Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook

by Sean Tejaratchi (Editor), Katherine Dunn (Author), Jack Huddleston (Author)

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The strange and gruesome crime-scene snapshot collection of LAPD detective Jack Huddleston spans Southern California in its noir heyday. Death Scenes is the noted forerunner of several copycat titles.

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5 reviews
This is mostly pictures, so it took very little time to 'read'. The text explaining the context and meaning behind the photos is well put together, even if it is a little dated.

Crime scene photos have always fascinated me. I need the story behind them. I want to know how the person lived and understand how they died.

One of the most heartbreaking photos in the book is of a 74-year-old man who lost his wife to a random rape/homicide. The detective explains the basic story and the follow up with a bit of obvious anger. I did some quick math and realized that the two were born right after the civil war ended; when California was barely settled. The things they'd seen and done through their lives must have been amazing. Then, at the end, show more their lives are shattered with criminal violence and horror.

And here I am, so many years later, wishing that it hadn't happened to them. It's powerful.

There are a lot of pictures of suicide. Not a good way to die.

Those black and white photos have a profound effect. The victims in them demand justice. They don't always get it.

This is not a book for anyone who is squeamish, obviously. It is also not for anyone who is unable to compartmentalize language and era: You will not understand the detective's writing and you will hate him undeservedly.
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Throughout his career, LAPD detective Jack Huddleston collected a scrapbook of some of the strangest, most macabre imagery to be found in print. The book itself is a distressing and fascinating look into the past made all the more harrowing by the fact that "things" just haven't gotten a whole lot better when it comes to man's mistreatment of his fellows and his ability to get himself into all manner of dangerous trouble. Worse, though - you'll most likely want a shower after looking through these images with their scrawled, crass commentary (in Huddleston's very handwriting, presumably). If he hadn't have been a cop, Huddleston may have become a world-class sadist. Maybe he was both.
½
A Scrapbook of Noir Los Angeles Heretofore kept tightly secured under lock and key in police files, the hundreds of historic scene-of -crime photos collected in this book were assembled by a now-deceased Los Angeles police detective. Packed with unflinchingly graphic on-site forensic photos, mug shots, pictures of celebrity homocides, morbidly voyeuristic shots of freaks,' accidents, and legal executions, this hard-to-put-down collection is accompanied by Katherine Dunn's provocative explanatory text.'
Es ist interessant, aber nichts für Zartbesaitete. Tatort- und Autopsiefotos mit dazugehörigen Notizen aus der Sammlung eines Mordermittlers.
Impressionant llibre d'escenes d'assessinats. Fotos fetes per la mateixa policia i que generalment no es poden veure.

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24+ Works 458 Members
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Katherine Dunn was born in Garden City, Kansas on October 24, 1945. She was educated at Portland State University and Reed College. Her first novel, Attic, was published in 1970. Her other novels included Truck and Geek Love, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1989. She also worked as a boxing reporter, a columnist, and a poet. show more Her non-fiction book, School of Hard Knocks: The Struggle for Survival in America's Toughest Boxing Gyms, received the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Award in 2004. She died from complications of lung cancer on May 11, 2016 at the age of 70. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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1 Work 273 Members

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Canonical title
Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook
Original publication date
1996

Classifications

Genres
Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, Art & Design, History
DDC/MDS
306Society, government, & cultureSocial sciences, sociology & anthropologySocial Behavior - Dating, Marriage, Divorce
LCC
HV6515 .H83Social sciencesSocial pathology. Social and public welfare. CriminologySocial pathology. Social and public welfare.CriminologyCrimes and offenses
BISAC

Statistics

Members
273
Popularity
117,928
Reviews
5
Rating
(3.87)
Languages
English
Media
Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
3
ASINs
4