HELP I need some new books - Recommendations?

[John G]

I've just remembered another excellent true crime book: Jack of Jumps, by David Seabrook, an immensely detailed investigation into the Jack the Stripper murders. Apparently Seabrook was "accidentally" given access to the official police records, even though they have not yet been released. However, one caveat: Seabrook appears to show little sympathy for the victims, and some of his language is a little unfortunate to say the least.

Nonetheless, for detailed analysis it's one of the best crime fiction books that I've read.

I could also recommend Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, by Michael Bilton, another highly detailed work that also contains transcripts of the original police interviews.

[Graham]

Hi Louisa,

The old man Gaston Dominici was tried and found guilty and was later pardoned by DeGaulle, but only because of his age - he was over 80 by this time and had spent a long time in jail already. He certainly wasn't pardoned because of any doubt about his guilt.

In fact there was, and is, a good deal of doubt about his guilt. There were many questions raised concerning the police investigation and also the conduct of his trial. Note that Dominici was never pardoned nor was there ever a re-trial. To this day surviving members of his family still campaign that he was innocent.

The murder of the Drummond family is eerily similar to the murder in France of Professor John Cartland 20 years later.

Graham

PS: have you read anything about the Rode Hill Murder, as per 'The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher'? That's a case that was never really laid to rest.

[Joshua Rogan]

Getting back to the Dominici Affair, the Annecy case was only similar in that a family were murdered in France. As I recall didn't the brother turn out to be the guilty one, albeit not proven?

I'm not sure about that. The brother was certainly investigated, but as far as I'm aware nothing conclusive was found. And I think one of the daughters who survived told police that Sylvain Mollier - the local cyclist who was thought to have stumbled across the attack on the family - was the first to be shot, indicating he was actually the intended target.

The old man Gaston Dominici was tried and found guilty and was later pardoned by DeGaulle, but only because of his age - he was over 80 by this time and had spent a long time in jail already. He certainly wasn't pardoned because of any doubt about his guilt.

I'm late to the party on this one, but I read he was released on compassionate grounds due to ill health.

I also read that the case may be linked to both the Cartland killings and, indeed, the Bamber case - apparently Neville Bamber, John Cartland and Drummond all worked in British intelligence during and after the war. I suspect this is just a wild conspiracy theory, do you know if there's any truth to it?

[Graham]

I also read that the case may be linked to both the Cartland killings and, indeed, the Bamber case - apparently Neville Bamber, John Cartland and Drummond all worked in British intelligence during and after the war. I suspect this is just a wild conspiracy theory, do you know if there's any truth to it?

A writer called Brian Mariner (who he?) said that without any doubt both John Cartland and Jack Drummond were members of SOE during WW2, working in France and with the French resistance. In 1956 Drummond's former secretary June Marshall was murdered in Dieppe. In 1964 Sir Oliver Duncan was murdered in Rome. In 1973 Major Michael Lassetter was murdered at his home in Cannes. It seems that Mr Mariner places all these latter persons as being 'connected' with British wartime intelligence. Could be - I can't add anything because I just don't know. Bamber I wouldn't know about - he was killed in England and I can't recall seeing anything that linked him with British Intelligence.

From what I can make out, Mariner was suggesting that the murders in France and Italy were essentially 'revenge' killings; or just plain ordinary murders without any link whatsoever. As for Mariner himself, I never heard of him before he wrote his piece in about 1986, nor have I heard of him since.

Graham

[Robert]

I believe Brian Mariner may have been working with Bob Hinton at one time, on George Hutchinson. I'm sure I've heard Bob mention a Mariner anyway.

[Pcdunn]

Larson also wrote "Thunderstruck" which is about Marconi's struggles to create "wireless telegraphy" from 1899 to 1910, and the parallel story of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen and the murder of his wife Cora, whose capture with his mistress Ethel Le Neve fleeing to Canada on the "S.S. Montrose", was due to the use of wireless.

Jeff

Thanks, Jeff. I've read "Thunderstruck" and enjoyed it. Larson's third book seems to be about the sinking of the Lusitania, and is called "Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania", which I may need to try.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N6PD3GE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#nav-subnav

[Mayerling]

Thanks, Jeff. I've read "Thunderstruck" and enjoyed it. Larson's third book seems to be about the sinking of the Lusitania, and is called "Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania", which I may need to try.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N6PD3GE...r=1#nav-subnav

Well, if you do read it (and I did not, so I have to try to get it too), remember (in keeping with this thread) that ex-President Theodore Roosevelt denounced the sinking of the Lusitania as "murder on the high seas". Many people thought the same way.

Actually Larson has written other books as well - he wrote a terrific introductory book with the public, "Isaac's Storm" about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Also one about the U.S. and Germany on the edge of World War II (the title of which escapes me at this moment).

Jeff

[Mayerling]

I'm not sure about that. The brother was certainly investigated, but as far as I'm aware nothing conclusive was found. And I think one of the daughters who survived told police that Sylvain Mollier - the local cyclist who was thought to have stumbled across the attack on the family - was the first to be shot, indicating he was actually the intended target.



I'm late to the party on this one, but I read he was released on compassionate grounds due to ill health.

I also read that the case may be linked to both the Cartland killings and, indeed, the Bamber case - apparently Neville Bamber, John Cartland and Drummond all worked in British intelligence during and after the war. I suspect this is just a wild conspiracy theory, do you know if there's any truth to it?

