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Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence
The man who revolutionized the way we think about baseball now examines our cultural obsession with murder—delivering a unique, engrossing, brilliant history of tabloid crime in America.
Celebrated writer and contrarian Bill James has voraciously read true crime throughout his life and has been interested in writing a book on the topic for decades. Now, with Popular Crime, James takes readers on an epic journey from Lizzie Borden to the Lindbergh baby, from the Black Dahlia to O. J. Simpson, explaining how crimes have been committed, investigated, prosecuted and written about, and how that has profoundly influenced our culture over the last few centuries— even if we haven’t always taken notice.
Exploring such phenomena as serial murder, the fluctuation of crime rates, the value of evidence, radicalism and crime, prison reform and the hidden ways in which crimes have shaped, or reflected, our society, James chronicles murder and misdeeds from the 1600s to the present day. James pays particular attention to crimes that were sensations during their time but have faded into obscurity, as well as still-famous cases, some that have never been solved, including the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Boston Strangler and JonBenet Ramsey. Satisfyingly sprawling and tremendously entertaining, Popular Crime is a professed amateur’s powerful examination of the incredible impact crime stories have on our society, culture and history.
Celebrated writer and contrarian Bill James has voraciously read true crime throughout his life and has been interested in writing a book on the topic for decades. Now, with Popular Crime, James takes readers on an epic journey from Lizzie Borden to the Lindbergh baby, from the Black Dahlia to O. J. Simpson, explaining how crimes have been committed, investigated, prosecuted and written about, and how that has profoundly influenced our culture over the last few centuries— even if we haven’t always taken notice.
Exploring such phenomena as serial murder, the fluctuation of crime rates, the value of evidence, radicalism and crime, prison reform and the hidden ways in which crimes have shaped, or reflected, our society, James chronicles murder and misdeeds from the 1600s to the present day. James pays particular attention to crimes that were sensations during their time but have faded into obscurity, as well as still-famous cases, some that have never been solved, including the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Boston Strangler and JonBenet Ramsey. Satisfyingly sprawling and tremendously entertaining, Popular Crime is a professed amateur’s powerful examination of the incredible impact crime stories have on our society, culture and history.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published April 28, 2011
256 people are currently reading
4531 people want to read
About the author
Bill James
157 books201 followersGeorge William “Bill” James (born October 5, 1949, in Holton, Kansas) is a baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose. His Baseball Abstract books in the 1980s are the modern predecessor to websites using sabermetrics such as Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Primer (now Baseball Think Factory).
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. He is currently a Senior Advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox. In 2010, Bill James was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James
In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. He is currently a Senior Advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox. In 2010, Bill James was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 363 reviews
September 1, 2011
I am seldom compelled to write reviews on this site - but I just finished a book that cannot think to describe other than something that includes the phrase "written by an asshole." James:
1. goes on distracting asides attacking forms of literature he doesn't like
2. evaluates books as good or bad while giving no support for his arguments
3. speculates endlessly on the "real events" of crimes while lambasting others for doing so
4. offers solid reader advice like, "I won't mention it here; you knw where the internet is."
5. Develops a point system for determining guilt beyond a reasonable doubt - a dubious system at best, but one he also abandons midway through.
6. Offers a sporadic thesis about the faults of the justice system that is entirely unstructured / obtuse.
7. Adds snide and often sexist comments about the competency of female writers or the attractiveness of murder victims
8. Engages in the worst kind of armchair popular culture criticism that relies on about as much rigor as friggin' wet spaghetti noodle.
9. Etc., etc., etc.
The crime stories are entertaining, so I'll give this book a second star. But James is beyond obnoxious, hypocritical and otherwise the epitome of a non-qualified blowhard. He wrote this over twenty years; it's a classic vanity project, one which he has failed to execute well. His populist torch-carrying of the common man is utterly embarrassing, and his arch thesis about the benefits of media attention to popular crime utterly unconvincing. By far my favorite portion of the book - insert sarcasm-o-meter here - is when, within the course of three paragraphs, he simultaneously offers that popular crime is dangerous because it engenders imitation murders and beneficial because it crafts a safety net. He's just shooting from the hip, a very, very strange action coming from someone known as a sort of grandfather of quantitative analysis in baseball.
All of this might have been acceptable enough had he not come across as much of a get-off-my-lawn, I-know-and-you-don't asshat. The fact that he has the gaul to declare that other books are well-researched or well-written is hilarious. This book makes clear the worthlessness of an opinionated vanity project, and as a dedicated fan of James's baseball work, I wished he had stuck to his proverbial day-job.
Ugh.
1. goes on distracting asides attacking forms of literature he doesn't like
2. evaluates books as good or bad while giving no support for his arguments
3. speculates endlessly on the "real events" of crimes while lambasting others for doing so
4. offers solid reader advice like, "I won't mention it here; you knw where the internet is."
5. Develops a point system for determining guilt beyond a reasonable doubt - a dubious system at best, but one he also abandons midway through.
6. Offers a sporadic thesis about the faults of the justice system that is entirely unstructured / obtuse.
7. Adds snide and often sexist comments about the competency of female writers or the attractiveness of murder victims
8. Engages in the worst kind of armchair popular culture criticism that relies on about as much rigor as friggin' wet spaghetti noodle.
9. Etc., etc., etc.
The crime stories are entertaining, so I'll give this book a second star. But James is beyond obnoxious, hypocritical and otherwise the epitome of a non-qualified blowhard. He wrote this over twenty years; it's a classic vanity project, one which he has failed to execute well. His populist torch-carrying of the common man is utterly embarrassing, and his arch thesis about the benefits of media attention to popular crime utterly unconvincing. By far my favorite portion of the book - insert sarcasm-o-meter here - is when, within the course of three paragraphs, he simultaneously offers that popular crime is dangerous because it engenders imitation murders and beneficial because it crafts a safety net. He's just shooting from the hip, a very, very strange action coming from someone known as a sort of grandfather of quantitative analysis in baseball.
All of this might have been acceptable enough had he not come across as much of a get-off-my-lawn, I-know-and-you-don't asshat. The fact that he has the gaul to declare that other books are well-researched or well-written is hilarious. This book makes clear the worthlessness of an opinionated vanity project, and as a dedicated fan of James's baseball work, I wished he had stuck to his proverbial day-job.
Ugh.
February 19, 2013
One of the blurbs on the cover describes the book as “sabermetrics meets the Coen Brothers.” That is a bizarre combination, but given that Bill James is the author a reader could be forgiven for believing the hype.
If only.
In truth, I don’t understand what the point of this book was. The subtitle is “Reflections on the Celebration of Violence,” which again—like sabermetrics meeting the Coen Brothers—seems like an interesting topic. But the bulk of the book is devoted only to given brief summaries of different high-profile American murder cases since the end of the 18th Century. On a few of the summaries involving unsolved cases, James shares with us his theories.
As for the “reflections” portion of the book? Well, it’s true that he spends time looking at the different crime books written about the cases he is summarizing. He “reviews” the books, grading the writing of the authors (usually they fail—the only books I can think of that James seems to have no criticisms of are In Cold Blood and The Onion Fields). He also criticizes the authors’ (supposed) biases, as well as their research ability.
*as a side note, someone should tell James that if he wants to be taken seriously when he criticizes someone’s research ability, he should avoid citing Wikipedia in his own book.
But most of the “reflecting” that occurs doesn’t focus so much on the celebration of violence as on what James perceives as troubles inherent in the American criminal justice system. An important topic? Possibly. But it’s certainly not what was advertised.
James is, I think, attempting to come off as a lovable, curmudgeonly contrarian. But with his pedantic, supercilious tone, he kind of comes off as a pretentious dick.
My recommendation would be to skip to the end of the book, where James includes a list of what he considers the best crime books available. Then throw this book away, and read those books instead.
If only.
