Classic Crimes

CLASSIC CRIMES BY WILLIAM ROUGHEAD ALSO BY W. ROUGHEAD: RHYME WITHOUT REASON TWELVE SCOTS TRIALS THE RIDDLE OF THE RUTHVENS GLENGARRYS WAY THE FATAL COUNTESS THE REBEL EARL MALICE DOMESTIC THE EVIL THAT MEN Do BAD COMPANIONS WHAT Is YOUB VERDICT? IN QUEER STREET ROGUES WALK HERE KNAVES LOOKINGGLASS MAINLY MURDER THE SEAMY SIDE NECK OR NOTHING RASCALS REVIVED REPROBATES REVIEWED Notable British Trials: DR. PRITCHARD DEACON BRODIE CAPTAIN PORTEOUS OSCAR SLATER MRS MCLACHLAN MAHY BLANDY BURKE AND HARE KATHARINE NAIRN J. D MERRETT J.W LAURIE CLASSIC CRIMES CONTENTS PREFACE: BY JAMES BRIDIE KATHARINE NAIRN DEACON BRODIE THE WEST PORT MURDERS To MEET Miss MADELEINE SMITH CONSTANCE KENTS CONSCIENCE THE SANDYFORD MYSTERY THE BALHAM MYSTERY DR PRITCHARD REVISITED THE ARRAN MURDER THE ARDLAMONT MYSTERY THE SLATER CASE THE MERHETT MYSTERY PREFACE THIS age of atheists, materialists and neopsychologists finds little place in its cosmogony for the entity Called Evil, By and large, we agree with the old Scotswoman who held that Whats naturals no nasty. By and large, the practical application of our theories seems to work even less satisfactorily than in the days when the personal Devil was a familiar and even popular figure, I am no great reader, but I get the impression that the few writers who still cherish His memory and seriously examine His works are a few English and French Roman Catholics and a handful of Calvinists north of the Tweed. I get the further impression that the Catholics are afraid of Him and that the Calvinists treat Him with the affectionate regard shown by pathologists to their favourite strains of streptococci. Before I expatiate on the greatest living exponent of the Calvinist attitude to Evil, may I be allowed a word or two on the Crime Novel? I have been reading a little of Cheyney and Charteris, who stem, I believe, rom a very flourishing American school. These books deal with the war of Society against its enemies without accepting explicitly or implicitly any idea of a moral Universe. Except from the point of view of physical beauty, there is little to choose between the athletic, ingenious, chainsmoking, whiskyswilling hero and the villains he socks, slugs, pokes in the kisser, outwits and finally rubs out Even the simple morality of the Queensberry Rules has no place in the fights. These are Ossianic in their primitiveness, as much as in their incredibility.

Dorothy Sayers called William Roughead "the best showman who ever stood before the door of the chamber of horrors, " and his true crime stories, written in the early 1900s, are among the glories of the genre. Displaying a meticulous command of evidence and unerring dramatic flair, Roughead brings to life some of the most notorious crimes and extraordinary trials of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England and Scotland. Utterly engrossing, these accounts of pre-meditated mayhem and miscarried justice also cast a powerful light on the evil that human beings, and human institutions, find both tempting to contemplate and all too easy to do.

An absorbing collection of ten famous murder stories of North Carolina, spanning the years 1808 to 1914. “An interesting job of reporting....A book that rates a place on the bedside table.”-Charlotte Observer

Dig deep into the unsolved murder of Jackie English and join the hunt for a serial killer Fifty years ago, a serial killer prowled the quiet city of London, Ontario, marking it as his hunting grounds. As young women and boys were abducted, raped, and murdered, residents of the area held their loved ones closer and closer, terrified of the monster — or monsters — stalking the streets. Homicide detective Dennis Alsop began hunting the killer in the 1960s, and he didn’t stop searching until his death 40 years later. For decades, detectives, actual and armchair, and the victims’ families and friends continued to ask questions: Who was the Forest City Killer? Was there more than one person, or did a depraved individual commit all of these crimes on his own? Combing through the files Detective Alsop left behind, researcher Vanessa Brown reopens the cases, revealing previously unpublished witness statements, details of evidence, and astonishing revelations. And through her investigation, Vanessa posits the unthinkable: is it possible that the Forest City Killer is still alive and, like the notorious Golden State Killer, a simple DNA test could bring him to justice?