Customer Reviews

Vintage Vermont Villainies: True Tales of Murder & Mystery from the 19th and 20th Centuries

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John Stark Bellamy II's "Vintage Vermont Villainies: True Tales of Murder & Mystery from the 19th and 20th Centuries" contains 12 stories of disappearance, mishap, manslaughter, and murder, all of which are straight out of the annals of Vermont history. If you're familiar with the area it's a tad chilling recognizing so many names of towns, newspapers, roads and so on, but even if you aren't the stories are quite compelling.

Bellamy worked with cases at least several decades old and sometimes more than a century old. This gives the entire book a gothic, antique feel, much strengthened by Bellamy's style of writing. It's clear he did quite a bit of reading from period newspapers and journals, and that he allowed the old styles to infuse his work. This creates a beautiful and oddly enchanting hybrid of real-life and an almost otherworldly feel, rendering his subjects quite captivating.

Bellamy deliberately chose cases based on the odd and inexplicable personalities involved, or the unusual events. Many of these stories do not have clear endings. The disappearances weren't always solved; the guilt or innocence of the perpetrator wasn't always proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. We can only guess at the thoughts that went through the heads of victim and attacker alike. These stories do have a few things in common, however. They're fascinating. They're a window into another time, one we're often tempted to think of as far simpler--but which held plenty of its own dangers. They're a stark look at some of the failings and triumphs of the justice system, as well as the ways in which attitudes of the time (particularly with regard to gender and insanity) shaped justice.


[Review copy courtesy of Countryman Press]

H. Grove's previous very positive review is spot on. This is a fascinating book, especially for someone who, like me, grew up in the area. I was fascinated to read, in chapter 5 on the 1957 Gibson murder in Newbury VT, that one of the defense attorneys in the first trial was Peter Plante. His son, T.J., was a friend and classmate of mine in high school. My only slight problem with the book is that I would have liked a more detailed bibliography. Time and time again the author quotes newspaper stories without giving the exact sources, which would have been easy to do.