Ripped from the Headlines

 

I've read a bunch of Harold Schechter's true crime books and always enjoyed them (I first learned about H.H. Holmes from his book "Depraved", years before I read Larson's "Devil in the White City"). "Ripped from the Headlines" was pretty good. He talked about movies, some famous, some not so much, that had been made based on real life criminals. I was reading the last one, about the movie "The Young Savages", and I'm thinking "Goddamn, this sounds like an Evan Hunter book. I know I've read something *really* similar". Turns out Hunter did write a book about it, "A Matter of Conviction". I'm always amazed when I can remember things like that, since I read so many books, I always wonder if they "stick". Sometimes they do!

The only minor beef I had was with "The Orient Express". He tried to make the case that Agatha Christie based it on the Lindbergh kidnapping. Now, maybe that inspired her, but the book bears zero resemblance to the crime (I've read everything about the Lindbergh kidnapping I can get my hands on, and I'm excited about a couple of new books coming out). Other than that, it was a very interesting book.