Bag of Toys

by David France

Tells the disturbing true story of Andrew Crispo, a wealthy art promoter from New York City known for his drug use and his penchant for homosexual sadomasochism and Bernard LeGeros, Andrew's partner-in-crime, who were implicated in the grisly murder of a Norwegian fashion student in 1985. Reissue.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, BDSM

470 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This gets a 3 star "liked it" rating for not necessarilly being an example of 'great' writing (which, I'll admit, is to a large degree a subjective opinion). However as cheap, gritty sleazeploitation, I LOVED IT!! Also as others have mentioned, an excellent snapshot of a place and time.

[♥ Marlene♥ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Looking at old reviews this is what I wrote about this book (not much)....


On Tuesday, January 13, 2004

5 out of 10
I could not get in to this one.
Too much about the art world, which I am not very interested in and the way of writing was not my thing. It did not get my attention.

Tells the story of Andrew Crispo, a wealthy art promoter from New York City known for his drug use and his penchant for homosexual sadomasochism, and his implication in the grisly murder of a Norwegian fashion student in 1985

[bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will preface this by saying that I am both very bad with names and dates and places and probably anything that would’ve helped me to better understand this book. with that being said, reading felt like I was falling asleep during an episode of dateline: yes the content was interesting, but I always felt like I was missing something??? again, names are hard, so that’s on me. there is so much detail and research in this story, and france does a great job of telling crispo’s story. the ending felt kind of rushed. overall good story, 4 stars bc I love david france

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to say this is the first true crime book that I found boring, and I've read a lot of true crime over many decades. This seemed to be more of a biography of Andrew Crispo rather than the tale of a murder. It was disjointedly written for a true crime novel and I would have said the same thing if it was touted as a bio of Crispo. Meh.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

2/3rds of this book felt unnecessary. There was a lot more setting the stage than there was murder expose. I bought this for the scandal of the murder (especially after watching the latest American Horror Story) and it felt like such a small part of this book. I kept asking myself “ok where is the murder? When is it happening?” And then we got this tiny tidbit of a murder and backstory. MEH.

[Roger Nelson]

intense, and very thrilling.. a very good read

[Frank778 · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best True Crime books I have ever read. The amount of details is amazing. Great storytelling!

[Marianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

What could have been a good book gets bogged down by bad writing. The author skips around and far too often it is hard to tell what is going on.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

gruesome

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a totally, totally messed-up case this is. And the book is sort of messed up, too. It reads as if it had been intended for other purposes, and then, whoops, someone got murdered so we just tacked that on. The first 267 pages are all about the vicissitudes of Andrew Crispo, a Manhattan art-gallery owner and all-around rat who rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful while he ripped them off any way he could. When you're such a jerk that Roy Cohn wants nothing further to do with you, that's really saying something! And then this other poor man got murdered, and the book zoomed in on that and kept up a much better pace until the end...but it clearly isn't the end of the story at all. We're left with a lot of unanswered questions. It's overall very interesting, but all the name-dropping gets tedious and then the court case ends up sort of half-finished. Rawther frustrating.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compelling in its downward spiral, this book is as irresistable as passing a car wreck on the highway. You can't not look. If perhaps overwritten and not exactly in a journalistically neutral tone, it's an accurate snapshot (one would assume) of hip New York high life and low life in the coke crazed mid-1980's. The time line gets a bit confusing b/c the author tends to backtrack on himself in order to make a more interesting story so it can get a little confusing at times. But the portraits he draws are detailed and resonant b/c they're real people. The book casts a very long and creepy shadow.

[Shirley · Rating 5 out of 5]

February 1985 came the start of a New York horror. Money, sex, drugs and murder. It has it all. The wealthy able to buy anything they wanted and the victim pulled into the den of evil because of it. Because of the uncooperative subject of this book the information is gleaned from court transcript. notes the police took and published documents. A well researched book. It shows what the underbelly of the rich and the poor alike can lead to a horrific crime.

[Laurie Stoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bag of Toys is a book of "True Crime". The story delve's into the "gay scene" of the mid to late 1970's into the mid 1980's with emphasis on S&M and B&D.

There are a few victim's in this story as well as many willing participants.

[Lindsey Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

trashy and a time capsule. I have the missing person poster for Eigil Vesti so I figured I'd give it a read. It's very thorough. Good summer read.

[Devon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great time capsule, pretty good true crime

[Trish Bodine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love true crime novels, and this one is an interesting story. There are so many twists and turns that it wasn't marked true crime, I would have thought it was fictional.

[Eevie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried.. I really did. But 60 pages in and I have zero connection to a single character.. I couldn't even tell you their names. Onto the next book!