Scan barcode
starthelostgirl's review against another edition
1.0
This book is absolute garbage. I routinely looked up the names mentioned as being the focus of cases, which in chapter 28 lead me to a New York Magazine article called “The Case of the Fake Sherlock.” This article exposes Richard Walter, one of the three people Capuzzo is writing about, as a fraud who committed perjury and was obsessed with prosecuting gay men. Furthermore, Capuzzo straight up lied in this book about many of the things Walter and the Vidocq society allegedly did - even Frank Bender, one of the other founders, said so.
I’m disgusted to have wasted so much time. As a published criminology researcher, I have no patience for someone getting paid a staggering $800,000 advance and churning out lies. It’s not even well-written garbage! I only got through 45% of this poorly organized “book” because I was looking up each case and found some of them new and interesting.
I’m disgusted to have wasted so much time. As a published criminology researcher, I have no patience for someone getting paid a staggering $800,000 advance and churning out lies. It’s not even well-written garbage! I only got through 45% of this poorly organized “book” because I was looking up each case and found some of them new and interesting.
geekwayne's review against another edition
3.0
Have you ever read a book that was written in a way that drove you crazy, and yet you slogged through it because the subject matter was so compelling? The Murder Room is one of those books.
This is a non-fiction book about the Vidocq Society, a group of amazing crime fighting minds, who gather monthly for a sumptuous meal and the chance to solve a cold case brought to them by a police agency or private individual. The Society has 3 founding members, a forensic artist, a criminal psychologist and a man referred to as "the living Sherlock Holmes." The Society is named after Eugène François Vidocq a crook turned cop from the 18th century who is considered to be the inspiration for Poe's character Inspector Daupin and influential on the creation of Sherlock Holmes.
The book details how the society was formed, gives good biographical details about the three founding members and deals with some of the cases they have worked on over the years.
Fascinating stuff, right?
But...
Within 20 pages of starting this book, I wanted to throw it down in disgust. The author deploys a pulp writing style that seems a bit disrespectful of it's subject matter. I actually almost counted the number of times I encountered the word 'buxom' within the first 100 pages. The chapters all start in a way that makes many of them feel like individual short stories. How many times do we need to be introduced to the 3 main characters of the book that we've read about for the past 300 pages? The cases presented are, I assume, in chronological order. This means that complete case histories are scattered amongst chapters, leading you to follow multiple threads at the same time. Really poor structure.
I did stick it out, and I am glad I did. The case that overshadows the whole book is about a young boy found in a box in a field in 1957. To this day, that case has never been solved, and it provides much of the impetus for the book and what drives these men. The Society is a fascinating idea. They do solve many cases, but some are merely academic as there may not be enough inherent evidence to convict. This book gets a 2 for writing and a 5 for subject matter. I would like to read a much better book about this subject matter.
This is a non-fiction book about the Vidocq Society, a group of amazing crime fighting minds, who gather monthly for a sumptuous meal and the chance to solve a cold case brought to them by a police agency or private individual. The Society has 3 founding members, a forensic artist, a criminal psychologist and a man referred to as "the living Sherlock Holmes." The Society is named after Eugène François Vidocq a crook turned cop from the 18th century who is considered to be the inspiration for Poe's character Inspector Daupin and influential on the creation of Sherlock Holmes.
The book details how the society was formed, gives good biographical details about the three founding members and deals with some of the cases they have worked on over the years.
Fascinating stuff, right?
But...
Within 20 pages of starting this book, I wanted to throw it down in disgust. The author deploys a pulp writing style that seems a bit disrespectful of it's subject matter. I actually almost counted the number of times I encountered the word 'buxom' within the first 100 pages. The chapters all start in a way that makes many of them feel like individual short stories. How many times do we need to be introduced to the 3 main characters of the book that we've read about for the past 300 pages? The cases presented are, I assume, in chronological order. This means that complete case histories are scattered amongst chapters, leading you to follow multiple threads at the same time. Really poor structure.
