The Maze Agency #11

A pair of New York City detectives are drawn into a looming mob war on Christmas Eve in this bargain bin rescue. When a mob boss gets wind of an informer in his midst, he goes after the guy who knocked up his little girl. On the run, the daughter and her lover must dodge hitmen and other hired goons from other crime families who want to get their hands on the rat, in order to make it safely out of the Big Apple. Only, that task has gotten a lot more harder as the mom-to-be's water has just broke and her father is heading to the hospital where she's about to deliver her Christmas day babe. 

There were about a dozen issues of The Maze Agency at the thrift store where I found this issue. One of those issues had a team-up with the famed Ellery Queen. I almost got that issue, as I love a good mystery until I found this holiday issue. Not able to let a good holiday issue pass me by, I should have also bought the Ellery Queen issue as this was a very good read. 

Written by Mike W. Barr, this story was complex, gritty and above all, an honest-to-goodness holiday story. The back cover likens this tale to O.Henry's The Gift of the Magi. But the story really parallels the Nativity Story of Luke and Matthew, what with the expecting parents not being able to find a place to hide out as well as them both being targeted by a powerful corrupt leader.

Maybe if I am lucky, the rest of these issues might still be at that thrift store. If I'm not on Santa's naughty list, I might even be able to find issue #19 which is the other Christmas set issue of the series. If not, thankfully, these issues are very expensive to find online. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Murder, New England: A Historical Collection of Killer True-Crime Tales by M. William Phelps

I know what you are thinking- I read a book. Not a graphic novel. Not a comic book. And not just a book about super heroes, cooking or culinary, I read an honest-to-god true crime anthology!

Now, I've read these types of books before. But I'm not like the average true crime buff. The story has got to really pique my interest. I like Sherlock Holmes, Victorian Era, serial killer stuff. Erik Larson's Devil In The White City was a perfect combination of those macabre interests.

This previous father's day, I took a day trip to Bald Head Island. While we waited for our golf cart reservation to come up, my wife and I perused the island library, which is a tiny single room building with no A/C. There's not even a full-time staff. The idea is to give a book/take a book. Or make a donation, which is what my wife and I decided to do. 

As we were about to leave, I saw this book in the window. My wife, being from New England, would really enjoy this I thought. So I showed it to her. My bride was very interested and upon reading about some of the tales, which take place around that Victorian Era, I wanted this book too!

Since my wife had a bunch of other things on her list and I didn't bring a book to read at the beach, I drove into this collection of 8 true crime stories. 

Stories include:

• Pre-Colonial Times: What could be the first recorded event of spontaneous combustion. Or it could be one of the first times that an accusation from a ghost (during someone else's dreams) doomed a man to death by hanging.
• Post-War of 1812: A he said/she said tale of a murdered single mother. The teenage victim who survived the assault isn't a very good witness. But the man accused isn't a very nice person when he drinks. Who was telling the truth?
• The Mafia in New England. Not really a true crime tale as much as a historical account of how the Irish mafia went from being the #1 crime family in Boston, dropping to #2 after the rise of the Italians and then coming back into control of Beantown thanks to the demented Whitey Bulger.
• Modern Times- A trio of teens who get high and enjoy true crime TV shows plan the perfect murder; only to really make a giant mess of things!
• More Modern Times- A woman brings her husband breakfast one morning. She found him lying in a terrible pool of blood. And she blames the family horse on the crime!
• And From This Sure Ain't Sesame Street File- the landscaper and handyman for TV's Big Bird, Carol Spinney, is the prime suspect in the disappearance of a respected school employee.

M. William Phelps is an engrossing writer. He does seem to put his opinions into the story. But Phelps isn't the first such writer of true crime to do this. I think it would be kinda hard to write about these types of grisly tales and not need to express some of your disgust at these repulsive acts. Plus, the author isn't a journalist per say. As long as he wasn't on the 11 o'clock news doing a report on a recent killing, I don't think Phelps is in a situation here where he must keep his opinions to himself and just relate to facts.

Now I do think something is seriously wrong with the editors at Lyons Press because I found several inaccuracies that just didn't make sense. On the back cover, when talking about the trio who plan the perfect crime, it says they murdered a grandmother. Yet in the segment about them, it's plainly mentioned that the woman killed was one of the guy's aunts and that she had never married or bore children. There's no way this woman could have been a grandmother!

There's also an instance during the segment where the lady accuses her horse of killing her husband. That murder occurred in 2006. According to Phelps, the last murder in that community was in 1980. But about a paragraph later, it's mentioned that there was 'that murder in 1983'. So which is it 1980 or 1983? Really, I think the editors should have caught this. 

Another issue I had, and I really don't think it is the author's fault, is the spacing of the sentences. There's several sentences where there's no space between the period and the start of the next sentence. Several words are done like this as well. I understand that Phelps uses quotes from the time periods. And sometimes the letter S looked like a F. People omitted letters and used commas in their place. That kind of stuff I overlook. It's the errors that are riddled throughout the author's commentary that are hard to forgive. And yes, I checked. This was not an advanced reader copy that I got my hands on.

I would love to read another book by M. William Phelps. The two books advertised on the last page of this one look interesting. The Devil's Rooming House, about the first female serial killer and The Devil's Right Hand about the tragic life of the Colt family. Hopefully, the editing is better in them.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

1977: A Madman Turns 40: 2017- Day 48

  It's a look at another true crime from 1977!