In truth, I don’t understand what the point of this book was. The subtitle is “Reflections on the Celebration of Violence,” which again—like sabermetrics meeting the Coen Brothers—seems like an interesting topic. But the bulk of the book is devoted only to given brief summaries of different high-profile American murder cases since the end of the 18th Century. On a few of the summaries involving unsolved cases, James shares with us his theories.
As for the “reflections” portion of the book? Well, it’s true that he spends time looking at the different crime books written about the cases he is summarizing. He “reviews” the books, grading the writing of the authors (usually they fail—the only books I can think of that James seems to have no criticisms of are In Cold Blood and The Onion Fields). He also criticizes the authors’ (supposed) biases, as well as their research ability.
*as a side note, someone should tell James that if he wants to be taken seriously when he criticizes someone’s research ability, he should avoid citing Wikipedia in his own book.
But most of the “reflecting” that occurs doesn’t focus so much on the celebration of violence as on what James perceives as troubles inherent in the American criminal justice system. An important topic? Possibly. But it’s certainly not what was advertised.
James is, I think, attempting to come off as a lovable, curmudgeonly contrarian. But with his pedantic, supercilious tone, he kind of comes off as a pretentious dick.
My recommendation would be to skip to the end of the book, where James includes a list of what he considers the best crime books available. Then throw this book away, and read those books instead.
April 29, 2016
Sometimes you just need that non-fiction read to shake things up in your reading life. This was that book for me. I actually enjoyed it. I have always had an interest and read many books on the theories of crime. This was a slow read. I spent a lot of time googling different cases that he brought up in the book, just to get more background.
Don't pick up this book thinking it will magically provide you with some fascinating insight on crime and the media. In fact, he actually admits himself in the book that he's just some guy who's read a lot of crime books. It reads more like a annotated bibliography of crime throughout the 20th century than anything else. He actually recommends and doesn't recommend particular books throughout. Up until the very last chapter I was wondering if the book actually had a point (or rather a thesis). But he pretty much lays it all out in the last chapter, clear as day. If I had to read it all over again for the first time, I would read that last chapter first.
This should not be your first read about the social science of crime. You definitely need to have a solid back ground in some sort of social theory involving crime to full appreciate this book. The stories are very fragmented and he assumes his reader has a mastery over the knowledge of all the popular crimes throughout the 20th century, particularly in the later part of the 60s, 70s and 80s and has widely read on the subject. I can only think of maybe 4 people to whom I would personally recommend this book in real life.
Don't pick up this book thinking it will magically provide you with some fascinating insight on crime and the media. In fact, he actually admits himself in the book that he's just some guy who's read a lot of crime books. It reads more like a annotated bibliography of crime throughout the 20th century than anything else. He actually recommends and doesn't recommend particular books throughout. Up until the very last chapter I was wondering if the book actually had a point (or rather a thesis). But he pretty much lays it all out in the last chapter, clear as day. If I had to read it all over again for the first time, I would read that last chapter first.
This should not be your first read about the social science of crime. You definitely need to have a solid back ground in some sort of social theory involving crime to full appreciate this book. The stories are very fragmented and he assumes his reader has a mastery over the knowledge of all the popular crimes throughout the 20th century, particularly in the later part of the 60s, 70s and 80s and has widely read on the subject. I can only think of maybe 4 people to whom I would personally recommend this book in real life.
September 11, 2011
I found this difficult to rate. The good: fascinating subject (if you're into it, which presumably if you buy a book called "Popular Crime" you are), very readable summaries and writing style, and it's great for someone like me, who will never ever read a book all about Jon Benet Ramsey, but will happily read a ten-page lit review of those books about Jon Benet Ramsey.
The bad: sometimes his style gets a bit too colloquial and entirely disorganized (dozens of pages will go by rattling off crime after crime in one-paragraph summaries, with no links between) -- I feel like this could have used a heavier-handed editor. And the biggie: whenever James starts to editorialize (about the Warren court or prison reform, for example), it is near-unreadable. His analysis of crime, while not always convincing, is interesting and often sharp. His thoughts on legal analysis are painfully, painfully dumb. But with judicious skimming when he strays from his strong suit, it's a very fun read.
The bad: sometimes his style gets a bit too colloquial and entirely disorganized (dozens of pages will go by rattling off crime after crime in one-paragraph summaries, with no links between) -- I feel like this could have used a heavier-handed editor. And the biggie: whenever James starts to editorialize (about the Warren court or prison reform, for example), it is near-unreadable. His analysis of crime, while not always convincing, is interesting and often sharp. His thoughts on legal analysis are painfully, painfully dumb. But with judicious skimming when he strays from his strong suit, it's a very fun read.
June 21, 2012
Bill James has spent most of the last few years in Boston. I do not know if he spent any or all of that time sitting on a barstool in some Beacon Street bar, dispensing wisdom and nonsense co-mingled in the way of the barroom know-it-all. But if he did, and if you were there to hear it, and if you wrote all of it down, you would come up with a book like "Popular Crime." It is breezy, self-assured, all over the map in every direction, and told with the absolute certainty of the taproom blowhard. It is the perfect book to read in fits and starts, in little bite-size pieces. James is deft when he capsulizes the various forgotten and remembered crimes of the last couple of hundred years, but the deftness collapses in places into arm-waving speculation. Fans of James's baseball prose will not be surprised by the lack of organization and the occasional ramble down a rabbit hole. Those not on board with James's style may be confused or irritated. It largely depends on your appetite for gossip and your willingness to see James as endearing rather than irritating, and you might want to have a beer handy.
December 6, 2015
I had a hard time deciding what to rate this book. On the one hand, it was a genuinely entertaining read. On the other hand, I grew so weary of James' bluster. James has no problem admitting that he's an amateur in the field of crime. However, this fails to stop from him from firmly declaring that he has all (or at least a good many) of the solutions to the American criminal justice system that those lawyers are just too lawyer-like to understand. (Nor does this confidence extend only to the subject of criminal law.) Some of James' ideas are actually interesting and may have merit. Others are the uneducated ramblings of a blowhard. The book is also entirely unsourced and disorganized.
Most of the time I enjoyed reading Popular Crime. But there were simply too many times I had to pause and grimace, or sigh, or smack my forehead. From the title I expected something much more rigorous and thoughtful. It's not the book's fault that it wasn't what I expected, but it could at least have been better at being what it was.
Most of the time I enjoyed reading Popular Crime. But there were simply too many times I had to pause and grimace, or sigh, or smack my forehead. From the title I expected something much more rigorous and thoughtful. It's not the book's fault that it wasn't what I expected, but it could at least have been better at being what it was.
April 15, 2013
This is a fascinating book, although it's a bit odd in places. James' writing style is all over the place, he's opinionated but not tactful, he pulls numbers and facts out of unnamed places (maybe his arse, maybe somewhere legit... there are no footnotes or references in my Kindle version). I really enjoyed reading it :) It's like having a meandering conversation with someone who alternately makes you yell "Whaaat?! No way, dude!" and "Yeah! Well said, spot on!".
I liked his categorisation of crime-notoriety, but thought his evidence-points system could use more support. I'd like to apply both to some local 'famous' crimes and see how they hold up.
His summaries of famous cases are interesting and mercifully free from conspiracy theories. His book reviews are brutally honest and just a little bit hypocritical in places. I'd happily subscribe to his blog if he wanted to write up more of both.
But the real attraction of the book is that he considers the place of books and news about crime in society. It's often considered coarse and unhealthy to take an interest in true crime, but social pressure based on well-known crimes has affected history by changing our justice system and exercising a necessary curb on the excesses of lawyers. It's affected the history of newspapers, spurred the professionalisation of police forces, spawned the detective fiction genre, and often popular cases are the basis of brand new laws. It's foolish to ignore such a powerful influence on us all.
True crime readers should definitely give this book a try. Historians might like to give it a whirl too.
I liked his categorisation of crime-notoriety, but thought his evidence-points system could use more support. I'd like to apply both to some local 'famous' crimes and see how they hold up.
