February MysteryKit- True Unsolved Mysteries

We're reading about True Unsolved Mysteries this month. This means unsolved murders, disasters, disappearances, and anything else that is true, unsolved and mysterious. These are the events that still grab our attention years after the fact.
Because of the popularity of unsolved mysteries, especially murders, there are lots of reading options. You might choose something about The Black Dahlia, D.B. Cooper or The Bermuda Triangle, or you might have one of these on the shelf:

Disappearances-
A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke
Madeleine: Our Daughter's Disappearance and the Continuing Search for Her
Ambrose Bierce: The Life and Mysterious Disappearance of the Famous American Author
Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days

Murder
Ice Cream Blonde: The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Thelma Todd
The Family Romanov
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

Disaster
The Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Let us know what you'll be reading in February.

Planning to read William J. Mann's Tinseltown, about the unsolved 1922 murder of a prominent silent film director.

I'm not sure what I'll read yet, but I can recommend The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser about the Gardner Museum art heist which has never been solved.

>3 dudes22: Oh that sounds like a good one for me. I'll try to get to it in February.

I just started The Monster of Florence (by Douglas Preston & Mario Spezi; narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris). It’s about a serial killer who, between 1968-1985, struck couples making out in cars. The killer, though never discovered, became the inspiration for Hannibal Lector.
Years later, Preston would go live in Italy and meet up with Spezi, a journalist who covered the killings extensively at the time they occurred. Both men would become embroiled in the drama of the investigation— still ongoing in the 21st century!?

Nothing obvious came up for me when I was using tags to see what's on my tbr, so I'll just need to look a little further. I'm sure there is something there!

I am planning on reading Dead Mountain by Donnie Eichar about the mysterious deaths of nine hikers in the Ural Mountains during 1959.

I have always been fascinated by this so I will read a recently published book, The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case by Philippa Langley.

I hope to finally read Little Deaths by Emma Flint - I didn‘t get to it when we did this topic last year.

>3 dudes22: That one is on my TBR and will come off the shelf for this challenge!

>5 Tanya-dogearedcopy: I love true crime! Never read about one so old. Off to secure this book!

I believe I'll be reading Joe Gould's Teeth. It's a nonfiction, the story of a historian who searched for a long-rumored history book written by a madman.

>3 dudes22: That one goes on my TBR list!

I finished listening to The Monster of Florence (by Douglas Preston & Mario Spezi; narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris) over the weekend!
From 1968 to 1985, a serial killer lurked in the Florentine hills of Italy and slayed seven couples who were making out in their cars. Afterwards, he would engage in a gruesome post-murder ritual that would become the inspiration for Thomas Harris’s character, Hannibal Lector.
The first half of this true account is the story as told by Mario Spezi, an Italian journalist who covered the killings and became known as an expert on the subject. The second half of the book recounts Douglas Preston’s move to Italy twenty years after the last killing and becoming intrigued with who the murderer might actually be. Spezi and Preston proceed to initiate an investigation of their own, much to the ire of the local police. Spezi and Preston would end up being hauled before the Polizia for questioning and suffering consequences for their actions.
The Monster of Florence provides tantalizing leads but as admitted in the interview with Douglas Preston at the end of the audio, the identity of the killer, like Jack the Ripper will not likely ever be known with any certainty.
The audiobook narrator was clear and confident with his delivery and Italian but I had one quibble: All the Italians in the book were given comical American voices with heavy Italian accents. A bit cringey and a little distracting but you do sorta get used to it.

Now the problem will looking outside my tbr is that I find more I want to add to the tbr (usually in addition to whatever I decide to read!!!).

The first two topics that interest me right away are Jack the Ripper and "The Princes in the Tower". But I see I've already read what's on my tbr for both topics (well, I still have one JtR book, but I would have to do an ILL request and that always takes longer).

So, new options for me (not sure if I'll add all three to my tbr, anyway...? They are all available at my library). But I'll at least pick one for now:
- A Special Kind of Evil / Blaine L. Pardoe
- The Cold Vanish / Job Billman
- The Axeman of New Orleans / Miriam C. Davis

I just acquired a used copy of Unsolved Mysteries of History which took me back to when I was a middle school teacher of science. The kids were always intrigued by the Lock Ness monster, Big Foot, Stonehenge, Easter Island, and so on, and some of these are discussed in the book.

