Customer Reviews

Turned on

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Written by Dick Schaap, better known as a sports journalist, TURNED ON is an interesting true crime book involving the unintentional death of Celeste Crenshaw of a heroin overdose and the subsequent arrest of her boy friend Robert Friede, who was caught driving around with her body in the trunk of the car. The setting is New York City, 1966-1967, which is when the book was written, and the story plays out over a background of wealth and social privilege, justice system inequities, undercover police work, and information/opinion about the rise of drug use in the sixties among middle and upper class white young white people.

Schaap writes professionally. As noted above he is a journalist, and TURNED ON is written journalistically and has the feel of a lengthy magazine article. As the book was written over 50 years ago, some of the language is understandably dated. For example African-Americans are referred to as Negroes, and the book's title, TURNED ON, a term for using drugs, is no longer in currency. There is also one glaring piece of misinformation presented as fact: that amphetamines are not physically habit forming. I can't imagine that anyone regardless of the time period could believe that.

TURNED ON is a short - 238 pages in hardbound - quick, and highly interesting read.
It is a little different than the typical true crime being produced today. I liked it; I think many other true crime fans would like it; and it's sometimes nice to read something that is a change from the current standard formula.

When Patrolmen Dudley Reid and Robert E. McFeeley arrested Robert Friede - on February 7, 1966, as his car idled just a little to the East of this address - they figured they had picked up the usual nodding junkie. He displayed the usual pinpoint eyes and the usual needle marks. But their prisoner was very uncommon in at least one respect: Friede was a member of the ultra-wealthy Annenberg family. His grandfather was Moe Annenberg, founder of a huge media empire that included TV Guide, the Daily Racing Form, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Seventeen magazine, and several radio and television stations.

The Annenberg fortune was once one of the largest in the United States. Money failed to insulate the family, however, and Annenberg's grandson was a heroin addict.

The bust was unusual in another way as well: checking the trunk of Friede's car, the policemen made a macabre discovery. Tucked under a blanket was the body of a young woman. The corpse turned out to be Friede's 19-year-old girlfriend, Celeste Crenshaw.

Great book by Dick Schaap.