His summaries of famous cases are interesting and mercifully free from conspiracy theories. His book reviews are brutally honest and just a little bit hypocritical in places. I'd happily subscribe to his blog if he wanted to write up more of both.
But the real attraction of the book is that he considers the place of books and news about crime in society. It's often considered coarse and unhealthy to take an interest in true crime, but social pressure based on well-known crimes has affected history by changing our justice system and exercising a necessary curb on the excesses of lawyers. It's affected the history of newspapers, spurred the professionalisation of police forces, spawned the detective fiction genre, and often popular cases are the basis of brand new laws. It's foolish to ignore such a powerful influence on us all.
True crime readers should definitely give this book a try. Historians might like to give it a whirl too.
October 22, 2011
I got about 150 pages in, skimmed the rest, and gave up. At first, I found the short anecdotes and sidebars to be interesting, even if the writing read more like punditry than exposition. After a while, though, I found myself annoyed by the author's tendency to draw sweeping conclusions without any effort to corroborate his personal opinions. His disdain for the law and lawyers prevents him from engaging in a meaningful and comprehensive critique of either (and we need those critiques, believe me) and keeps this book from being more than an egotistical indulgence. I had much higher hopes for this book
May 16, 2011
Bill James is an unusual writer. He is best known for sabermetrics, a new way of collecting baseball statistics that better reflects the performance of players. But during all the years that he has been writing his baseball books and advising teams he has also been reading books about crime. Not mysteries or thrillers, true crime. He estimates he has read about 1,000 of these books, about murders ranging from Lizzie Borden to Jon Benet Ramsey.
James approaches any subject in an almost entirely unbiased manner and with as little emotional input as he can manage. Using a detailed timeline, he makes a pretty convincing case, for example, that Lizzie Borden could not have killed her father, given the time it would have taken her to clean up all the blood from attacking him with an axe. She was neat as a pin five minutes later. Of course, anyone else’s having done it is almost as unlikely. And whether you like Lizzie Borden or not, what the neighbors thought about it, and the moralizing of various law enforcement and judicial figures are not part of the equation.
Popular Crime touches on almost all the famous cases of American murder including the Lindberg kidnapping, the Scottsboro Boys, the Boston Strangler, the O J Simpson case, and a hundred others. I don't always agree with him but I have respect for his arguments and every page of the book fascinated me. One of the top 10 books I’ve read in the last two years.
2011 No 78 Coming soon: Ann Veronica, by H G Wells
James approaches any subject in an almost entirely unbiased manner and with as little emotional input as he can manage. Using a detailed timeline, he makes a pretty convincing case, for example, that Lizzie Borden could not have killed her father, given the time it would have taken her to clean up all the blood from attacking him with an axe. She was neat as a pin five minutes later. Of course, anyone else’s having done it is almost as unlikely. And whether you like Lizzie Borden or not, what the neighbors thought about it, and the moralizing of various law enforcement and judicial figures are not part of the equation.
Popular Crime touches on almost all the famous cases of American murder including the Lindberg kidnapping, the Scottsboro Boys, the Boston Strangler, the O J Simpson case, and a hundred others. I don't always agree with him but I have respect for his arguments and every page of the book fascinated me. One of the top 10 books I’ve read in the last two years.
2011 No 78 Coming soon: Ann Veronica, by H G Wells
February 27, 2013
This book is, to use a "popular" phrase, a hot mess. I'd never read anything by Bill James before, but apparently he's a quite well-known writer on baseball. In Popular Crime, his stated purpose is to trace the history of true crime books, TV, and media coverage and show whether or not they are "bad" for society. Unfortunately, he doesn't come anywhere near meeting his goals.
While James lays out the crimes in chronological order, he doesn't trace the history of media coverage of famous murders like he claims he's going to. For example, while he mentions the Helen Jewett case in one of the early chapters, and how much media coverage it received, he declines to discuss it at any length because (and I'm paraphrasing here) too many books have already been written about it. Which had me going, "Wait? What? Isn't that what your book is supposed to be about?"
There are some famous murders that James go into great detail about, some that he skips altogether except for a quick mention, and some that he recaps briefly in a way that leaves you wanting more.
James talks about his editor at several points in the book, as in "if my editor chooses to leave this in." (Again, paraphrased, but you get the picture.) This is bizarre, as I was pretty sure by about 50 pages in that James didn't have an editor, as it seems every tangent was followed. The most infuriating for me was when James tried to establish a point system (I'm not kidding) for how much value to place on evidence at a trial, with a certain number of points being necessary to convict. Similarly, he tries to set up a scale for how likely murders are to become famous. He spends page after page on these pseudo-statistics and it gets to be mind-numblingly dull.
James also has lots of thoughts and theories about the criminal justice system, including a totally unfeasible prison reform model. His book becomes just as much about that as it does about true crime.
As far as analyzing the true crime industry, he ends up reviewing books on many of the cases he writes about. At first, I wrote down James's recommendations, but then I figured out we have very different criteria for what makes a good book. For example, I loved Joe McGinniss's Fatal Vision, which James seems to think was too long and detailed, and therefore dull. Hello, have you read your own book?
The worst part is that James is actually a good writer. Some of the chapters, especially those on unsolved murders and famously controversial cases, were riveting. Unfortunately, these parts are overshadowed by overall inconsistency and James's attempt to include everything but the kitchen sink. There are the kernels of several different, good, books inside of this bulky mess. Seriously, if James had an editor, they didn't do a very good job.
One final note before I wrap up: There are no footnotes, endnotes, or even a bibliography. In a book about media coverage of true crime. Really? When he's discussing a certain book he'll include the title, author, and publisher in the body of the paragraph. But for the most part, we have no idea where he's getting any of his information from. I want to see references to newspaper articles! I know there are books he's referring to that he doesn't mention! What are they? At one point James says he worked on this book for ten years, and you can tell he's done a lot of research, so why couldn't he show us the research he's done? Instead, we are left to rely on James himself, and if he were a literary character, he would definitely be an unreliable narrator.
Wow, I didn't realize how many problems I had with this book until I started typing up my review. It sounds like I really hated the book, but while I was reading it I couldn't put it down. I guess I would recommend it if you're already familiar with the true crime genre, and either have the patience to wade through multiple tangents and statistics, or are willing to skip those parts to get to the meaty bits. Two stars.
While James lays out the crimes in chronological order, he doesn't trace the history of media coverage of famous murders like he claims he's going to. For example, while he mentions the Helen Jewett case in one of the early chapters, and how much media coverage it received, he declines to discuss it at any length because (and I'm paraphrasing here) too many books have already been written about it. Which had me going, "Wait? What? Isn't that what your book is supposed to be about?"
There are some famous murders that James go into great detail about, some that he skips altogether except for a quick mention, and some that he recaps briefly in a way that leaves you wanting more.
James talks about his editor at several points in the book, as in "if my editor chooses to leave this in." (Again, paraphrased, but you get the picture.) This is bizarre, as I was pretty sure by about 50 pages in that James didn't have an editor, as it seems every tangent was followed. The most infuriating for me was when James tried to establish a point system (I'm not kidding) for how much value to place on evidence at a trial, with a certain number of points being necessary to convict. Similarly, he tries to set up a scale for how likely murders are to become famous. He spends page after page on these pseudo-statistics and it gets to be mind-numblingly dull.
James also has lots of thoughts and theories about the criminal justice system, including a totally unfeasible prison reform model. His book becomes just as much about that as it does about true crime.
As far as analyzing the true crime industry, he ends up reviewing books on many of the cases he writes about. At first, I wrote down James's recommendations, but then I figured out we have very different criteria for what makes a good book. For example, I loved Joe McGinniss's Fatal Vision, which James seems to think was too long and detailed, and therefore dull. Hello, have you read your own book?
