This is a remarkable book, by veteran true crime author, Aphrodite Jones. Her subject in this book is Teena Renee Brandon, AKA, Brandon Teena. Brandon Teena had a form of gender identity disorder that has been the source of much attention, especially after the story of Brandon was turned into a movie, “Boys Don’t Cry”, starring Hillary Swank as Brandon. In December 1993, Brandon and two friends were murdered in a small home on the deep and bitter farm fields of Nebraska. Brandon, who was still Teena to her family, had grown up as a tomboy, being eccentric and goofy. She broke rules, and the law as well. Her answer to the confusion over her sexuality, and gender was to act out living as a man. She drifted from place to place in her teen years, her mother and sister trying to help her stay out of jail. When the petty charges began to add up, Teena was down the road to anywhere she could fit in. In the small town of Falls City, passing herself off as a heterosexual male, it was only a matter of time before people began to be suspicious. As Brandon, she caught the eye of the lovely Lana Tisdel. Lana was the local siren, and when a family friend who was in love with Lana, realized that Brandon was really a girl, she paid the ultimate price for loving Lana. First she was raped and after the police got involved, she was degraded, humiliated. The men accused of raping her, murdered her the next day.  An awesome book about something we all want: love and acceptance, and the lengths to which we will go to get it.

This is the story of the couple that were called The Ken and Barbie killers. In a tiny suburb called Saint Catherines, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka burst into the world of notorious serial killers when their murders and sexual assaults were acted out on an unsuspecting public. Not only were their crimes horrific, they were videotaped so that they could watch the evil that gave them such pleasure, over and over again. Karla, blonde and beautiful, knew that her fiancée was the serial rapist that was dubbed, “The Scarborough Rapist” and by the time the police caught up to him, he had raped at least 46 women. The couple drugged and raped Karla’s 14-year-old sister, who later died from choking on her own vomit, her system full of booze and drugs administered by Karla. They killed two other girls; one of them dismembered in the basement of their home. When Karla couldn’t take the beatings Paul was giving her, her family got involved. Karla knew she had the advantage, the battered wife syndrome was a perfect excuse to turn Paul in and save herself. She made a sweetheart deal with the authorities, plea-bargaining to get only 12 years in a minimum-security facility, before the police found the videos. This book is very graphic with explicit sex and horrific violence. Not for the weak at heart, this story shows the dark side of two people whom found each other, and engaged in the horrific acts that are the stuff of nightmares.

We all know who OJ Simpson is. He captured the attention of America, when he was accused of murdering his ex wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. There have been several books written on the case, but this one has much more personal detail about the lives of OJ and Nicole. They had two beautiful children and for years, Nicole was a battered spouse. In this book, Nicole takes on a warm and loving hue, showing her love for her family, her children, her wide circle of friends and sadly, the man that many people believe is responsible for her death.  Nicole had a family full of loving sisters, her grandparents, her girlfriends and of course, many male admirers. The trial was just beginning at press time and I believe that is what makes this book unique and offers a side of Nicole that was missing in all the notorious tabloid trash that came in the wake of this crime. Nicole is portrayed as a sweet and unassuming woman who, as her life with OJ grew frantic and abusive, somehow knew that she would lose her life. She made comments to friends, and her sisters that someday, OJ would kill her and get away with it.  Many people believe he did just that: if he could not have her, no one could. There are police reports of domestic disturbances, photos of Nicole as a lovely young woman, and sadly, pictures of her children who will have to live with the fact that even though he was exonerated in a court of law, many people believe he is the killer.

Ann Rule is one of the nations greatest true crime authors. She has many titles to choose from, each being very detailed and well researched. I have several favorites from her, but I believe the best of her work is this book. Anne Marie Fahey disappeared in June 1996, after being seen having dinner with a  married man she’d had an affair with. Ann Marie, called Annie by friends, was a lovely woman. She was the executive secretary to the governor of Delaware, and had lived through a hardscrabble childhood. She was both bulimic and very insecure, wanting desperately to have a husband and being manipulated by her older lover, Thomas Capano. She didn’t know that at the time, he had a string of mistresses, and still slept with his wife. Tom kept close tabs on Annie, and Annie resented being smothered and it made her already low self-esteem worse. She starved herself and the stress of having an affair made it unbearable. She knew that her relationship with Thomas would never be one of man and wife, and though she loved him, she knew that his high profile job, his man about town reputation, and his pillar of the community standing would be jeopardized if anyone knew of his affair. She had met and fallen in love with a man that gave her hope for the future. No more sneaking around, and no more Thomas Campano. No woman had ever left Tom; he controlled all his women. He would say when the affair was over, not Annie. He made sure that, in the words of Ann Rule, he would never let her go.

