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Car
Crashes & Other Sad Stories |
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| Crime
Album Stories By Eugenia Parry Scalo Eugenia Parry stumbled across a photo album in a Parisian antique shop that showed images of murders that had been committed in the French capital between 1886 and 1902. Confronted with these disturbing images (many of which illustrate no-nonsense thoroughly slashed throats), Parry set out to investigate the stories behind the images, and ended up filling in the gaps with her own prose. All of which forms a fascinating work of art. (Not Yet Reviewed) |
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| Death
Scenes: A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook Text by Katherine Dunn Edited by Sean Tejaratchi Feral House This is probably the most captivating gore book ever published. Jack Huddleston was an LAPD officer from 1921 to the early 1950's who kept a scrapbook of hundreds of black and white photos showing all variety of horrible: accidents, suicides, murders, illness, execution, and other oddities that must have captivated his fevered imagination. Many of the images are disturbingly graphic - and all the more disturbing when accompanied by Huddleston's plain, "just the facts, ma'am" captions. Addresses are included with many of the images - which makes me wonder how shocking it would be to be looking through the book and see that your kitchen was the site of a grisly baby beheading in 1943. Yes, these are the sort of things that I ponder while falling asleep at night... NNNNN - Morbid Dreams Are Made Of This! |
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| Evidence By Luc Sante Noonday Press A compelling collection of crime scene photographs taken by the New York City Police Department between 1914 and 1918. The images are always intriguing, often mysterious, sometimes artistic, occasionally shocking, reliably graphic, and there's even a shot of missing Manic Street Preacher Richie Edwards to boot! (Come on, you have to agree - it looks just like him!) The appendix contains a detailed explanation of all known facts regarding each image (include applicable newspaper clippings) and much reasonable speculation on those images where the facts are lost to history. Highly recommended for the morbidly curious and fans of morbid history, alike! NNNN - Fascinating Evidence |
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| Harms
Way: Lust & Madness, Murder & Mayhem: A Book of Photographs By Joel-Peter Witkin Twin Palms Pub This classic of morbidity is out-of-print so it's hard to track down, but Amazon does have a few used copies of it. It's a collection of bizarre vintage photographs compiled by a bizarre photographer, the legendary Joel-Peter Witkin. If I have a complaint about this book it's that it's all over the place, subject-wise. I have a hard time grasping what the point of it is, exactly. But it's still an excellent collection of vintage crime scene, medical, freakshow, and erotica images, complete with fascinating descriptions of the history behind the images. Some of the crime scene photographs are better presented in Evidence by Luc Sante, but I can forgive that flaw. After all, there are many images here that aren't found anywhere else. Overall, I'd recommend this to enthusiasts of the unusual. And you surely must be one, or you wouldn't be here, right? NNNN - Pointless But Mesmerizing |
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| Muerte!
Death In Mexican Popular Culture Edited by Harvey Bennett Stafford Feral House Another gruesome book - this one almost entirely in vivid color (and I will warn you that red is a very prevalent color). This book examines the "death tabloids" like Alarma! that display graphic murder victims on their front covers as cheerfully as Oprah or Whitney on the cover of the Enquirer. In addition to numerous stomach-wrenching Mexican tabloid death scenes, the book also examines the proliferation of death images in Mexican artwork (the 'Day Of The Dead' celebration being the obvious example of this). Some of the paintings shown are almost more shocking than the pictures. Definitely not for the weak of stomach. (Not Yet Reviewed) |
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| Practical
Homicide Investigation: Tactics, Procedures, And Forensic Techniques Vernon J. Geberth Edited by Sean Tejaratchi CRC Press Talk about a disturbing book. This one will probably give you nightmares if you haven't desensitized yourself to violence yet. If your denial mechanism is in disrepair, you'd probably be best to avoid this book which is the "Bible" of crime scene investigation techniques. Extremely graphic photographs of murder and suicide victims along with a compelling forensic text with such chapters as 'The Homicide Crime Scene Search,' 'Estimating Time Of Death,' 'Modes Of Death,' 'Suicide Investigation,' and 'The Autopsy' makes this one of the most informative and disturbing books available. Highly Recommended! NNNNN - Essential! |
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| Scene
of the Crime: Photographs from the LAPD Archive Tim Wride, William J. Bratton, James Ellroy Harry N Abrams Scene of the Crime is the latest in a recent influx of collections of crime scene photography, and it has added appeal in that some of the images are of famous cases, such as the Black Dahlia murder and the Manson Family slaughterhouse. The book is laid out in the same manner as most of these books, with black and white images presented in the first half of the book, and information for each photograph at the back. Unfortunately, many of the photographs piqued my curiosity, only to find a sad, unsatisfying, "case information unavailable" comment awaiting me in the back of the book. Still, many of the images are so well-composed and interesting that they could be seen in art museums rather than cold case files, so this is a minor quibble. However, there are also quite a few lesser and uninteresting images as well, which left me feeling a bit cheated given my suspicion that the LAPD coffers are overflowing with many more graphic, historic, and fascinating images. Comparing this book to the classic LA crime gallery Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook serves to further point out this collection's shortcomings. There is nothing in here as punch-in-the-gut brutal as the image of the decapitated baby on the cutting board or as surreal as the peaceful head sitting in the middle of a road after a traffic accident, both from Death Scenes. Taken on its own merits, I might have given the book a five skull rating, but in comparison with its more amazing brethren I'd have to rate it a... NNNN - Good, But Lacking In Comparison |