The worst part is that James is actually a good writer. Some of the chapters, especially those on unsolved murders and famously controversial cases, were riveting. Unfortunately, these parts are overshadowed by overall inconsistency and James's attempt to include everything but the kitchen sink. There are the kernels of several different, good, books inside of this bulky mess. Seriously, if James had an editor, they didn't do a very good job.
One final note before I wrap up: There are no footnotes, endnotes, or even a bibliography. In a book about media coverage of true crime. Really? When he's discussing a certain book he'll include the title, author, and publisher in the body of the paragraph. But for the most part, we have no idea where he's getting any of his information from. I want to see references to newspaper articles! I know there are books he's referring to that he doesn't mention! What are they? At one point James says he worked on this book for ten years, and you can tell he's done a lot of research, so why couldn't he show us the research he's done? Instead, we are left to rely on James himself, and if he were a literary character, he would definitely be an unreliable narrator.
Wow, I didn't realize how many problems I had with this book until I started typing up my review. It sounds like I really hated the book, but while I was reading it I couldn't put it down. I guess I would recommend it if you're already familiar with the true crime genre, and either have the patience to wade through multiple tangents and statistics, or are willing to skip those parts to get to the meaty bits. Two stars.
Read
January 11, 2013If the name of the guy who wrote this piece of crap was James Bill, not only would it have not gotten published, but the publisher would have laughed him out of the building. At no point in this book did the author write anything but a series of rambling, opinionated jags on popular crime stories. Most of what he had an opinion on was pure speculation. He then had the gall to criticize other people's work. People who, unlike James, actually did real research and work. I hate to say "stick to what you know," because that's such a cliche. But in this case, I urge you to stick to what you know Bill James.
(Checks last year's baseball standings, sees the Red Sox in last place)
Hmmm...maybe not.
(Checks last year's baseball standings, sees the Red Sox in last place)
Hmmm...maybe not.
February 26, 2019
A bit of a glorified bibliography of popular crimes dating back to the beginning of time. Was a long read and there's some content I found to not be quite entertaining. Being a crime junkie, I am able to look past that and say I enjoyed the book in the grand scheme of things. I mostly enjoyed Bill James's views on how we can reform our criminal justice system and his opinion's on various cases. I wish he spent more time in the book giving his theories on the more interesting cases he references.
June 27, 2012
I adored this book. Bill James has the kind of dry, witty writing style that makes everything interesting. His take on how popular crime has affected our lives and history is amazing and I cannot say enough good things about it. If you've ever felt guilty reading true crime books, this will make you feel so much better as it teaches you things you never thought you'd learn.
December 28, 2014
Very interesting....made me Google a lot. But the repeated uses of Wikipedia as a source caused me anxiety.
August 8, 2011
I think Bill James is misusing his obvious and potent powers here. As a baseball expert, his outside-the-box, everydude, quantitative methods of looking at baseball have transformed the game, instilled strategic wisdom in some managers, emboldened the mathemagicians, caused the Red Sox to win two world series, etc. And he writes that way too -- lots of "look, I don't know much about this, but..." asides, as if he's sitting on the next barstool, bouncing another brilliant earth-shaking insight off you.
Unfortunately there ain't much mathemagical "sabermetrics" you can apply to popular crime (popular American crime, I should add -- after the prehistory and the Ripper, he never strays outside our borders until Andrew Luster bolts for Mexico). But he tries anyway, proposing an alphanumeric coding system in Chapter X that categorizes the crime and adds a 1-to-10 scale for the degree of popular interest. So, the Beltway Snipers are "CBT 5", and Bernie Madoff is "F$ 7", etc. This is just a steel-cabinet filing system: insular and time-bound, a waste of his energy and our attention. There are other moments in the book where he uses his baseball schtick to analyze cases, assigning his own "points" to various clues and evidence, then saying well, this person was convicted even though 35 of 100 points necessary were found to convict this person. I find this very misleading and sloppy, though I know that's how his mind works and, hey, guess what some of what he says really adds up, in an intuitive-sherlock sense.
But the big problem with this book is that it's a long-ass literature review -- damn near all of the cases he discusses involve his citing the relevant true-crime paperbacks, and telling us which he likes, which he hates, which he digs despite their flaws, etc. It's not like Bill James himself was going out and collecting clues -- this is all third-hand reviewing and theorizing.
So when he decides to chat about the JFK assassination, he cites the books he found most convincing (Posner and Donahue), and agrees that Oswald was acting alone and secret service agent George Hickey accidentally killed the President. Basically a terrible accident involving one nutcase and one person entrusted with the job of preventing the President's death. James dismisses all the other Cuba/Mafia/Soviet theories for the very valid reason that surely someone would have come forward to drop docs after all these years. But surely the same holds if a secret service agent accidentally killed him? Bill does not convince me at all...
On the other hand, he is very sane and convincing about the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Mary Phagan case, Sacco & Vanzetti, even the O.J. carnival. Hell, the ubiquitous JonBenet Ramsey gets a fair and thorough analysis (though his theory -- that someone was out to fuck over John Ramsey through sheer resentment -- suggests there should be some obvious known suspects by now). Again, he's the guy gathering us round at the bar, telling it like it is, you just gotta wake up the next morning and try to verify shit through your "Bill James hangover".
Throughout the book he frosts the crime anecdotes with his own theories about how "popular crime" is actually a good thing for the world (very convincing here), decent expanations why only pretty white girls get media attention when they're kidnapped or murdered, how the Warren court fucked everything up by trying to hasten what should have been a natural anti-death-penalty progression (this theory requires more evidence than he provides), how murder confessions are almost always false etc. These are righteous insights, outside the box and relevant to how politics is conceived in 2011: well worth gifting this book to your reactionary baseball-fanatic uncle as a subtle way to shift his thinking.
James's blokey wisdom sometimes fails utterly. For example, he ends a riveting chapter thus: "The alliance between Jewish and African-American leaders began to crumble in the late 1960s, for reasons beyond my understanding." Seriously? Any rational person -- a sabermetrician-type armed with numbers -- can show you why blacks and Jews split ways, and it's entirely a result of class antagonism, urban migration patterns, how most Americans perceived Jews versus blacks, no Jews ever rioted in the cities, etc.
Similarly, he's perplexed about why the anarchist/labor bombings ceased in 1921, just after the Palmer raids and just before J. Edgar Hoover entered history. "I wish I could tell you what happened to America in 1921, but the truth is that I do not understand it." Normally, when Bill James doesn't understand something, he investigates -- here, he just leaves us with a question begging for his insights. If you paid for this book, you'd want a refund after that quip.
Also, there are many pages wasted here where he just recounts a "popular crime" without giving his opinion or analysis of it, mostly at the beginning and the end. This is padding, and no ordinary writer would get away with it. Later, when he declares that Michael Jackson "was never at any point in his life one of the 100 most famous people in the world," I knew Bill James had lost the plot, living in his own world, probably thinking Vida Blue and Steve Carlton counted among that hundred.
In the lengthy Chapter XXXIII (zzzzzz), he gives us a Utopian proposal about many small prisons of various security levels, with prisoners "graduating" from one to the other, something like that. Really, what he would like is dispersed, categorized prisoners, and a more humane treatment of same, but he never once suggests that the privatization and the profit motive may be a big problem. And, y'know, overcrowding as a result of pointless drug laws. None of this crosses his mind, or his pen.
For which I dock this entertaining and sometimes misleading book one star.
Unfortunately there ain't much mathemagical "sabermetrics" you can apply to popular crime (popular American crime, I should add -- after the prehistory and the Ripper, he never strays outside our borders until Andrew Luster bolts for Mexico). But he tries anyway, proposing an alphanumeric coding system in Chapter X that categorizes the crime and adds a 1-to-10 scale for the degree of popular interest. So, the Beltway Snipers are "CBT 5", and Bernie Madoff is "F$ 7", etc. This is just a steel-cabinet filing system: insular and time-bound, a waste of his energy and our attention. There are other moments in the book where he uses his baseball schtick to analyze cases, assigning his own "points" to various clues and evidence, then saying well, this person was convicted even though 35 of 100 points necessary were found to convict this person. I find this very misleading and sloppy, though I know that's how his mind works and, hey, guess what some of what he says really adds up, in an intuitive-sherlock sense.
