raymond G. Blevins wrote: “My only complaint is the cover is misleading, there is a picture of a basset hound on the cover but you can’t spin basset fur.”  I was planning on ordering this book until I found out that you can’t spin basset fur.

Natural Harvest: A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes by Fotie Photenhauer from Lulu for $24.95:

The description reads: “Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic. Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants. Despite all of these positive qualities, semen remains neglected as a food.”

Reviewer Rosie Palm wrote: “I like the section entitled, “Cheese Jiz: Adding semen to your cheese.” Our family has now been enjoying Jiz Burgers, Jiz Fries, and Salami & Jiz Sandwiches. Tonight we’re eager to try the Banana Cream Pie.”  Your family?  Please tell me you’re not sending your kids to school with Jiz Burgers in their lunch bags.

With overnight shipping there may still be time to get these as gifts for your loved ones…

This weekend I finished reading Neverland: J.M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan by Piers Dudgeon.  Before reading this book I was mostly familiar with Barrie’s story as told through Johnny Depp’s sensitive portrayal in the 2004 film Finding Neverland.  In the movie version of his life, Barrie meets the Davies boys during a crisis of writer’s block.  He becomes enchanted by their youthful innocence, writes Peter Pan and eventually adopts them after their mother’s untimely demise.  Around the time the movie came out, I heard mutterings that the film was too whitewashed.  Many have speculated that Barrie’s relationship with the Davies boys was less than wholesome, but I never considered how much darkness was omitted from the Hollywood retelling until I started this book.

The book is best described as a psychohistory chronicling three generations of increasingly troubled writers including George du Maurier, J.M. Barrie and Daphne du Maurier around the turn of the twentieth century.

The grandfather George du Maurier sets in motion a series of unfortunate events through his bestselling work Trilby about a hypnotist who destroys his subject’s soul. George was writing from personal experience from years of experiments with hypnosis.  Barrie was a follower of du Maurier’s work.  His daughter Sylvia du Maurier became the mother of the five Davies boys that Barrie grew obsessed with.  Sylvia’s niece Daphne du Maurier, often in contact with the Davies and their guardian Barrie, grew up to become a novelist whose most famous work is the haunting Rebecca.

Author Dudgeon’s hypothesis is that the physically impotent Barrie found gratification through the control and manipulation of members of the du Maurier/Llewelyn Davies family.  Barrie is the villain puppetmaster whose manipulation leads to mental abuse, inappropriate relations including possible incest, and suicides.  Three of the five Davies boys die young or unnatural deaths and Daphne suffers multiple breakdowns.

Even if you’re not familiar with any of the literary works discussed (I’d never heard of Trilby) the tale of human drama resonates.  The creepiness of a book lacking in gruesome murders or physical violence is testament to author Dugeon’s writing abilities.  I shudder for the young boys when Barrie commits forgery of Sylvia’s will to give him partial guardianship.  Now that I know that the original title of Peter Pan was “The Boy Who Hated Mothers,” it’s hard to think of it as a happy tale for children.

My one criticism is that the actual process of the hypnosis is unclear.  As someone whose idea of hypnosis is a turbaned quack waving a watch and chanting “you’re getting sleepy” I’m not sure what really happened to cause so many breakdowns.  A more in-depth discussion of the practice and effects of mesmerism and “Dreaming True” would have helped Dudgeon’s argument.