The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told: Tales of Murder and Mayhem Ripped from the Front Page

This solid anthology from McCarthy (The Greatest Sea Stories Ever Told) collects 10 previously published accounts of some famous and not so famous 19th- and 20th-century heists and murders, starting with John Seidel’s “Murderess Row,” which showcases the separate murder trials in 1920s Chicago of two women whose lives inspired the play that was the basis for the musical Chicago. Lesser-known tales include Nicholas J.C. Pistor’s unsettling “The Ax Murders of Saxtown,” about the 1874 slaughter of an entire farm family outside of St. Louis, a crime that was never solved, and Dick North’s exciting “The Mad Trapper of Rat River,” in which Canadian Mounties engaged in a shoot-out with a trapper after pursuing him across the frozen Arctic in 1931. Two of the best are J. North Conway’s “King of Thieves,” about a Gilded Age robbery of a Manhattan bank, and Cleveland Moffett’s “The Rock Island Express,” about an 1886 train robbery and murder that famed detective Allan Pinkerton investigated. Edwin H. Porter’s “Lizzie Borden Took an Ax” provides fascinating detail, such as the almost instant public uproar over the inexplicable slayings, in the notorious 1892 Lizzie Borden murder case. Readers should be prepared for some dated prose, given that three chapters come from 19th-century books. True crime fans and history buffs alike will find much to savor. (Sept.)