But the big problem with this book is that it's a long-ass literature review -- damn near all of the cases he discusses involve his citing the relevant true-crime paperbacks, and telling us which he likes, which he hates, which he digs despite their flaws, etc. It's not like Bill James himself was going out and collecting clues -- this is all third-hand reviewing and theorizing.
So when he decides to chat about the JFK assassination, he cites the books he found most convincing (Posner and Donahue), and agrees that Oswald was acting alone and secret service agent George Hickey accidentally killed the President. Basically a terrible accident involving one nutcase and one person entrusted with the job of preventing the President's death. James dismisses all the other Cuba/Mafia/Soviet theories for the very valid reason that surely someone would have come forward to drop docs after all these years. But surely the same holds if a secret service agent accidentally killed him? Bill does not convince me at all...
On the other hand, he is very sane and convincing about the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Mary Phagan case, Sacco & Vanzetti, even the O.J. carnival. Hell, the ubiquitous JonBenet Ramsey gets a fair and thorough analysis (though his theory -- that someone was out to fuck over John Ramsey through sheer resentment -- suggests there should be some obvious known suspects by now). Again, he's the guy gathering us round at the bar, telling it like it is, you just gotta wake up the next morning and try to verify shit through your "Bill James hangover".
Throughout the book he frosts the crime anecdotes with his own theories about how "popular crime" is actually a good thing for the world (very convincing here), decent expanations why only pretty white girls get media attention when they're kidnapped or murdered, how the Warren court fucked everything up by trying to hasten what should have been a natural anti-death-penalty progression (this theory requires more evidence than he provides), how murder confessions are almost always false etc. These are righteous insights, outside the box and relevant to how politics is conceived in 2011: well worth gifting this book to your reactionary baseball-fanatic uncle as a subtle way to shift his thinking.
James's blokey wisdom sometimes fails utterly. For example, he ends a riveting chapter thus: "The alliance between Jewish and African-American leaders began to crumble in the late 1960s, for reasons beyond my understanding." Seriously? Any rational person -- a sabermetrician-type armed with numbers -- can show you why blacks and Jews split ways, and it's entirely a result of class antagonism, urban migration patterns, how most Americans perceived Jews versus blacks, no Jews ever rioted in the cities, etc.
Similarly, he's perplexed about why the anarchist/labor bombings ceased in 1921, just after the Palmer raids and just before J. Edgar Hoover entered history. "I wish I could tell you what happened to America in 1921, but the truth is that I do not understand it." Normally, when Bill James doesn't understand something, he investigates -- here, he just leaves us with a question begging for his insights. If you paid for this book, you'd want a refund after that quip.
Also, there are many pages wasted here where he just recounts a "popular crime" without giving his opinion or analysis of it, mostly at the beginning and the end. This is padding, and no ordinary writer would get away with it. Later, when he declares that Michael Jackson "was never at any point in his life one of the 100 most famous people in the world," I knew Bill James had lost the plot, living in his own world, probably thinking Vida Blue and Steve Carlton counted among that hundred.
In the lengthy Chapter XXXIII (zzzzzz), he gives us a Utopian proposal about many small prisons of various security levels, with prisoners "graduating" from one to the other, something like that. Really, what he would like is dispersed, categorized prisoners, and a more humane treatment of same, but he never once suggests that the privatization and the profit motive may be a big problem. And, y'know, overcrowding as a result of pointless drug laws. None of this crosses his mind, or his pen.
For which I dock this entertaining and sometimes misleading book one star.
March 17, 2024
I loved this not so much for the crimes, but for the historical context of the crimes. In some ways, it’s a terrific primer on Modern American popular history.
April 9, 2022
I can’t decide what to rate this because I can’t decide how I felt about it. I felt a lot of different things but I read all one million pages so, good job to me. The fourth star is for me.
August 22, 2018
I was familiar with Bill James because of his work kicking off baseball's statistical studies, today represented by SABR (the Society for American Baseball Research), of which I am a member.
Bill is a witty clever writer, and he was able to transfer that talent into this review of violent crimes. He doesn't make jokes about these violent crimes, rather, he makes a lot of ironic observations.
Bill is a witty clever writer, and he was able to transfer that talent into this review of violent crimes. He doesn't make jokes about these violent crimes, rather, he makes a lot of ironic observations.
August 31, 2015
I probably never give this book the time of day if it were not written by Bill James (and the book wouldn't exist without him ... as you might realize), the arguable godfather of modern baseball analytics and the proprietor of the before-their-time Baseball Abstracts.
1. James, I think, is very intelligent but Popular Crime comes off as a candidate for self-publishing. As noted, James has created a career out of writing about baseball statistics. However, baseball is as much a passion turned career as this book is a passion turned a true-crime nonfiction. He is not a lawyer, criminologist, law student, paralegal police officer, prison warden or any background to suggest he's more qualified to talk about crime as you or I.
His book comes off as sophomoric (literally using vulgarity and referencing flatuence as he provides commentary). It's the work of a fanboy. He's smart and he loves true crime. So he decided to write a book and his fame as a front office member of the Boston Red Sox probably played a huge part in him getting this published.
2. There's no real focus here. Content varies from chapter to chapter. Generally, James picks major crimes (rape, kidnapping, murder) starting from what he considers the genesis of modern law enforcement and detective work (around the late 1800s no matter how primitive and ineffective). The retelling includes the details of the crime (or supposed crime) and the outcome including media coverage, the court case and how either one went awry.
Another third of the book is an extended book report. As noted, James has read A LOT of true crime books and he culls a lot of his summaries from these texts (with citation) and often provides suggestions for further reading and even reviewing films that depict the different crimes. Of course, you don't need a book to suggest books and movies; a Facebook account will suffice.
Finally, James takes extreme liberty in telling the reader how HE THINKS the criminal justice system should work among other thoughts. Although he ignores other crimes akin to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he provides a whole chapter concerning his theory (that Secret Service agent George Hickey "accidentally" shot the president while retrieving his gun after Oswald's shots).
He writes extensively about tearing down the prison system and instead housing 20-30 prisoners in smaller prisons around the country with 10 levels of security. He lets us know how corrupt and misguided the legal system is, which is akin to me reading 10,000 Leagues Under The Sea and claiming I'm a marine biologist.
At several points, James puts on his deerstalker and takes a stab at solving crimes. He retells of living in Boston and retracing the crimes of the Boston Strangler (he suggests that Albert DeSalvo is mentally deranged and did not commit all the crimes he confessed to). He then puts together a criminal profile straight out of the TV shows of the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, a serial murderer that terrorized Cleveland in the 1930s. Although he states that someone with time can find the murderer (who is most likely long dead) although I wonder why he doesn't do it himself.
Like I said, James is a smart guy who got too excited to write a book about something he really loves and it comes off poorly.
1. James, I think, is very intelligent but Popular Crime comes off as a candidate for self-publishing. As noted, James has created a career out of writing about baseball statistics. However, baseball is as much a passion turned career as this book is a passion turned a true-crime nonfiction. He is not a lawyer, criminologist, law student, paralegal police officer, prison warden or any background to suggest he's more qualified to talk about crime as you or I.
His book comes off as sophomoric (literally using vulgarity and referencing flatuence as he provides commentary). It's the work of a fanboy. He's smart and he loves true crime. So he decided to write a book and his fame as a front office member of the Boston Red Sox probably played a huge part in him getting this published.
2. There's no real focus here. Content varies from chapter to chapter. Generally, James picks major crimes (rape, kidnapping, murder) starting from what he considers the genesis of modern law enforcement and detective work (around the late 1800s no matter how primitive and ineffective). The retelling includes the details of the crime (or supposed crime) and the outcome including media coverage, the court case and how either one went awry.