On December 25,1996, the day that many celebrate the birth of Jesus, there was a crime in a little town in Colorado. Early on the morning of December 26, Patricia Paugh Ramsey called 911 in a hysterical panic. “My daughter is missing…kidnapped, please, please, we need help!” There was a ransom note and a demand for money in exchange for their daughter, JonBenet. A beautiful child, JonBenet was a pageant girl. Her mother was a former Miss West Virginia, and a Miss America contestant. She was grooming JonBenet for the same kind of success she had enjoyed. John Ramsey was the CEO of Access Graphics, a company he started in his basement and worked his way up to a six-figure salary. The wealth of the Ramsey family was evident in every way; the finest furnishings and matching china, thick carpeting and oil paintings. The top floor of the mansion was the master bedroom. The children, JonBenet and her brother Burke had bedrooms on the second floor, and on that night, a crime was committed in the house, and a ransom note left on the stairs. While searching the house, John found JonBenet, tied up, duct tape over her mouth and cold to the touch. She was dead. The Boulder police had no idea how to handle a case of this magnitude and the investigation was badly botched from the start. The chief of police put Steve Thomas on the case and as time went by, he began to feel that even though the Boulder PD and the DA’s office were trying to work together, internal politics and personal agendas were tearing the investigation apart. In this book, the former detective tries to piece together what he thinks happened on that bitterly cold night, and why he thinks that the case will never be solved.

This book is the ugly underside tale of a movement of club kids. In New York City, in 1996, there was a boy, a boy who wanted to be popular and loved. His name is Michael Alig, and in his 15 minutes of fame, he wanted to be a superstar of Warholian proportions. Instead, he killed a drug dealer and his 15 minutes turned into 15 years in a correctional facility. The author, a former club kid himself, tells the story of how Michael jumped head first into a vat of drugs and made himself into the ultimate club kid: freaky, scary, funny and wasted. His parties became the stuff of legend, and he became the queen of the nighttime world. Michael always had a bizarre clique of followers, and a drug dealer named Angel Melendez that were his own personal assistants. Any drug that happened to pass his way, he took, in mammoth proportions. He was making demands on Angel to get more and more drugs. One day, Angel disappeared and Michael just looked the other way. There were rumors being spread that the owner of one of the clubs that Michael booked parties for, was growing wary of him. He was out of control and no one could tell him. He had too much notoriety; too much cocaine and too much time to devise plots in the little club empire he had almost single handedly started. Written by James St. James, who witnessed the scene first hand, this book would be darkly comical if it was fiction. The movie rights have been sold, and Michael sits in prison today, wondering if Macauley Culkin will look cute enough to portray him on screen. Billed as a fabulous but true tale of murder in clubland, Disco Bloodbath will keep you shaking your head with both laughter and horror.

Here in America, the burning of a church would create a huge backlash of moral indignation, and community anger, thus making the crime a media event. But there is much less reaction in Norway, where there have been over 100 churches burned in acts of terrorism that the perpetrators are proud of. This is the story of  black metal music, and the young people who follow the culture of Norse mythology. They are proud of their crimes, they believe that the culture they follow is a noble one, and anyone who might disagree with that, might wind up dead. There is a much larger black metal scene in Europe than there is here in America. Bands with names like Burzum, Abruptum, Emperor, and Mayhem. The edict of this culture is to make Norway “pure”, as if the race has been desecrated by other cultures. The music of the genre is very aggressive and dark, as if there is no sun in the lives of these musicians. The church burnings are mild compared to the other crimes these young men. Killing homosexuals, to purify the race, mutilating themselves, violently beating each other, committing suicide and the desecrecration of churches all over the Netherlands. These young men, have a mission: to give the message that they will not be ignored, they will keep the Norse culture alive through extreme measures, black metal music is a big part of their lives. An important book that will help us understand what makes people engage in the deviant behavior that they feel makes them God-like, as if the world should be run according to them.