UBC: Wambaugh, The Blooding

The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


So, this is not one of Wambaugh's better books. It doesn't have the inspiration that infuses The Onion Field, and it doesn't have that breezy almost-satirical edge that I find amusing in Fire Lover and Echoes in the Darkness. It's rote Wambaugh, the crimes, the local color, the sympathetic portraits of the police officers. He's still a good writer, and this is a perfectly competent true crime book, but there's nothing that makes it feel like it isn't made of interchangeable parts.

It's interesting because it's about the murders of Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth and the massive hunt for their murderer, Colin Pitchfork, who has the distinction of being the first person convicted of murder on DNA evidence. So from a crimino-historical perspective, worth reading. But part of my brain was muttering the whole time, Dude, you can do better than this and we both know it.



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UBC: Gonzales, Deep Survival

Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
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UBC: Silvester & Rule, Underbelly

Underbelly : A Tale of Two Cities by John Silvester

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


So Underbelly is an Australian true crime television series. I don't know exactly how this book connects to it (I found it in the used book store & picked it up because Australian true crime), so I'm just going to review the book without further reference to the show.

Silvester & Rule have a flippant, ironic, gossip-mag tone which highlights the resemblance of the events they discuss to a gruesome Clockwork Orange soap opera, with complicated and constantly shifting allegiances between drug dealers, hit men, fixers, and police officers (Sydney was breathtakingly corrupt for, apparently, most of the 20th century), most of whom end up either dead or in prison (or one followed by the other). Also, defects of its virtues, it makes the book feel shallow, although it's more than apparent that the authors know the ground they're covering extremely well, mostly through interviews with the various players (Silvester's bio says he's been a crime reporter in Melbourne since 1978).

Not anybody's masterwork, but definitely worth reading.



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