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Shots
In The Dark: True Crime Pictures This
book is also highly recommended by Dana: |
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| Without
Sanctuary: Lynching Photography In America By Geoffrey Abbott Headline Book Pub Ltd "Without Sanctuary" is an amazing, but very upsetting, collection of lynching photographs and some of the stories that go with them. Although the images of the beaten, burned, mutilated, and hung victims are horrible enough on their own, the thing that truly disturbs me about these photographs are the spectators - men, women, and children - smiling, goofing off, and proudly posing in front of the corpses, just as if they were at a Fourth of July picnic or something. It's really frightening to think how cruel and vicious "good god-fearing citizens" behaved not so very long ago (the majority of the pictures date from the 1890's-1930's, though the most recent comes from 1960). I think this book is performing a great service by refusing to allow this country to forget its own barbarities of the not-so-distant past. Also recommended by Einstein Shrugged: "I picked up a copy of this one night in a fit of drunken Amazon shopping so when it turned up it was a bit of a surprise but morbid surprises are always the best kind. There's not much in the way of text (though what they have is pretty intense) and it mostly lets the photography speak for itself. I've had it for a little over a week and have already read and looked through it twice. The lynchings are bad enough, but the crowd shots of happy, smiling people make it one of the most disturbing books I've read in a long time." NNNNN - Upsetting But Essential! |
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| Encyclopedia
Anatomica Museo La Specola Florence Recommended by Tim: "...another book that's truly a must-have for your collection is the Encyclopedia Anatomica, published by Taschen in their trademark small, thick format. There are hundreds of pictures from a museum in Europe (Florence's Museo La Specola, actually) that houses anatomically perfect wax reproductions of every part of the human body, right down to the tiniest capillary. They even have life size humans with layers peeled away to reveal all the gory details. If you didn't know it was wax you'd swear it was real." |
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| The
Encyclopedia of Preserved People: Pickled, Frozed, and Mummified Corpses from Around the World by Natalie Jane Prior (Crown Books For Young Readers) Recommended by Desmodus: "It's written for kids but I still found it entertaining and informative. Lots of good color pictures of mummies, bog people and other dead stuff. My favorite part was the description of famous people's coffins exploding during the funerals." |
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| Gods
of Earth and Heaven "Once you have witnessed the dark, sensational visions of Joel-Peter Witkin, you will never be the same again. Witkin gets to you. Here you will encounter hermaphrodites, malformed bodies, Siamese twins, corpses, fetuses, cut-off heads, and self-torturers... Warning: Not for those under 18 and/or easily disturbed. " |
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| Gunshot
Wounds : Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques By Vincent J. M. Di Maio (CRC Press) Recommended by Burke: "There are some pretty gruesome pictures inside. If you have ever wondered exactly what a bullet would do to a human being then this book is for you. It goes into graphic detail describing the destruction of human flesh by all kinds of firearms. It gets a little technical but it is a good read." This one is definitely going on my wish list immediately! |
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| The
Mammoth Book Of Illustrated Crime: A Photographic History by Colin and Damon Wilson (Carroll & Graf Publishers) Recommended by Denese: "It's a photographic history of crime, just like the title says. The authors are British, so the viewpoint on some of the crimes is a bit askew. The book starts in 1864 and ends with 9/11/01. In between are some gruesome pictures, some boring pictures, and some very interesting tidbits. Have you ever heard of Marie Tarnovska? Because this woman is my new hero. Some of the pictures are just boring headshots of famous criminals, but then you pictures of things you never wanted to see, such as John Wayne Bobbit's severed bobbit. Boy, you turn the page to that and it just leaps right off the page at you. :) There are also a lot of interesting European serial killers and heinous murders that I'd never heard of. All in all, I think you'd like this book." |
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| Post-Mortem
Procedures: An Illustrated Textbook G. Austin Gresham,Arthur F. Turner Mosby-Year Book, Incorporated "Large format textbook on autopsy procedures. Sections on autopsy performance, post-mortem wounds, etc. Many illustrative case photographs. In the recent past, noted as a source on many gruesome photo sites. Worth investigating." - Mike Maran |
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| Spitz
and Fisher's Medicolegal Investigation Of Death: Guidelines For The
Application Of Pathology To Crime Investigation by Werner U. Spitz (Charles C. Thomas Pub Ltd) Recommended by Phil. Amazon.Com description: "This is known as the 'bible' of forensic pathology to pathologists around the world, and has withstood the test of time, recently celebrating its twentieth year of publication. The many new illustrations, diagrams and sketches showing patterns and mechanisms of injury as well as an inclusive index render this book unique." Also recommended by Julee: "I bought the Medicolegal Investigation of Death textbook a couple years ago. The $105 pricetag seems steep, but the science of forensic pathology is so cool.... and the pictures were to die for (nyuck nyuck). The only drawback was that all the pics are black and white. When it comes to man's inhumanity to man....full color is the only way to go. :-) I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to feed their curiosity with death... and have great nightmares for weeks!" |
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| What
Remains by Sally Mann (Bulfinch Press) Recommended by Patricia who stumbled across an article which previews this new collection of photography by Sally Mann that has a delightfully morbid bent: http://www.msnbc.com/news/959370.asp |
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