Customer Reviews

Crimes of New York: Stories of Crooks, Killers, and Corruption from the World's Toughest City (Adrenaline Classics)

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In fact, you might wonder if it's even the book described above by the publisher. 290 pages, not 364, and there's nothing about beer barons, art thieves, or Son of Sam. No yuppie millionaires and no woman from the South Bronx. Much of what's in it could be crime from anywhere, not just New York. Here's an outline of what's there: 14 entries and one of them is fiction (why?). Five of the excerpts are from the late 1800's (including another excerpt from Asbury's Gangs of NY), two are pre-WWII and five are newer (including Bernhard Goetz). The remaining story is simply a detective's catalog of crime from over a hundred years - 87 thumbnails sketches, but these leave you wondering, because here are the crimes of New York: the killing that inspired 'Looking for Mr. Goodbar', the Preppy Murder (Chambers, who was just released), John Lennon and Hinckley. The Brinks robbery. These are the crimes that make New York unique, and in their day they were widely written-up, yet there's only a few lines on each. A book on NY crime without Son of Sam? Instead, the story of Wilby the embezzler, while interesting, could have taken place anywhere, and did, actually - part of the story is in California. The chapter on how sneak thieves worked after the Civil War, again, interesting, but surely they did the same in Cleveland or Chicago - very generic . . . This volume could have been titled simply "Crime", and frankly it was a bit disappointing. A couple of excerpts belonged more aptly in the series volume "Gangs", which was a far better book. Readers of the series will also note that the publisher has stopped using any photographs which used to jazz it up a bit. I own every book of this five-year old series, but if I had to lose one, this would be it.