I did stick it out, and I am glad I did. The case that overshadows the whole book is about a young boy found in a box in a field in 1957. To this day, that case has never been solved, and it provides much of the impetus for the book and what drives these men. The Society is a fascinating idea. They do solve many cases, but some are merely academic as there may not be enough inherent evidence to convict. This book gets a 2 for writing and a 5 for subject matter. I would like to read a much better book about this subject matter.
ericthec's review against another edition
2.0
I agree this book has been over hyped on various npr programs. The characters are good but the writing is fawning and strains credibility. The tale is structured overall but is disjointed at the chapter level. The cases are sad and gruesome but I don't read a lot of true crime.
kraley's review against another edition
1.0
This book was not what I expected. The title makes you think of men and women sitting around a table solving cold cases. This was not what this book was about. Really, it follows the three founders of the society through a number of cases presented in a haphazard manner. The timeline was constantly confusing and the back story on the sculptor was egregious and stuck of hero worship. The conversations that were made up to move the story along were unlike normal flow of conversation. This book would have been better organized either by time or by case, but the wandering and repeating of things that he already told us got slow and tedious.
mintlovesbooks's review against another edition
3.0
Capuzzo intertwines the biographies of Frank Bender, Richard Walter, and William Fleisher as a way to tell the story of the Vidocq Society, a group of storied individuals who solve cold cases. The work of the Vidocq Society and of the three subjects in the book is valuable and interesting. However, the way that the book tells their story leaves something to be desired.
The organization of the book was the most confusing for me. I found it difficult to follow the timeline of events mentioned in the book, particularly because it jumps back and forth to different periods in time and different locations in the United States. At times, it made this read rather frustrating. Some parts of the book felt quite disjointed to me, whereas others flowed decently well.
The content that Capuzzo touched on was difficult to read, both because of his graphic description of cases and because of his writing style. I found it to be quite dry. However, his meticulous documentation demonstrates that he has done his research for the book. I personally was not a fan of just how precise his details were, but perhaps others will appreciate the depth he goes into when describing his subjects.
For more of my reviews, please visit:
The organization of the book was the most confusing for me. I found it difficult to follow the timeline of events mentioned in the book, particularly because it jumps back and forth to different periods in time and different locations in the United States. At times, it made this read rather frustrating. Some parts of the book felt quite disjointed to me, whereas others flowed decently well.
The content that Capuzzo touched on was difficult to read, both because of his graphic description of cases and because of his writing style. I found it to be quite dry. However, his meticulous documentation demonstrates that he has done his research for the book. I personally was not a fan of just how precise his details were, but perhaps others will appreciate the depth he goes into when describing his subjects.
For more of my reviews, please visit:
beastreader's review against another edition
3.0
I am a fan of murder mystery. I have to admit though that I have not read a lot of true crime novels. I was excited when I heard about this book. A collection of cold cases that the Vidocq Society solves sounded very intriguing to me. The Vidocq Society is comprised of some of the best detectives and others. The main goal of the Vidocq Society is to try and solve cold cases. Some of the members of the Vidocq Society are Bill Fleisher, a former federal agent turned detective, Richard Walter, a forensic psychologist and criminal profiler and Frank Bender, forensic artist. These are just a few of the men and women who make up the Vidocq Society.
I read a few of the many, many stories in this collection and stopped reading. While I found the cases interesting and the way the Society goes about solving the cases, the writing was dry. Mr. Capuzzo was very precise with the details of the cases. Unfortunately, no matter how interesting the cases may have seemed, it could not outweigh the dry writing and I quickly became bored. Though fans of CSI and Cold Case may like this book.
I read a few of the many, many stories in this collection and stopped reading. While I found the cases interesting and the way the Society goes about solving the cases, the writing was dry. Mr. Capuzzo was very precise with the details of the cases. Unfortunately, no matter how interesting the cases may have seemed, it could not outweigh the dry writing and I quickly became bored. Though fans of CSI and Cold Case may like this book.
bmpicc's review against another edition
3.0
This book was interesting as a whole, but Frank Bender... wow...
verbminx's review against another edition
2.0
What can I say? I don't intend to write a real review here, but I'd like to add a few comments.
The Murder Room's subject matter makes it interesting, but complaints that the majority of other readers have about this book, here and on Amazon, are valid. Capuzzo tries to make his prose evocative, moving, and lyrical, but the result is just purple. Details about the personal lives of the protagonists are repeated too many times, as if he wasn't sure exactly where in the book to place them.