Actually I heard the release was due to compassion about his age too. However I am aware that his son's involvement in the Drummond murders has been bandied about by several people discussing the case. I wouldn't be surprised - but there is a tendency on cases with multiple victims where theories pop up of more than one killer involved. Another example is the 1869 murder of Mrs. Kinck and her four children by Jean-Baptiste Troppmann in the Patin section of Paris. Troppmann tried to make this (part of a series of killings involving him and the Kinck family, which he wiped out for financial gain) sound like some kind of patriotically connected murders involving great secrets that could not be divulged publicly. Many swallowed this then and since - linking Troppmann, the Kincks, and their Alsatian roots to the on-coming Franco-Prussian War. Such theories suggested that Troppmann had at least one confederate in the slaughter (and burial of the victims) at Pantin.
However, one commentator (William Bolitho in "Murder For Profit"*) pointed out that the viciously hasty slashing marks on the bodies of the children and Mrs. Kinck show some individual in a frenzied hurry to kill them all - not someone with assistants.

[*A book I recommend, along with F. Tennyson Jesse's "Murder and it's Motives".]

Jeff

[louisa]

Thanks again for your kind help in suggesting other good reads.

I have to say that I already have books on all the high profile British murder cases, past and present. I find it's the the ones that remained unsolved or got swept under the carpet that are of most interest to me.

There have been a couple of possibilities that I will be exploring.

Getting back again to the Dominici Affair - how I wish some of the people on here would read (or maybe re-read) the Jean LaBorde book on the case because I would love to discuss Detective Sebeille's conclusions on here.

The Dominici family could not tell the truth if it hit them in the head, as Sebeille discovered. They've clung on to this 'conspiracy theory' throughout the years - but the reason for this is obvious - none of them wish themselves or their children to be branded as a descendant of a man who clubbed a little girl to death. Well, imo they have to face facts and live with the truth.

Yes, Drummond was a scientist but he had never been to France before and it was a family 'adventure'. He was just a tourist who chose the wrong place to park.

[Graham]

Yes, Drummond was a scientist but he had never been to France before and it was a family 'adventure'. He was just a tourist who chose the wrong place to park.

A French investigator, M. Badin, discovered that Sir Jack had visited the area
of Lurs before, maybe 3 or more times, in 1947, 1948 and 1951. M. Badin also says that Sir Jack had a meeting during one of these visits with a priest called Lorenzi who was with the Maquis during WW2. There is also, or so I believe, some degree of mystery concerning the US-made RockOla rifle that was used to kill the Drummonds. The Dominici family said that they had never owned such a weapon, and M. Badin says he believes them.

I do not for one moment believe that the Drummonds were murdered just because they pulled over one evening and asked a French family for water.
There had to be more to it than that. Also, it was Gaston Dominici's son
Gustave who called the police after the bodies were found.

Easy to say after 65 years, but there's more to this case than meets the eye.

Graham

[Garry Wroe]

As for Mariner himself, I never heard of him before he wrote his piece in about 1986, nor have I heard of him since.

Unfortunately, Graham, I have. Here’s a link which provides some interesting background information on Marriner:-

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/619062.Brian_Marriner

I corresponded with him in the early 1990s and made the mistake of trusting him to treat with confidentiality my research material relating to George Hutchinson. Several years later he was claiming this work as his own. In short, he graduated from armed robbery to plagiarism. Nice man.

[Graham]

Hi Gary,

wow! As you say, a nice man! I couldn't find anything about him on the net as I was looking for a 'Mariner' with only one 'r'. However, yesterday at my local library I did find one of his books, the one about cannibalism. I left it on the shelf. I picked up what he wrote about the Cartland Case and similar cases as mentioned on this thread in a small tome called Unsolved Murders And Mysteries edited by John Canning. This little book was published in 1987 and did at least give me a few leads to more comprehensive works about certain cases.

I'm sorry he conned you.

Graham

[louisa]

Graham - Please, please, pleeeeease read the Jean LaBorde book.

Other accounts have been written by people who have since been discredited, including the one you quoted.

Jack Drummond had NEVER visited France before. He could not speak French except for a few phrases, the kind that tourists learn. His wife could not speak French at all. The daughter could speak French very well, as Yvette Dominici admitted during one of the interviews (which she would later retract).

The family were not killed simply for asking for water. The water episode was a friendly one where the little girl took pictures of the Dominicis. It was much later - around midnight that Gaston went to have a look at the campsite, a peeping Tom we would call him and got into an altercation with Jack Drummond. Gaston was affronted by these foreigners and went back for his rifle, not probably to kill them but to scare them. Jack Drummond tried to grab the gun by it's barrel. You know the rest.

Gaston definitely owned a Rock Ola. He had purchased it at the end of the war from some American soldiers who were passing his farm in their Jeep. His son Clovis said that he had seen his father using it, but infrequently and knew the exact place in the barn where it was kept. Gaston and Gustav later showed police the same shelf where it had been kept.

The investigation into the murders was intensive and in fact two separate investigations were carried out, the second by the French equivalent of Scotland Yard and Gaston was found to be the guilty one.

[Garry Wroe]

wow! As you say, a nice man! I couldn't find anything about him on the net as I was looking for a 'Mariner' with only one 'r'. However, yesterday at my local library I did find one of his books, the one about cannibalism. I left it on the shelf.

Believe it not, Graham, I'd recommend that you read his books. His Forensic Clues to Murder is very good. So too is the cannibalism book you mentioned, as well as another he wrote on serial killers. Ironically, he once advised me to be cautious of writers, describing them as 'a bunch of absolute thieves'. He was right about one of their number at any rate.

[John Wheat]

I'm personally waiting for a book on Lechmere. Should be a right laugh. Although anyone who thinks its non-fiction must be joking.