The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Ca ses

When I was about 14 years old, I heard a bullet go by my head. I was engaged in a wholesome activity at the time. I was killing frogs with a slingshot. As far as we could tell, my life was not put in danger by an enraged member of PETA, but by a careless deer hunter who never apologized. Things got worse. Well, out of chronological order. In 1956, when I was 12 years old, my 21 year old aunt Arlene, whom I still remember with affection almost 60 years later, a wholesome, mature, intelligent (and attractive) young woman, a student at UCLA, was murdered in her bed in her apartment. It's a very, very cold case, and probably not worth bothering the Vidocq Society about, though I would not mind killing the perpetrator slowly and painfully by staking him out to a nest of fire ants.Things got worse. My life has been in danger many times, not only from careless hunters, but from industrial accident (I was almost crushed by a carelessly stacked bin of auto parts while working on the assembly line in a Chevrolet factory in Los Angeles; almost gored by an angry cow I was milking on my parents' hobby farm near Disneyland, almost murdered (or at least “manslaughtered”) by an angry neighbor with a knife who approached our house just north of Seattle after we sheltered the sister in law he had been battering. Fortunately for us, he was distracted by a couple of “Good Samaritans” driving by who stopped to see what was going on. The criminal (known to the sheriff's deputies who had responded to our call about the battered woman along with an AID car) knew him as a professional criminal) slashed one of the people who stopped in the face with a knife.Later I taught high school at one of the most dangerous and “diverse” schools in Seattle. For example, one student had her skull fractured with a rock by another student. Another student was stabbed in the abdomen of the school in the front foyer. A gang member was deftly extracted and arrest from one of my classes by two detectives in the Seattle Police Department. I came close to being injured or killed in a mini “race riot” in a dark, secluded parking lot after proctoring a high school basketball game. Later, while teaching at a supposedly more bucolic school near Portland, OR, one of my students, a couple years after she graduated, murdered her husband. The story gets more interesting after she was sentences to life in prison but then released about 40 years later (either parole or good behavior), I know not.So I have an interest to crime violent and non violent. Besides my encounters with violent crime (I have barely scratched the surface in this too long introduction), a few years after the events I related so far, my wife and I found ourselves as unwilling “legal bounty hunters,” bringing a halt the criminal career of a kind of cult leader and swindler who had stolen almost a million dollars over a twenty year period. The civil trial we brought lasted three weeks and our victory was upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court.It's not surprising to me that I volunteer for the local sheriff's reserve on a large populated island in Puget Sound. The island is kind of “Woodstock West”; filled with aging peace and love hippies with white hair and white beards. [Oddly enough I went to high school while living in the original Woodstock east about nine years before the huge party. Just for the record, supposedly three people died at the big party in Woodstock, one after being run over by a tractor in the dark and two from drug overdoses.] Even on our peaceful island we have the occasional homicide, one recently described in noted crime writer Anne Rules's most recent book, PRACTICE TO DECEIVE.]Please don't kill me because of this long and tedious introduction. (As a sensible person, you've already probably stopped reading.) The only reason I can think of that you are reading this review is to answer the question, “SHOULD I READ THIS BOOK?” The book, of course, is THE MURDER ROOM.But there's yet another mystery. Many of the reviewers say, “What a wonderful book..” [If the word “wonderful” applies to such a grim topic as murder “most foul.”] Many of the reviewers say, “What a terrible book,” or words to that effect.What's at risk if you make the wrong decision? Some of your precious time. It's not worthy of the Vidocq Society, but if you're still with me, let's investigate the mystery of why many readers despise THE MURDER ROOM and many readers love the book.I evaluate reviews on three criteria. First, the reviewer says, “I like the book,” or “I hate the book.” As this is as subjective as, “I like Mozart” or “I hate Mozart,” or, “I like the Beatles,” or “I hate the Beatles,” I find such judgments of little assistance in telling me whether I might like or dislike such music. The same with, “I like halibut,” or “I hate halibut.”The second criteria is empirical reality. If someone says halibut is nutritious, we can analyze this assertion based on factual material. For example, halibut contains Omega-3, widely regarded as beneficial. If someone says, halibut is harmful because it is a “bottom feeder,” this assertion is consistent with my personal experience of throwing up after I eat halibut.The third criteria is interesting and informative. When I learn that the original Vidocq was a real person who had been skilled soldier, fencer and martial arts practitioner, a talented criminal, a horny rogue with a messy love life, a person who engaged in frequent duels with few compunctions about killing other human beings, an innovative sleuth who developed modern techniques of law enforcement, ranging from examining evidence like a forensic scientist to “going undercover,” I find that interesting. Don't you? Maybe not. People are different. As a child, I read all of Sherlock Holmes. I knew it was fiction. It was interesting to me when I was older to learn to that A. Conan Doyle had helped solve a couple of real cases, clearning innocent accused men. It was also interesting to me that A. Conan Doyle was totally fooled by a couple of little girls who claimed to see fairies, and believed in “spiritualism.” His close friend Harry Houdini tried energetically to “cure” Doyle of such nonsense, to absolutely no avail. Like Houdini, I am an atheist and an empiricist.Many reviews say that Capuzzo's writing is inaccurate and incoherent. While much of such assertions strike me as subjective, I can understand the point of view. As a reaction to what strikes me as accurate and of value in such claims, I have lowered my initial rating of the book from five stars to four stars. On the other hand, and it's quite subjective, I find Capuzzo's writing clever and innovative, conveying in a kind of novelistic way the strange, incoherent world of the Vidocq society investigations, where different investigations may drag on for years with no progress, followed by sudden breakthroughs.Some athletes are individual superstars, such as Roger Federer in tennis. In team sports, I remember the 1996 Chicago Bulls, coached by Phil Jackson and led on the court by Michael Jordan and winning with a team consisting of people like the “petulant prima donna” Michael Pippen and sanity challenged rebounder Dennis Rodman (who never met a North Korean dictator he didn't consider a friend).In the same way, the 88 member Vidocq Society strikes me as a team of crime-fighting superstars, led by “coach” Bill Fleisher who somehow manages to merge the incompatible personalities of Richard Walter the “profiler” with the amazing ability to “read the minds” of lying murders though he is like me a cynical atheist and forensic artist Frank Bender who can create a life-like (sculptural) bust out of a few bones. Bender is now dead. Though the brilliant Walter knows that smoking will probably kill him, he smokes like a fiend. As a fanatical atheist like Walter, I know that I will die one of these days, probably of a stroke, perhaps tomorrow or perhaps in ten years (which my doctor considers more likely), but perhaps run over by a tractor (like one of the deaths at the original Woodstock), or by violence while on my sheriff's reserve patrol. Why read THE MURDER ROOM? It's something to do while we wait to die. If you prefer, read that famous work of nonsense called THE HOLY BIBLE. It's got lots of sex and murder in it as well.