Another third of the book is an extended book report. As noted, James has read A LOT of true crime books and he culls a lot of his summaries from these texts (with citation) and often provides suggestions for further reading and even reviewing films that depict the different crimes. Of course, you don't need a book to suggest books and movies; a Facebook account will suffice.
Finally, James takes extreme liberty in telling the reader how HE THINKS the criminal justice system should work among other thoughts. Although he ignores other crimes akin to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he provides a whole chapter concerning his theory (that Secret Service agent George Hickey "accidentally" shot the president while retrieving his gun after Oswald's shots).
He writes extensively about tearing down the prison system and instead housing 20-30 prisoners in smaller prisons around the country with 10 levels of security. He lets us know how corrupt and misguided the legal system is, which is akin to me reading 10,000 Leagues Under The Sea and claiming I'm a marine biologist.
At several points, James puts on his deerstalker and takes a stab at solving crimes. He retells of living in Boston and retracing the crimes of the Boston Strangler (he suggests that Albert DeSalvo is mentally deranged and did not commit all the crimes he confessed to). He then puts together a criminal profile straight out of the TV shows of the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, a serial murderer that terrorized Cleveland in the 1930s. Although he states that someone with time can find the murderer (who is most likely long dead) although I wonder why he doesn't do it himself.
Like I said, James is a smart guy who got too excited to write a book about something he really loves and it comes off poorly.
June 7, 2016
This is a strange book. I mean that not in a bad way, but in a very literal sense--different from anything else I've read. Granted, I've not read James' Historical Abstracts, which probably would have given me a better idea what this is like.
Anyway, I was a little bit disappointed, because based on my love for baseball statistics and more than passing interest in crime and the criminal justice system, I thought I would love this book, and instead merely liked it. James is definitely not a great narrative storyteller, but at the same time, there are several ideas and passages in this book that I thought were superb:
--that motive, means, and opportunity are useful in identifying suspects, but nowhere near enough to convict someone
--that the professionalization of the police force has led juries to trust them more; potentially a bad thing given that "professionals lie just as often as amateurs, only more skillfully."
--that we assume murderers are smarter than they are; the main reason we don't catch them is that it's "extremely difficult to identify an assailant who kills someone he's never met before."
--that both abortion limits and the death penalty had been in rapid decline into the 1970s and would have died out completely without Supreme Court intervention
--suggesting a tiered prison system, in which prisons are very small and criminals are grouped by violence level, including a promotion/relegation system not unlike European soccer leagues. Much better incentive structure than the current setup, where non-violent offenders have to become violent because that's who rules the prison. Also would be quite useful in preparing those about to be released for civilian life.
The book also contains pseudo-reviews of dozens of crime books and movies, many of which I've added to my Netflix/Amazon lists. In the course of writing this review, I changed my rating from three to four stars--I think this is one of those books that's great to have read more than it is enjoyable to read.
Anyway, I was a little bit disappointed, because based on my love for baseball statistics and more than passing interest in crime and the criminal justice system, I thought I would love this book, and instead merely liked it. James is definitely not a great narrative storyteller, but at the same time, there are several ideas and passages in this book that I thought were superb:
--that motive, means, and opportunity are useful in identifying suspects, but nowhere near enough to convict someone
--that the professionalization of the police force has led juries to trust them more; potentially a bad thing given that "professionals lie just as often as amateurs, only more skillfully."
--that we assume murderers are smarter than they are; the main reason we don't catch them is that it's "extremely difficult to identify an assailant who kills someone he's never met before."
--that both abortion limits and the death penalty had been in rapid decline into the 1970s and would have died out completely without Supreme Court intervention
--suggesting a tiered prison system, in which prisons are very small and criminals are grouped by violence level, including a promotion/relegation system not unlike European soccer leagues. Much better incentive structure than the current setup, where non-violent offenders have to become violent because that's who rules the prison. Also would be quite useful in preparing those about to be released for civilian life.
The book also contains pseudo-reviews of dozens of crime books and movies, many of which I've added to my Netflix/Amazon lists. In the course of writing this review, I changed my rating from three to four stars--I think this is one of those books that's great to have read more than it is enjoyable to read.
December 17, 2011
I was looking forward to reading this book because I grew up reading his books on baseball statistics, which completely changed the way most serious fans look at the sport.
This book on crime was a solid triple... most of the times totally illuminating, passionately written and completely absorbing if you are interested in reading about some of the most famous violent crimes in the last hundred years. The chapters on Lizzie Borden and the Boston Strangler are real stand outs. I especially love that Bill cites the books he read that covered the crimes... even if he didn't think the authors did a good job covering the subject.
Why this was not a "home run" for me is because Bill tries to establish a "point system" a couple times throughout the book to explain certain philosophical concepts... and it's kinda... boring. Exactly the opposite of what he did with baseball statistics over the years.
But he is such an engaging writer... so I just ended up skimming those parts until Bill got back to summarizing another crime story and telling me with his big brain who he thought did it.
Bill also hints at doing another book dealing with a specific case because he says he knows who did it... I sure hope he follows through!!!!
This book on crime was a solid triple... most of the times totally illuminating, passionately written and completely absorbing if you are interested in reading about some of the most famous violent crimes in the last hundred years. The chapters on Lizzie Borden and the Boston Strangler are real stand outs. I especially love that Bill cites the books he read that covered the crimes... even if he didn't think the authors did a good job covering the subject.
Why this was not a "home run" for me is because Bill tries to establish a "point system" a couple times throughout the book to explain certain philosophical concepts... and it's kinda... boring. Exactly the opposite of what he did with baseball statistics over the years.
But he is such an engaging writer... so I just ended up skimming those parts until Bill got back to summarizing another crime story and telling me with his big brain who he thought did it.
Bill also hints at doing another book dealing with a specific case because he says he knows who did it... I sure hope he follows through!!!!
December 27, 2015
I really enjoyed this book but could definitely see how it may not appeal to everyone. It moves between discussion of theory surrounding popular crime and a pseudo-history of popular crime in the US. I found out about this book from a podcast called "the last podcast on the left" and the podcast is simply a must listen for anyone interested in conspiracies and popular crime.
July 5, 2018
In my interview for this job, my now-boss brought up the subject of the genre of True Crime, and how it probably needs to be rebranded. I agree wholeheartedly. But I think that it needs to be broken in half, and that's what needs to be rebranded. In the year and a half since then, I've thought of this a lot. My Mother-in-law reads a lot of true crime, and I read a modest amount, but until this book, the Venn Diagram of our true crime reads had no overlap at all. She tends to read the ripped-from-the-headlines, commercial, tabloid-esque variety (not that there's anything wrong with that!) such as Jaycee Dugard's tell-all and books co-written by People Magazine journalists (really, no judgment. I subscribe to People and I love it.) Whereas the books I read that fall within the True Crime genre are more like The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science, about a nineteenth-century French serial killer. My boss was discussing this because the more literary side of this genre has been on a big upswing, but the books can be hard to sell as the phrase "true crime" has a salacious ring to it that doesn't resonate with literary readers, even if they're missing out.
A few months ago I was at one of my accounts and I mentioned my MIL's birthday was coming up and she liked True Crime, and the buyer immediately went to this title. I knew who Bill James was instantly, having eaten up Moneyball when it was first published. I jumped on it and bought it for her right away. Then I thought, this looks so fascinating, I ought to get one for myself. And when I went to add it to Goodreads, I saw that I already had added it. Hm. (This is why I am religious about my Goodreads or I would own dozens of duplicate copies of books.) And I thought, this could be interesting if my MIL and I both like it. We could actually finally have a book in the middle of the Venn Diagram! So I sat down and read it.
