Murders That Made Headlines: Crimes of Indiana

Today’s Nonfiction post is on Murders That Made Headlines: Crimes of Indiana by Jane Simon Ammeson. It is 211 pages long and is published by Indiana University Press. The cover is a close up of a broken doll. The intended reader is someone who is interested in true crime and Indiana history. There is some mild foul language, no sex, and description of violence in this book. The stories are told from newspapers and other firsthand documents. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- Even the most sensational and scandalous crimes can disappear into history, the spine-chilling tales forgotten by subsequent generations. Murders that Made Headlines reveals some of these extraordinary but forgotten true events that captured the public's attention in the course of the last 200 years. Jane Simon Ammeson recounts the astonishing and sometimes bizarre stories of arsenic murders, Ponzi schemes, prison escapes, perjury, and other shocking crimes that took place in the Hoosier state. When we think of bygone eras, we often imagine gentile women, respectable men, simpler times, mannerly interactions, and intimate acquaintances, but Murders that Made Headlines reveals the notorious true crimes lurking in our history.

Review- Historic true crimes that made headlines in Indiana and were very shocking for their time makes this book an interesting read but the so-so writing pulls down what could have been an exciting read. Ammeson does her research very well, with all the newspaper articles about the eleven crimes she writes giving a look into the way these crimes were reported and talked about in their time. With much of each chapter being devoted to the newspaper, letters, and other firsthand accounts, the reader really gets into the way that crime was reported and was handled in Indiana’s past. But the writing is hard get into and at times very confusing. I would have liked Ammeson to take a stronger editorial hand with her resources and make them less confusing to read. She does talk about how hard it was to work with this resources but I would not have minded is she had reedited the stories and just gave a source list at the back of the book. The crimes were shocking and it was interesting to read the first hand resources but it was still too much of a good thing and in the end dragged the narratives down.

I give this book a Three out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.