True Crime Stories You Won’t Believe by Romeo Vatellie is a great book for any true crime fans library. In a world of true crime books were copy and paste is the usual. It was so refreshing to not only read stories I hadn’t heard, but to say proof in every story that that was great research done and an effort to make this book worth reading. They have so many different stories with follow up on the aftermath of the victims in the accused. It is a rare day that you get a true crime book written with such care for detail and I can’t say how much I recommend this to other true crime fans. From a Cornell professor who resorting to violence to try and stop America joining World War I, to a 16-year-old African-American put to death in the electric chair in South Carolina for a crime that was barely investigated and a trial that was over much too soon. They have so many stories in this book and I could give little quotes about each, but I want anyone who read this book to be as pleasantly surprised as I was. I love historical true crime and this book has it all from cannibals to husband killers and as I said it’s a book I highly recommend. I was given this book by Net Gally and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Please forgive any grammar or punctuation errors as I am blind and dictate my review but all opinions are definitely my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pre-reading:
Trying to reset my brain from smooth brain material with some murder.

Thick of it:
Author’s an actual forensic psychologist. Nice! Love being told to bear with an author, before the stories even start.

Opening with a dick chopping geisha. I like it. Let’s call them clients, not lovers, bestie. Let’s stop choking each other. It always ends badly. This does read like a Wikipedia entry rather than an entertaining blog post or a compilation of essays. What magazine though? A judge admits he’s sexually aroused and not objective and that doesn’t generate a mistrial? Okay. Ah murder tourism. What a time to be alive. How was it displayed? How do you preserve something like that? Is it just like in a jar of fluid? Only six years for murdering someone that’s crazy. JK only 4 wow. No, we’re not calling her a pioneer, sorry. Cool motive still murder. But honestly not even a cool motive. Just sad. Woman sexually abused her whole life commits a murder due to mental instability. Shocker.

Lady says no to man, man shoots lady. Man is punished for one year. That sounds fair. Have we done genetic testing on any of these old preserved murderers yet? I think that be fascinating to look into.

Oh geez, old lady on old lady murder. Or I guess middle-aged lady on old lady murder. I was like man, a murder by hammer really would take some doing, but this other lady is almost 70, so one good whack on the head. Further update middle-aged man on old lady murder. Mr. author shouldn’t you maybe be using masculine pronouns then if that’s how they identified? By your own admission. Oh, they were definitely in love then. It would take a long time for these attitudes to change and you’re not helping by continuing to refer to him as her. Do better.

Caporegime should’ve been defined for the reader. I feel like this would make a good Netflix series. It’s got the name for it for sure. The odd father. I don’t like how this author is ending all these articles? chapters? as if these are admirable people. They’re criminals who commited awful crimes.

A nine year old is not a wife. That is a predator. Were painful periods seriously used as a court defense? That’s wild, but honestly should be valid. 80 and 40 yikes.

Orlibar is a name. Other people weighed in on the case and proposed theories but you don’t tell us any of the theories. Annoying.

Oh, Ed Gein. I still don’t understand how a shoebox of vaginas happens or what it looks like. I need to watch Psycho already.

The podcast Rotten Mango does a great episode about Leonarda. None of these cases are in-depth. It’s so disappointing. He’s giving us the most cursory information. She’s also a crazy good baker and one of her recipes is still the standard for cookies I think.

Rotten does an episode on this case too! The pictures online are awful. She was so pretty the poor girl. Feel like you should’ve defined enteritis for us, but maybe I’m just dumb. Bestie, how are you gonna cover this case and not talk about his weird vampire hands? You’re not gonna cover how sickos have paid him to be in porn and it was literally an assault on another girl because she didn’t know who he was? If you’re going to cover a case, cover the case.

I feel like this man is just a rotten Mango listener. But also Stephanie is so good about doing cases every week, so it’s not surprising that there’s a lot of overlap. I wonder if colonics will ever be debunked and outlawed. I was gonna say peritonitis should’ve been defined, and then I realized. Yuck.

You only had to be 10 years old to get executed. That’s wild. Poor boy. How could anyone even in 2014 oppose his exoneration? What is wrong with people? I’ll have to watch the movie 83 days. How bad institutional racism was back then, honey, it’s still around.

