All Blog Entries,  Books & Publishing

December 2019 Booklist

Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit
by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker – My 2nd of his to read, the 1st being Killer Across the Table in October. There wasn’t much redundancy which is nice. Like a lot of non-fiction books about multiple cases or serial criminals, it can get a little exhausting. However, the stories are all very fascinating and were clearly chosen to highlight a specific type of crime or investigative tactic (hostage situations, staging as a ritual or as an attempt to throw off investigators, insanity, etc.) The author comes off a tad arrogant but, I dunno, who can blame him? I mean he describes criminals with freakish accuracy. For example, he said one killer would be driving a dark blue or black car. Sorcery like that has led to solved cases and, most importantly, prevented countless more crimes. Pat yourself on the back all you want, dude. You’re neat. Fascinating stuff.

Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered: The Definitive How-To Guide by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardwick – The authors host a podcast “My Favorite Murder,” so I expected the book to be about some murders. It’s actually a dual mini-memoir / telling of how the co-authors’ friendship and podcast came to be. I’ve actually never heard an episode but I still very much enjoyed the audiobook which they read separately and together with some parts taped in front of a very enthusiastic audience of their fans. It didn’t matter that I’d never listened to their show.

One random thing that made me hit rewind: While talking about victim blaming and how it’s only the fault of the criminal no matter what the victim did, was wearing, etc., Karen mentioned how sometimes a woman has to take a bus late at night because maybe she’s a single mother without a car, can’t drive for physical reasons like she is blind or deaf. Uh, what? Deaf people can drive! LOL!

I got emotional a few times from their sharing of family stuff and enjoyed their banter and humor. It was nice to hear how two women –one who is my age; the other 10 years younger– became friends and found support in each other and turned a hobby into a very successful gig. Good for them.

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson – I enjoyed this book so much more than the other of his I read “Devil in the White City…” It’s engaging and comprehensive without being exhaustive.

I finished this on New Year’s Day and it was a bit of a downer to start the year. A terrible tragedy. So much grief and pain and suffering in people’s final moments and, as with most events when examined in retrospect, there was so much that could’ve & should’ve been done to spare the world from it all. It’s all terrible. That there are “rules” for governing the mass destruction of property and lives is dumb. War is dumb.

As we find ourselves in dangerous territory thanks to the most extraordinarily ill-equipped and unqualified President of the US, I wish I’d read it at another time.

Alright…this is my last time doing little write-ups for each book. I’ll likely still post the books I read w/ links for my own reference, really. Which, let’s be honest, is what these more extensive blog entries have been all this time!

#Kambri2019Booklist 
January 2019 Booklist
February 2019 Booklist
March 2019 Booklist
April 2019 Booklist
May 2019 Booklist
June 2019 Booklist
July 2019 Booklist
August 2019 Booklist
September 2019 Booklist
October 2019 Booklist
November 2019 Booklist