   My mom was hooked on true crime. If there was a new book by Ann Rule, she was first in line for it. If there was a new made-for-TV movie about it, she would have the VCR set and ready to go. I guess that's why I'm a little partial to in myself.

    On this day in 1977 history, Chicago candy heiress Helen Brach disappears. She was last seen in a Minneapolis medical clinic for routine treatment. She supposedly went to the gift shop, mentioned that she was in a hurry, and never seen or heard from again.

The Brach family tomb.

    A massive manhunt was underway a few days later, but nothing ever turned up. Some believe that the 'Candy Lady' was murdered by a known Windy City Lothario named Richard Bailey who was eventually jailed for conning rich little old ladies out of their life savings, including Brach. (The judge in Bailey's racketeering case even added extra years to his sentence because of the possibility he might have gotten away with Mrs. Brach's death. I didn't even know that was legal to do...) Bailey is now in his late 80s and is still incarcerated in a Florida prison.

    Though her body was never discovered, Helen Brach was legally declared dead 7 years later in 1984. Her fortune went to the care of her beloved dogs Candy and Sugar, who are entombed in an empty crypt bearing the Candy Lady's name. 

     In the past 20 years, numerous books have been published about the Brach disappearance. Many believe that Richard Bailey and his brother Paul got Helen Brach tied up in a horse breeding scandal that attempted to defraud the mafia and Brach was murdered in retaliation for the ruse. However, nobody has ever been tried for the murder despite numerous 'eyewitness' accounts of the crime.

My theory:
Mrs. Brach was murdered for producing this cringe-worthy junk...

     That's a general overview of the case. If you are interested in reading more about the Brach disappearance and the possible mob ties involved, check out the book 'Who Killed The Candy Lady?' by James Ylisela. It seems to have some very interesting theories.

     Well, until tomorrow...

1977: A Madman Turns 40: 2017- Day 22

   Upon my research for my year-long project of A Madman Turns 40, I'm learning that not every day is going to commemorate some major across-the-board cultural event that changes not just individual lives but those of entire communities. For example, tomorrow's article chronicles something huge. But that's for tomorrow. I need something to discuss today.
   
   Looking around the internet I found some really interesting tidbits that involved things that I have a particular interest in but weren't exactly watershed moments in their field. Some were cool, some odd, others tragic. All-in-all, these are great factoids but weren't things that I can really develop an entire article around.

     Let's look at a few: 

Another concert I wish I could have gone to!
ELO was in Texas!!!

• 40 years ago today some really awesome bands had concerts that I wish that I could've attended. The Talking Heads played the Rathskeller in Boston. Kiss lit up the East Coast and Van Halen was cruising around the Central Plains.

• Tom 'The Greek' Kapatos, bodyguard to Irish mobster Mickey Spillane is gunned down by a hired hand by the Italian mafia. This murder is seen as one of the acts that begins the end of the Irish mob in New York City. One of my favorite books made into a film Wiseguy/ Goodfellas alludes to this war between the Irish and Italians towards the third act.

The Bandit's hat is not included in the sale of this Trans-Am.

• From the Weird Drivers file: on this date, a man purchases a brand new 1977 Pontiac Trans-Am from Emerson Pontiac in Pekin, IL. For the next year and a half, the man uses the car as his daily automobile, meticulously tracking the 20703 miles he puts on the car after every use. For the next 36 years, he uses the car sparingly having documented a total of 48,975 miles. The guy even has details of every person to have ever driven the car and reports that it was only driven in the rain a total of 5 times. In 2015, 38-years to the day he bought the car, the man sold it to Carlyle Motors in Texas. As of Wednesday, the car is still at Carlyle, where for the price of $79,000, this replica of the car driven by Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit can be yours. 

  

  Nakata is widely considered the greatest
  soccer player in Japanese history.

• I noticed that a lot of soccer players were born on this day. Most famous is the Japanese player, Hidetoshi Kakata. I played soccer in high school, all four years. I don't recall there being very many teammates sharing birthdays with one another. 
  

• Lastly, Soviet TV airs a propaganda film called 'Buyers of Souls." This anti-Semitic picture will lead to the KGB arresting and imprisoning several key Zionist leaders in the following days. All arrested were accused of being CIA spies and basically tried by a kangaroo court that refused the defendants right to attorneys, making the prisoners defend themselves. The KGB would later demand that all who defended themselves were not permitted by law to do so and their testimonies rendered inadmissible. Eventually, Israel in able to negotiate many of the accused extraditions to the Holy Land in exchange for captured Soviet spies.

      This last one really burns me up. I have such a heart for the Jewish people. In high school, I actually made it a goal to marry a Jewish person who was a Christian. People said I was crazy and never find one. Well, I did. My wife is half-Jewish and my 5 children, God rest their souls, are a quarter Jewish. So for me, when I see Jews attacked, I see it as an attack on my family. 

      

       It's just hard to believe that after so many years, this sort of thing still occurs. It happened during World War II and you'd think after the horrors of the holocaust, people would have learned. Yet in the year I was born and still now 40 years later, the Jewish people are still targets of hatred and bitterness. 

     
   So much for light and peppy... But that's history for you. No matter how funny or odd you might find something, like the guy obsessed over his Trans Am, there's a tragedy on the other side world. It's one reason why this Madman continues to promise for the next 343 days I won't gloss over the controversal just to defend my favorite year.

    Until tomorrow...