Book club was cancelled this month because of weather!
I read two interesting books this month that would be good for book clubs who like historical nonfiction.
The first was “Murder of the Century,” by Paul Collins. This is a true story about a murder that occurred in 1897. Two human arms attached to a human chest wrapped in oilcloth were found floating in the East River around the piers on June 26. Then, a family picking berries in the Bronx farmlands found a human midsection wrapped in oilcloth. Add these body parts with the sensational battle between Pulitzer and Hearst, and you have quite a tale. What I found the most fascinating was how the media was so involved in the police investigation, even the autopsy.
The second book was “Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris,” by David King. This is another true story of a serial killer named Dr. Marcel Petiot, who was charged with 27 murders during the Nazi Occupation of Paris. Imagine coming upon a home with numerous body parts buried and burned all over the entire property (and it wasn’t the Nazis). Now imagine you are the head of the Brigade Criminelle in Paris during the time, and had the task of finding the killer (Massu). This book is not a quick read, the facts don’t lay out like a nice fiction thriller. In time of war the normal structure of civilization falls away and chaos takes over for a while. Petiot was in jail when Paris was liberated, but then Massu was arrested and charged as a Nazi sympathizer. Massu was cleared of all charges, but wasn’t in charge anymore. How would the trial go? Interesting read, but so many questions remain and no one left to answer them.