On the good side, Capuzzo excels at creating character portraits. I saw a photo of Fleisher, Bender, and Walter after I had read most of the book, and they each looked almost exactly as I had imagined them based on the way he described them. The dialogue is engaging; each is an interesting figure. In some chapters, the breathless prose still succeeds at creating a suspenseful atmosphere, and some moments in the book are genuinely chilling (for me, none more so than the description of a suspected killer's drawing of a murder, but a lot of the information about the Boy in the Box case was also unsettling).
However, there are some really obvious issues of factual accuracy and consistency. Leisha Hamilton becomes "tall" (in the chapter where Walter visits her at work to confront her) after Capuzzo has described her several times as "petite and charming." At another point, Capuzzo describes an ancient Greek tragedy focusing on events around the Trojan War as having been written or taking place "seven centuries ago"; the Trojan War took place circa 1250 BCE and the play in question was first performed around 458 BCE. Richard Walter is described as visiting "from Pennsylvania" when the narrative strand that focuses on him has not yet covered his move to that area, and the reader should still be assuming that he's coming from Michigan. And when he's introduced, Walter is described in a way that makes him sound like he's British, so it's jarring to learn a few chapters later that he's actually originally from Washington State.
The problem is that mixing up details like this, or presenting them this clumsily, casts doubt on anything Capuzzo says that I can't confirm with personal knowledge (or, if I'm really curious about it, research). Where else did he make assumptions or mix up his papers or lose part of the sense of his story by moving chapters around? This book was created with good intentions, has an interesting narrative, and is probably worth reading if it sounds interesting to you, but the editing is some of the shoddiest I've seen in a while.
A final nitpick: Capuzzo misused the word "penultimate," which is one of those things that's on so many "frequently misused words" lists that it's depressing to see it get by any professional writer or editor. It doesn't mean "even more ultimate than ultimate," guys, it means "second to last."
The Murder Room's subject matter makes it interesting, but complaints that the majority of other readers have about this book, here and on Amazon, are valid. Capuzzo tries to make his prose evocative, moving, and lyrical, but the result is just purple. Details about the personal lives of the protagonists are repeated too many times, as if he wasn't sure exactly where in the book to place them.
On the good side, Capuzzo excels at creating character portraits. I saw a photo of Fleisher, Bender, and Walter after I had read most of the book, and they each looked almost exactly as I had imagined them based on the way he described them. The dialogue is engaging; each is an interesting figure. In some chapters, the breathless prose still succeeds at creating a suspenseful atmosphere, and some moments in the book are genuinely chilling (for me, none more so than the description of a suspected killer's drawing of a murder, but a lot of the information about the Boy in the Box case was also unsettling).
However, there are some really obvious issues of factual accuracy and consistency. Leisha Hamilton becomes "tall" (in the chapter where Walter visits her at work to confront her) after Capuzzo has described her several times as "petite and charming." At another point, Capuzzo describes an ancient Greek tragedy focusing on events around the Trojan War as having been written or taking place "seven centuries ago"; the Trojan War took place circa 1250 BCE and the play in question was first performed around 458 BCE. Richard Walter is described as visiting "from Pennsylvania" when the narrative strand that focuses on him has not yet covered his move to that area, and the reader should still be assuming that he's coming from Michigan. And when he's introduced, Walter is described in a way that makes him sound like he's British, so it's jarring to learn a few chapters later that he's actually originally from Washington State.
The problem is that mixing up details like this, or presenting them this clumsily, casts doubt on anything Capuzzo says that I can't confirm with personal knowledge (or, if I'm really curious about it, research). Where else did he make assumptions or mix up his papers or lose part of the sense of his story by moving chapters around? This book was created with good intentions, has an interesting narrative, and is probably worth reading if it sounds interesting to you, but the editing is some of the shoddiest I've seen in a while.
A final nitpick: Capuzzo misused the word "penultimate," which is one of those things that's on so many "frequently misused words" lists that it's depressing to see it get by any professional writer or editor. It doesn't mean "even more ultimate than ultimate," guys, it means "second to last."