The author covers the period from 1990, when a varied group of seasoned investigators began meeting to discuss cold cases, to recently. Most of the cases are regional and did not receive national noteriety. The core group of 3 founders is discussed most thoroughly, but other members are also discussed. One fascinating tidbit that I gleaned is related to the common perception that serial murder is more common than in the past: one of the investigators states (paraphrasing) "in the past you had to be a Marquis de Sade to have the resources for mass murder and sadism, now any misfit with a panel van, a minimum wage job and a twisted psyche has the time and mobility." Frank Bender, the artist who sculpted the age-progressed likeness that led to the capture, after 2 decades, of Lizt, the mild-mannered accountant who executed his entire family is one of the founders. If you want to be impressed and inspired by investigators and techniques that have solved some very cold cases you may enjoy this-I first read this a few years ago and again on kindle yesturday, and enjoyed it even more the second time.

This book is about a fascinating group of men and women who created a "club" with the purpose of solving unsolved murders. The three central "characters" in this true story each have a genius that enables them to do the seemingly supernatural when it comes to solving crimes. Each of the characters are fascinating and their abilities cause you to shake your head over and over again in amazement.Having said that, you should be warned that this is a VERY dark book. The most heinous crimes are described and discussed in graphic detail. The work required to solve the cases involves corpses and long descriptions of the thoughts and actions of the killers. The crime solving wizards, two of them in particular, live in dark worlds that are far from normal or functional. They are good men, in the sense that they are passionate about justice, bringing the guilty to reckoning, and bringing closure and peace to families who are desperate for answers. But they flawed and in some cases, significantly so.In terms of the writing, it leaves much to be desired. The book is severely disjointed. The first 3rd to half of the book is quite difficult to follow. The writer jumps forward and back in time attempting to create drama, which could have worked well, but in this case only serves to create confusion and jar the reader. You find yourself reading several pages of a new chapter wondering what the heck the writer is talking about because it has NO connection to anything you've read up to this point.****************** Slight Spoiler Alert ********************************The writer takes you through many of the cases in detail throughout the book. One of the techniques used to create drama is to leave you hanging in the middle of a case and moving on to another case which keeps you in suspense regarding the outcome. This is effective, but sets up the biggest disappointment of the whole book.Several of the cases are "bigger" in the book than all the rest, and you are strung along with these cases for almost the entire book. The writer could have brought conclusion to each of these cases in any order he chose. But one case is focused on above all others and the desire for closure on that case is built above all others. This author chooses to wrap the book with this particular case open. We never find out what happens. The book just ends. I felt like I had been conned. I know its avante-gard in this post-modern world of ours to not have a happy ending, but in this case, after so much death and staring into the bleakest possible form of human depravity and evil, we needed SOME redemption. The author had plenty of opportunities to give it to us since so many of the cases were wrapped up so brilliantly. But alas, we are strung along for a climax that is anything but. It was a real disappointment.

This is an amazing book... well worth the read. I did not realize that the stories are about real murders and I love reading abut real murder events.Well done !!