I’m sorry how have I never learned about this man? He bombed the capital??? Hold on the JP Morgan died by a bomb guy, or at the very least got shot. How did we not learn about this?

Ayyy a local crime. You convinced your wife to let you kill your child in the name of religion. Fuck. No one‘s responsible, bud, it was you. The mom is calling her child an it? Wtf.

Wow-what a quote. Oh man, I’ve heard the story. I think again rotten Mango did a podcast on it, and there’s like dark tourism out there. Nobody ever found out he escaped from jail? But you know now? How could they not know? Do you mean no one knows how he escaped? That would make more sense. Cannibalism is only explicitly illegal in Idaho. That’s wild. I just learned about the Donners in another book. That short story collection was so good. I love the word corpulent. They buried him in Littleton. Yeah, I feel like a murderer is a bad mascot to have.

How hot is Lizzie that she’s finding all these rich husbands? You’re not gonna tell us her motive or early life? What psychosexual motivations? You can’t just say that and not tell us what they were.

Just because someone shouldn’t have been convicted of a sentence that way doesn’t mean that a certain sentence shouldn’t exist.

Ayy more locals. Linnaean should’ve been defined or given context. That’s what’s odd to me about this book. All the information is so bare-bones, but then he throws in words that no layperson is ever going to know. You’re going to know the words if you do a deep dive on the case, but this isn’t a deep dive on the case so it’s confusing who the intended audience is. Because serious true crime fans are going to recognize that so much information is missing and casual readers are going to have to continuously pause to look up a word. So like Dr. Frankenstein shit. Cool. Why those spots, yikes. You say it was a success, but you didn’t tell us what he was trying to accomplish. The lack of details is getting very frustrating. It’s always the richest people who are the stingiest. Buy the horse, you fuck. The last name Littlefield is cute. Someone should do a twee rom-com with it. Where did he get that chemical from to even attempt suicide? Wouldn’t they have searched him? Oh my gosh imagine someone identifying you because you’re a hairy bastard.

I keep reading Josh Peck by mistake.

Very much sounds like he was innocent and just mentally ill.

That guy was 100% corpse fucking.

I do not think he was the ripper.

Brenda Spencer should absolutely be talked about during school shootings.

I’m sorry where’s the HBO show about the CIA pimping out Hollywood actresses to foreign dignitaries?

They always say people dress strangely, but never go on as to how it was strange. Was he walking around in a clown costume or like just a guy wearing pink? There are degrees here.

Post-reading:
This book doesn’t have enough detail for me. I think some of the language should be changed to be more respectful of the victims. You really need to use someone’s correct pronouns. I think a lot of the little ending asides can be removed since they feel like they were thrown in without much thought. They come across as a patronizing cute. That’s not really the tone you want when you’re talking about murder. I think it’s a little boring considering it’s just a cursory overview of all these cases. It kind of reads like a listicle rather than a book. Overall it’s fine, but it’s nothing I would recommend anyone read.

Who should read this:
People who like true crime

Do I want to reread this:
No

Similar books:
* American Predator by Maureen Callahan

This was a look at several fascinating and perplexing crimes committed by people all over the world at various periods of time. I had read about some of these crimes previously, but many of the crimes I didn't know about. I highly recommend this book to other true crime readers.

A collection of short true crime stories that gives you the right amount of information. Some of them I was very familiar with and others I had never heard or read about. I do think the book would benefit more with some pictures or historical articles as I found myself Googling many of the people. A good quick read. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publishers for an e-arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, BooksGoSocial and by #NetGalley. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Interesting, especially if you like true crime. A mix of stories that you may or may not heard of prior.

I love true crime but not usually in book form. I appreciate how this was book broken up into short stories it kept me interested until the end, This did feel like it was missing something and it could have been more fleshed out. It would have been nice to see some photographs or newspaper clippings from some of the stories. My biggest complaint with this book was a derogatory word that was used when it wasn't necessary. Mentally disabled could have easily been used instead of the R word.
Thank you Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

From classics like Ed Gein & Lizzie Borden, to new cases of The Sleepwalker, you’ll realize the truth is stranger than fiction!
Short stories about crimes all over the world, lots pre-dating modern technology. Good book with lots of details.

This was a pretty interesting book, and I hadn't heard about most of the stories. A lot of the stories were disturbing, so I wouldn't recommend this book if you get easily unsettled or scared.