I've read Joe Gould's Teeth, in which the mystery is whether or not Gould, a member of the Greenwich Village literati of the 1920s-40s, actually wrote what he said he did, the longest work of historical oral history. He is credited with coining the phrase "oral history", but during his lifetime Gould fended off publishers who wanted to see his manuscript. People searched for it after he died, but by then, many people believed it was just one of his delusions of grandeur.

Possibly too much of a stretch, but I think The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards might work for this KIT. The book is about the lives of Golden Age mystery authors, who were often inspired by real-life murder cases. Edwards describes many such cases, many of which were never solved.

Also, here's the wiki in case anyone wants to add or refer to it! https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2024_MysteryKIT#February:_True_Unsolved_...

I recently acquired a couple of books about unsolved historical mysteries, so I will probably read one of those.

I read Tinseltown by William J. Mann, about the still-unsolved 1922 murder of silent film director William Desmond Taylor.

I'm starting a book about the same case- Murder in Hollywood by Charles Higham.

>19 christina_reads: Thanks for the link to the wiki!

I finished Little Deaths by Emma Flint, which is based on a true murder case from 1965. Alice Crimmons was convicted for the murder of her children, but the (re)convictions were overturned several times. She was paroled twelve years after the murder and to this day it is not certain what really happened.
This was a gripping novel and I will think about it for a long time.

>16 LadyoftheLodge: I requested from my interloan library system. I have been to Stonehenge and also to Lock Ness. I did not see Nessie either time. Thanks for the suggestion.

The March thread is now open: https://www.librarything.com/topic/358513#n8423508

I have completed my read of Dead Mountain by Donnie Eichar. This baffling story of the death of 9 Russian hikers was a page-turner that totally held my interest.

I've read Murder in Hollywood: Solving a Silent Screen Mystery by Charles Higham. Published in 2003, Higham was the son of a silent era director, so knew many of the people surrounding director William Desmond Taylor. Higham was able to interview several period actors about the murder in 1971, including star Mary Miles Minter, whom he believes was the killer.

The Cold Vanish / Jon Billman
3.5 stars

When Jacob Gray disappeared in Olympic National Park in Washington state, his dad Randy would not give up looking. Luckily, Randy had the stamina and money to be able to continually look for his 22-year old son. The author, Jon Billman, was often along to help out. This book is primarily Jacob’s search story, but the author also brings in many other missing persons cases (missing in the “wild”/in nature) in the U.S. and Canada, some who were found and others not.

I don’t personally know anyone who has gone missing and not been found, but I know someone whose brother has (and my brother does know him – the one who went missing). I couldn’t help but think about him at various points while reading this. That’s beside the point of what I thought of the book, however.

Some of the stories peaked my interest more than others, but with as many as there were, it’s hard to remember them when a short time was spent on many (as opposed to the bulk of the book on Jacob’s case). The book also highlighted differences in the types of searches, for how long they last, etc, depending on where a person goes missing; much of that comes down to cost. It included stats and went into a few various “oddball” theories like Bigfoot and UFOs (Jacob’s father Randy insisted on following any and all leads, no matter how “out there”).

I just realised that Die Purpurlinie actually fits here, because this odd novel tries to answer the still contested question of whether Gabrielle d'Estrées, mistress of King Henri IV of France, was poisoned by the Medici or not, and also who painted the famous picture of her in the Louvre: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010065402. The author offers an answer to both, but we'll never really know the truth, of course.

I read Murder At Teal's Pond an unsolved murder of a woman found in a pond, that inspired the Twin Peaks series.

I found time for this one this month, and read Trail of the Lost about some missing hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail who have not been found now six years after they went missing.

I read The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston about a serial killer in Italy in the 1970's-80's. A BB from Tanya

I finished Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz, which talks about the latest discoveries and remaining questions about urban life in 4 ancient cities (Çatalhöyük, Pompeii, Angkor, and Cahokia).

Finally finished The Survival of the Princes in the Tower