Used price: $29.00
Buy one from zShops for: $41.00
Used price: $5.10
Collectible price: $18.00
List price: $19.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $13.87
Buy one from zShops for: $13.09
List price: $16.00 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $7.27
Buy one from zShops for: $10.52
List price: $24.95 (that's 30% off!)
The book starts with an excellent introduction by Harold EVANS "Looking Crime Squarely in Its Disturbing Eye", followed by an essay by author Gail BUCKLAND about the development of forensic photography and the creator of the mugshot, the frenchman Alphonse BERTILLON in particular. I found this chapter especially compelling.
The rest of the book consists of crime pictures with short captions by the author, many of them are unfortunately rather brief. With only one or two exceptions all featured photos are black and white. Many of those shot in the period from 1930-1950 have a certain film noir look due to sharp contrast. Many pictures are not easy to look at particularly those shot at homicide scenes. And you'll see a lot of homicide scenes. There is a picture taken by a surveillance camera during the April 1999 Columbine school shooting, a police officer looking in despair at the body of a girl shot at the 1984 Mc Donald's massacre in San Ysidro, the corpse of slain actress Sharon TATE, crime scene photographs of stabbed Nicole SIMPSON, lots and lots of unknown victims of murder...As mentioned before, this is sometimes not easy to look at.
Another chapter is about punishment. An horrifying account of lynch justice is given; according to the author it was common practice in the last decades of the 19th century to send photographs of lynchings to friends and relatives. I didn't know that. You see photographs of the last public execution in the US, which took place in 1936, convicts in prisons, an arrested man tied to a restrainment chair etc. A very compelling chapter but I have to add that BUCKLAND shows way too much compassion for convicts in her captions commenting the pictures. Undoubtedly a convict can not be denied his human rights, but we have to bear in mind that many of them committed unspeakable acts of violence and too much compassion for such people is highly inappropriate.
I especially liked the chapter about presidential assassinations. There are portraits of president LINCOLN's assassin's co-conspirators and photos of their execution on the gallows. The most infamous political murder of the last century, the assassination of president KENNEDY in Dallas, is depicted in a very detailed manner with many rare and often cruel photos ( e.g. the slain president on the autopsy table and the corpse of Lee Harvey OSWALD after a postmortem was conducted) accompanied by insightful captions, which convey more information in some sentences than many non-fiction books in hundreds of pages.
A selection of celebrity mugshots (including Frank SINATRA, Jane FONDA and Bill GATES) adds a little curiosity and fun to an otherwise sombre and shocking book. Especially FONDA and GATES look incredibly ludicrous in their mugshots.
While I generally found SHOTS IN THE DARK a great book I didn't like two chapters very much, because they are so "overpublished". These were about gangland world and infamous cases. I mean how often did you see photographs of the O.J.SIMPSON trial? How often did you see Al CAPONE's not so friendly features?
But these are only minor complaints. This book is a must have for every true crime fan. It could also be of interest for people who like death shockumentaries.
...P>The start is kind of boring-with the writer telling us all about crime-who cares about that-we wanna see some dead bodies!
Some of the pictures in this book are kind of gory and gross-especially JFK laying on a table with his brains showing.
YUCK!
The cover of this book-with two dirty-bloodied male corpses laying in an elevator makes you think-where did they get shot?
I kind of dont and do wanna know!
I would reccomend this book to anyone who is a crime nut-and is into photography-this is the book for you!
THERES TOO MANY BODIES-ITS NOT ENOUGH ROOM-EVERYBODY OUT OF THE WATER!
List price: $14.95 (that's 75% off!)
Used price: $0.45
Buy one from zShops for: $1.77
I read the book several times and it was written very well.
Buy one from zShops for: $30.61
If you've ever wondered about the history of South Africa & how apartheid grew; who were its villains & who its heroes you must pick up a copy of War of Words for it is also about the life & death of a newspaper, of freedom of speech as well as a memoir of minute increments of courage & endless years of determined resignation.
If you've ever wondered what living under unbridled racism was like read this book. It is strong stuff, rather like watching a sandstorm heading toward you, smothering out the light, turning everyone crazy until it too passes & there's a chance at a better tomorrow.
A fascinating, well-written & informative memoir from inside the belly of the beast as seen by one reporter who kept himself close to the fire.
It was no easy task to report the news while constrained by numerous, ever-expanding, secrecy laws. While the South Africa portrayed in this book was no Soviet Union - English-language newspapers, the Rand Daily Mail in particular, were able to criticize apartheid in the strongest terms - the expanding web of press restrictions prevented journalists from fully informing the public of what it needed to know. Perhaps the most interesting section of the book is the description of the Mail's attempt to report on horrifying conditions in South Africa's prisons, reportage which caused Pogrund to face criminal charges for violation of the Prisons Act. This type of reporting (and editing, by Laurence Gandar) took guts.
Although the book does not emphasize the personal life of the author, one nugget seemed to encapsulate what it must have been like to live in the South Africa of that time: Pogrund refers to having had to overcome "the nervous habit of glancing over our shoulders - the hallmark of South Africans . . ." Other books have also alluded to the strange atmosphere of a society where no one knows who is working for which security agency - and the Mail was apparently infiltrated with various spies. On that note, one of the most fascinating characters to make an appearance here is Hendrik van den Bergh, head of the Bureau for State Security (BOSS), which apparently had microphones in the Mail's offices. (van den Bergh also appears in "Rivonia's Children," the outstanding book about the sabotage trial in which Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison, and is the star of "Inside BOSS, South Africa's Secret Service." Both are also worth reading and will give different perspectives on the same era.)
I have only two minor criticism of this book. First, Pogrund's evident shock at the "Muldergate" information scandal jars. Was it really such a surprise that a government which controlled the radio network would also seek surreptitiously to own a newspaper? To this American reader, Muldergate comes across as minor league. To be fair, however, the scandal was significant enough at the time to take down the Vorster government.
Second, Pogrund sometimes tells us more than we needed to know about feuds between Saan (South African Associated Newspapers) management and the Mail editorial staff. Yet, because this is a history of the Mail as much as the memoirs of Pogrund, some of that "inside baseball" was necessary - and the background did help to explain the machinations behind Saan's decision to close the Mail in 1985. The closure of the Mail, possibly as the result of a television channel deal by Saan with then-President P.W. Botha, left Pogrund "drained of energy and spirit."
This book is an unfailingly honest story of a brave journalist. Despite the criticisms above, I believe the book has earned 5 stars as a comprehensive, readable account of journalism under and against apartheid. I highly recommend it.
List price: $99.80 (that's 30% off!)
List price: $24.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $14.00
Buy one from zShops for: $14.00