Chunkster as it is, I read it very quickly. James is making the argument that while the intelligentsia looks down on true crime aficionados as exploitative and low-brow, this fascination has been going on for centuries, has been beloved by plenty of the high-brow, and actually has a purpose or two. It helps us to NOT become inured to the horrific goings-on around us, it can actually be a welcome distraction from awful news that is more difficult to mentally and emotionally deal with, and heck, publicizing serial crimes can often lead to arrests and heightened public awareness. He goes back and looks at dozens of "crimes of the century" over the last 200 years in America. He looks at patterns in the coverage of crimes. He looks at how in a few cases like JonBenet Ramsey, the public scrutiny of course screwed up the way the case was handled by the police, irreparably. He does give his opinion of who committed certain "unsolved" murders. He shows how American culture has been influenced by crime, and how crime has influence American culture. He gives his opinions on how and what could help reduce crime and in what ways we're actually exacerbating it. If you are a pop culture junky like I am, and have even a passing interest in the O.J. Simpson case or any of the classics like The Boston Strangler or Ted Bundy, this is a must-read. It is a few years old (2011) so don't expect the high-profile crimes of the last few years to be included. Personally, I was annoyed by a sprinkling of typos throughout, but it happens. And it didn't take away from the masterful synthesis of two centuries of "popular crime" in America.
A few months ago I was at one of my accounts and I mentioned my MIL's birthday was coming up and she liked True Crime, and the buyer immediately went to this title. I knew who Bill James was instantly, having eaten up Moneyball when it was first published. I jumped on it and bought it for her right away. Then I thought, this looks so fascinating, I ought to get one for myself. And when I went to add it to Goodreads, I saw that I already had added it. Hm. (This is why I am religious about my Goodreads or I would own dozens of duplicate copies of books.) And I thought, this could be interesting if my MIL and I both like it. We could actually finally have a book in the middle of the Venn Diagram! So I sat down and read it.
Chunkster as it is, I read it very quickly. James is making the argument that while the intelligentsia looks down on true crime aficionados as exploitative and low-brow, this fascination has been going on for centuries, has been beloved by plenty of the high-brow, and actually has a purpose or two. It helps us to NOT become inured to the horrific goings-on around us, it can actually be a welcome distraction from awful news that is more difficult to mentally and emotionally deal with, and heck, publicizing serial crimes can often lead to arrests and heightened public awareness. He goes back and looks at dozens of "crimes of the century" over the last 200 years in America. He looks at patterns in the coverage of crimes. He looks at how in a few cases like JonBenet Ramsey, the public scrutiny of course screwed up the way the case was handled by the police, irreparably. He does give his opinion of who committed certain "unsolved" murders. He shows how American culture has been influenced by crime, and how crime has influence American culture. He gives his opinions on how and what could help reduce crime and in what ways we're actually exacerbating it. If you are a pop culture junky like I am, and have even a passing interest in the O.J. Simpson case or any of the classics like The Boston Strangler or Ted Bundy, this is a must-read. It is a few years old (2011) so don't expect the high-profile crimes of the last few years to be included. Personally, I was annoyed by a sprinkling of typos throughout, but it happens. And it didn't take away from the masterful synthesis of two centuries of "popular crime" in America.
November 9, 2020
Popular Crime
461 pages
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Bill James takes readers on an epic journey from Lizzie Borden to the Lindbergh baby, from the Black Dahlia to O.J. Simpson, explaining how crimes have been committed, investigated, prosecuted and written about, and how profoundly influenced our culture over the last few centuries—even if we haven’t always taken notice.
“We are, not as a nation but as human beings, fascinated by crime stories, even obsessed with them. The Bible is full of them. On your television at this moment there are four channels covering true crime stories, and five more doing detective fiction. And yet, on a certain level, we are profoundly ashamed of this fascination.”
I have very little experience reading true crime, but after this book it is something I definitely want to read and a genre I will start to collect. I really enjoyed the author’s discussion of how crime coverage has impacted Americans throughout history, and a history on some of the most popular crimes in the United States.
The writing style was definitely dry, but I sort of expected that, this being a history book about a lot of different crimes. I was really glad that this didn’t feel like an information dump to me. What I really enjoyed was that I had only ever heard of half of these crimes. It was a good mix of super well known crimes, and lesser known crimes.
His narrative about the different crimes gave me a very quirky vibe, but his opinions are very intelligent and well formed. His opinions also weren’t sweeping conclusions, and I felt that they were well thought out, clear and concise.
I enjoyed reading this, and I’m glad this was one of my first experiences with true crime.
*Disclaimer—my nonfiction book review ratings are based on the writing, length, flow, and my overall feelings, not the story itself.*
461 pages
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Bill James takes readers on an epic journey from Lizzie Borden to the Lindbergh baby, from the Black Dahlia to O.J. Simpson, explaining how crimes have been committed, investigated, prosecuted and written about, and how profoundly influenced our culture over the last few centuries—even if we haven’t always taken notice.
“We are, not as a nation but as human beings, fascinated by crime stories, even obsessed with them. The Bible is full of them. On your television at this moment there are four channels covering true crime stories, and five more doing detective fiction. And yet, on a certain level, we are profoundly ashamed of this fascination.”
I have very little experience reading true crime, but after this book it is something I definitely want to read and a genre I will start to collect. I really enjoyed the author’s discussion of how crime coverage has impacted Americans throughout history, and a history on some of the most popular crimes in the United States.
The writing style was definitely dry, but I sort of expected that, this being a history book about a lot of different crimes. I was really glad that this didn’t feel like an information dump to me. What I really enjoyed was that I had only ever heard of half of these crimes. It was a good mix of super well known crimes, and lesser known crimes.
His narrative about the different crimes gave me a very quirky vibe, but his opinions are very intelligent and well formed. His opinions also weren’t sweeping conclusions, and I felt that they were well thought out, clear and concise.
I enjoyed reading this, and I’m glad this was one of my first experiences with true crime.
