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New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award-winner Daniel Stashower returns with American Demon, a historical true crime starring legendary lawman Eliot Ness. Boston had its Strangler. California had the Zodiac Killer. And in the depths of the Great Depression, Cleveland had the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. On September 5th, 1934, a young beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland's Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso, neatly severed at the waist. The victim, dubbed "The Lady of the Lake," was only the first of a butcher's dozen. Over the next four years, twelve more bodies would be scattered across the city. The bodies were dismembered with surgical precision and drained of blood. Some were beheaded while still alive. Terror gripped the city. Amid the growing uproar, Cleveland's besieged mayor turned to his newly-appointed director of public safety: Eliot Ness. Ness had come to Cleveland fresh from his headline-grabbing exploits in Chicago, where he and his band of "Untouchables" led the frontline assault on Al Capone's bootlegging empire. Now he would confront a case that would redefine his storied career. Award-winning author Daniel Stashower shines a fresh light on one of the most notorious puzzles in the annals of crime, and uncovers the gripping story of Ness's hunt for a sadistic killer who was as brilliant as he was cool and composed, a mastermind who was able to hide in plain sight. American Demon reconstructs this ultimate battle of wits between a hero and a madman.
Ostensibly the story of Ness pursuing Cleveland’s torso killer, but more the story of his time as public safety officer which just happens to coincide with a number of possibly interconnected beheadings. Of course, that’s just an opinion. It is well written, will hold your interest and leave you to decide for yourself ( )
American Demon is a well written true crime drama about a good cop and his most frustrating case.
American Demon more about Eliot Ness than the Torso Killer. It's about his devotion to Public Safety rather than his image. It's also about Ness as a person with major flaws. He wasn't the person we see portrayed in popular media. He wasn't a super-cop. He wasn't always a good person and he was sometimes a hypocrite. He went up against an entrenched system and found out twice that sometimes the best way to accomplish a task is to compromise and make peace with "that's good enough".
I don't know how to say more without spoiling the book, which is kind of a bizarre thing to say about true crime. ( )
300 pages, of which 35% speaks of Ness's days going after Capone in Chicago, and not addressing the main topic of the book. If I wanted to read about that story, I would have bought a different book. ( )
While very well researched and entertainingly written this volume has one problem in that it feels like two separate stories, that of Ness’s campaign to clean up a corrupt city, and the string of gruesome unsolved murders.
It’s only towards the end that the author puts forward the theory that Ness had been quietly monitoring the murder case, and had a suspect he felt was responsible, but had been pressured into secrecy.
In many ways the story of Ness’s decline from the famed leader of the “Untouchables” to an easily manipulated political stooge is a sad one, and we’ll probably never know exactly what went on. But it’s also a fascinating insight into Cleveland’s struggles to reinvent itself in the immediate pre-WW2 years. ( )
Thanks to Netgalley, St. Martins Press, and Minotaur Books for this ARC.
Interesting take on an old case Eliot Ness came to work on during his time as Cleveland's Director of Public Safety. I was not aware of this time in his life, only the Hollywood stories of his experiences in Chicago vs. Al Capone. It was eye-opening to see such gruesome crimes took place during a time where you cannot picture serial killing (although the term was unknown then) to be something that occurred in America. The book is more centered around Ness than I expected, although it was interesting to see how he navigated his desire to still want to be an important lawman post-Al Capone. 3.5 stars ( )
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
For Fred P. Stashower (1902-1994) and David L. Stashower (1929-2018). Something to fill that untidy gap on the second shelf.
Primeras palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
(Prologue) For about three years, beginning in 1936, Eliot Ness kept tabs on my grandfather, Fred P. Stashower.
Before leaving for work each morning, Frank LaGassie, a thirty-four-year-old photostat operator, often wandered up and down the southern shore of Lake Erie looking for driftwood.
Citas
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
Of all horrible nightmares come to life, the most shuddering is the fiend who decapitates his victims in the dark, dank recesses of Kingsbury Run. That a man of this nature should be permitted to work his crazed vengeance upon six people in a city the size of Cleveland should be Cleveland's shame.
Últimas palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award-winner Daniel Stashower returns with American Demon, a historical true crime starring legendary lawman Eliot Ness. Boston had its Strangler. California had the Zodiac Killer. And in the depths of the Great Depression, Cleveland had the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. On September 5th, 1934, a young beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland's Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso, neatly severed at the waist. The victim, dubbed "The Lady of the Lake," was only the first of a butcher's dozen. Over the next four years, twelve more bodies would be scattered across the city. The bodies were dismembered with surgical precision and drained of blood. Some were beheaded while still alive. Terror gripped the city. Amid the growing uproar, Cleveland's besieged mayor turned to his newly-appointed director of public safety: Eliot Ness. Ness had come to Cleveland fresh from his headline-grabbing exploits in Chicago, where he and his band of "Untouchables" led the frontline assault on Al Capone's bootlegging empire. Now he would confront a case that would redefine his storied career. Award-winning author Daniel Stashower shines a fresh light on one of the most notorious puzzles in the annals of crime, and uncovers the gripping story of Ness's hunt for a sadistic killer who was as brilliant as he was cool and composed, a mastermind who was able to hide in plain sight. American Demon reconstructs this ultimate battle of wits between a hero and a madman.
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