Harold Schechter

I am admittedly a true-crime addict dating all the way back to my first reading of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, which means I have read many true-crime related media reports. It also means that I am susceptible to ads (Kindle, Amazon, Thriftbooks, etc.) for true-crime books. With that being said some are good and some are not great. Fiend by Harold Schechter falls into the category of very good for me. The level of detail is valuable not just for understanding the crimes that are the focus of the book but also the times in which these crimes occurred. The author points to tangential crimes that provide even more context to how crimes were investigated, prosecuted, and punished...at the time. In addition, Mr. Schechter takes care to give the victims not only names but also lives. This is something that makes a book (or movie or tv show) not only much more interesting but much more realistic. In Fiend, all of this brings the reader into the time as though stepping into a film of the events. Jesse Pomeroy (the subject of the book) and those around him are neither glorified nor completely condemned by the author; instead the people involved are presented in as rounded a way as possible given the information available. Finally, this book does not come across as preachy or judgmental which is something that can happen very easily when recording events in hindsight.

One note of caution, as some other reviewers have pointed out, if the reader is a bit squeamish about the details of horrendous crimes, this book may be a bit much as the details of the crimes described are truly inhumane in nature.… (more)