*Disclaimer—my nonfiction book review ratings are based on the writing, length, flow, and my overall feelings, not the story itself.*
June 20, 2017
Bill James is best known for esoteric books involving baseball statistics. He takes a detour with Popular Crime. It begins with a couple of short stories; one in Rome and the other in Victorian England. A few unsolved crimes from the 1700’s and 1800’s follow. The first major case is one that everyone remembers from childhood, Lizzy Borden. James declares her innocent after an extensive analysis of the murder. Chapter six examines crimes of the wealthy and by the wealthy. The most famous was the murder of Stanford White which many years later became the subject of E.L. Doctorow’s excellent novel, Ragtime. Next up is Clarence Darrow and the bribery of a juror in 1911 after the L.A. Times building is blown up due to the paper’s anti labor viewpoint. The writer believes Darrow Guilty. Having read about the Scopes Monkey trial and two biographies of America’s greatest lawyer, he remains my greatest influence. I have the same disdain for organized religion. Another well known case, that of Mary Phagan and Leo Frank is covered, although very briefly. Sacco and Vanzetti make the book and James points out that they were anarchists, executed here and forever martyrs of the left. The 1920’s were a prime time for crime. The highlight may have been Ruth Snyder’s murder of her husband. James calls her the Amy Fisher of the ‘20’s. A picture at the moment of execution was published in the New York Daily News. A hidden camera was smuggled into Sing Sing (Ossining, my home town). Charles Lindbergh and the crime of the century fills out the next chapter. Baby goes missing. The nation is outraged. Bruno Hauptmann is convicted and executed. Not so fast, homey. James considers the case a slam dunk. Colin Powell was just as sure about WMD’s 75 years later. Ludovic Kennedy’s book, The Airman and the Carpenter is disparaged and so I will re-read it. It has been 32 years and my memory is not that good. Chapter 14 and the butcher of Kingsbury Run in Cleveland is the subject. It is the 1930s and Eliot Ness is unable to solve the multiple mutilation case. In 1931 Thalia Massie was raped by five men in Hawaii and all five were acquitted at trial. Thalia’s mother killed one of the accused and Clarence Darrow defended her, proclaiming it an honor killing. Manslaughter and time served was the result. The Scottsboro Boys get less than a page. The Darrow bio’s cover it extensively. Two more short profiles; Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz, and William Heirens, the Chicago killer from the 1940’s are covered. The Black Dahlia, or, Elizabeth Short, a wannabe actress was found cut in half in L.A. in 1947, and 70 years later, it is still unsolved. No answers, but James speculates. In 1948, Carryl Chessman was convicted of robbery and rape and due to the ‘Little Lindbergh law “was executed. While in prison, he wrote several books. I am still seeking “Cell 2455, Death Row” at a decent price. Did Sam Sheppard kill his wife? The parallels to Joe McGinness’ book, “Fatal Vision” are uncanny. I believe that both were guilty as hell. Sheppard won his appeal and McDonald is still in prison. The author does not cover the McDonald case, and he should have. The similarities are obvious. A Kansas murder grabbed the attention of Truman Capote in 1959. “In Cold Blood” became a best seller. I found it tedious. James is from Kansas and loved it, so maybe I will read it again. “The Onion Field” is next, and the book is great, as is the movie with James Woods. Albert DeSalvo, or, the Boston Strangler, to us crime aficionados, appears in a segment with the possibility of another killer. The most famous news story of our history is next, JFK and Oswald, and yet another theory, one that I was unaware of. A possible head shot from an M16; friendly fire. David Lifton’s book, “Best Evidence” is not referenced. It is over 900 pages and speculates instead on two autopsies and switched coffins. Norman Collins was a serial killer from 1968-1971 and “The Michigan Murders” by Edward Keyes was an excellent book. The Zodiac Killer haunted the law from 1969-1971 and the killings remained unsolved. “Zodiac” by Robert Graysmith is o.k. Chapter 23 covers Juan Corona, a Mexican serial killer with 23 victims and also John List, a religious fanatic who wiped out his family and was caught 20 years later due to America’s Most Wanted. The next chapter describes the documentary The Thin Blue Line, which freed an innocent man. Ted Bundy follows, and needs no explanation. A following chapter and this segment examines James Dallas Egbert, a genius with severe mental problems and a book I may look for, The Dungeon Master. James briefly covers the McMartin preschool. Bernie Goetz, and Wayne Williams. Up next is Richard Kuklinski, #2 on my list of most compelling killers, after Ted Bundy. Philip Carlo’s book is referenced and I loved it. Robert Hansen hunted women as if they were 6 point bucks in the wilderness of Alaska. Leonard Lake and Charles Ng are given a few pages; two serial killers working together. It’s rare but it happens. Joe Dunkle killed small children in California in the early ‘80s. His luck finally ran out while in prison. A fellow inmate and murderer was outraged by Dunkles choice of victims. Even criminals have a moral code. The Menendez boys killed their parents and claimed abuse. Both received life sentences. Pam Smart, a 22 year-old, had her husband murdered by her 15 year-old sex partner, ‘nuff said. O.J. gets four unnecessary pages with nothing new. James switches gears to Rabbi Fred Neulander, and the story of how the good rabbi’s wife is conveniently killed while Freddie does the hokey pokey (sorry for the bad joke) with another woman. Neulander later dates Miss Vicki, yes, the girl who married Tiny Tim on the Tonight Show. Holy s***! JonBenet Ramsey appears about ¾ of the way through the book and I was bored at the time of the incident and I still feel the same way. Kiddie beauty contests are a sick concept. Maybe the butler did it. James has some good ideas regarding prison reform. Instead of facilities with a few thousand inmates, he proposes much smaller ones with no more than one hundred with a one to ten levels of difficulty. Prisoners could earn their way to the better places with more privileges. The final chapters briefly cover Robert Blake, Michael Skakel, Michael Jackson, Chandra Levy, and the anthrax scare. He wraps it up with society’s fascination with true crime. Like James, I have always been captivated by the subject. I started with Helter Skelter and The Stranger Beside Me almost forty years ago, and more recently with The Good Nurse, which I highly recommend. Popular Crime is a comprehensive look at our dark side. “Each crime is a clue to human nature.”
February 13, 2018
Way back when I was 15 I ran across something called a Baseball Abstract at the mall Waldenbooks. Intrigued, I read the first couple of pages, which was enough to inspire me to save up my paperboy money and eventually purchase a copy. One of the best investments I’ve made – that book still graces our bookshelf. As time went on and I acquired more access to spending money I’d acquire most of James’ baseball works, of which pretty much all of them are worth reading multiple times.
At a certain point in time James pretty much stopped producing written material. Yes, he has his website, but it’s a pay-for, and not quite the same. So it was with some glee that I noticed that Bill has started to write again, but in a somewhat different genre.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that James uses a lot of the same type of logic to analyze crime as he does what it takes a baseball team to win games. He has schematics to gauge population interest, how likely it is that a suspect committed a crime, and so forth. I don’t know if anyone else has done that, and it does suggest that the same level of entertaining writing could be employed in any number of fields.
The book focuses on most of America’s significant crimes, at least in terms of media coverage. Like his abstracts, James often goes on a tangent, which are often useful, and always entertaining. Occasionally he essentially gives off a questionable one (i.e when talking about the smoothness of Obama, he blurts “Sorry Joe!”). Huh? But by and large this was a very interesting read.
At a certain point in time James pretty much stopped producing written material. Yes, he has his website, but it’s a pay-for, and not quite the same. So it was with some glee that I noticed that Bill has started to write again, but in a somewhat different genre.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that James uses a lot of the same type of logic to analyze crime as he does what it takes a baseball team to win games. He has schematics to gauge population interest, how likely it is that a suspect committed a crime, and so forth. I don’t know if anyone else has done that, and it does suggest that the same level of entertaining writing could be employed in any number of fields.
The book focuses on most of America’s significant crimes, at least in terms of media coverage. Like his abstracts, James often goes on a tangent, which are often useful, and always entertaining. Occasionally he essentially gives off a questionable one (i.e when talking about the smoothness of Obama, he blurts “Sorry Joe!”). Huh? But by and large this was a very interesting read.
November 24, 2020
I enjoy reading about true crime and this book introduced me to a quite a few stories I hadn’t heard before which I appreciated. James also made some interesting points related to the sociology behind popular crime, gave some decent true crime book recommendations, and has some theories on popular crime mysteries that I thought were valid. I could have done without the random sexist and racist comments, the constant crapping on other authors every few pages, and the long tangents he goes on about yes, crime-related topics such as the prison system and point systems and cataloging for grading crime stories (???), but crime-related topics that I just didn’t feel fit with the overall book. It took me way longer to read this book than it normally would for a book of this length because I would get sick of his voice and have to take breaks. I am personally glad that I read it because of the comprehensive history of popular crime stories that introduced me to some new ones I hadn’t heard of before, but wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to anyone.
April 14, 2017
Oustanding book. As much about popular crime itself as it is the literature of popular crime. I like Bill James' approach to the subject: He's not a credentialed expert on the subject, just a guy who's read a hell of a lot of True Crime books and formed some interesting opinions on them (and how society copes with violent crime). I understand James mostly writes about baseball and I think there is evidence of that in the way he uses statistics, metrics and logic to write about crime literature. Does this approach make complete sense to me? No, but it does to him and that gave him a strong framework for approaching his subject. Some of the criticisms I read said it was a sprawling book. Honestly, I didn't have any problem with its scope or execution. One of my faves for 2017.
December 27, 2018
Bill James interjects unnecessary editorials a little too often, and his rating systems for evidence and popularity are completely arbitrary, but for the most part this is a fun look at popular American crime stories of the last two hundred years.
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March 25, 2022I don't quite know what to say about this book. Was it enjoyable and compulsive? Undoubtably. Was the information interesting? Yes. Was the book mostly information? Well... The author spends a fair amount of the book (meaning more space than I wanted to grant it) speaking of the quality of other books, meanwhile spending pages and pages soapboxing about (sometimes) related subjects. Does not end on a strong note. I'd still recommend it if you are interested in crime of trends in America.
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