Synopsis
One of America’s most acclaimed investigative journalists re-investigates some of the most notorious and mysterious crimes of the last 200 years
The beloved head of the UN dies in a tragic plane crash . . . witnesses unearthed years later suggest it wasn’t an accident. Theories behind the mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe change yearly, and some believe Jack the Ripper was a member of the royal family. History books say Hitler burned down the Reichstag—but did he? And who really organized the conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln?
Acclaimed investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein cut his eye teeth on one of the most notorious murder mysteries of the 20th century in his first book, Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth, one of the first books on the assassination and an instant bestseller. His conclusion? The Commission left open too many questions.
He examines those questions here, as well as some of the most famous “unsolved” or mysterious crimes of all time, coming to some startling conclusions. His method in each investigation is simple: outline what is known and unknown, and show the plausible theories of a case. Where more than one theory exists, he shows the evidence for and against each. And when something remains to be proved, he says as much.
In The Annals of Unsolved Crime, Epstein re-visits his most famous investigations and adds dozens of new cases. From the Lindbergh kidnapping to the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, from the Black Dahlia murder to anthrax attacks on America, from the vanishing of Jimmy Hoffa to the case of Amanda Knox—Epstein considers three dozen high-profile crimes and their tangled histories and again proves himself one of the most penetrating journalists in America.
Excerpt
Crimes covered in the Annals of Unsolved Crime The Lincoln Assassination
The Reichstag Fire
The Mayerling Incident
Jack The Ripper
The Black Dahlia
The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe
The the JFK Assassination
The Elimination of General Zia
The Japanese Vanishings
The Oklahoma City Bombing
The Anthrax Attack on America
The Radioactive Corpse, Alexander Litvinenko
Death in Ukraine: The Case of the Headless Journalist
The Assassination of Rafik Hariri
And many more…
Excerpted from The Annals of Unsolved Crime by Edward Jay Epstein. Copyright © 2013 by Edward Jay Epstein. Excerpted by permission of Melville House, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Praise
"A grand figure of modern journalism…Show Epstein a juicy crime and he will show you how it has been subverted by unseen powers for their own agenda, by the inevitable incompetence of investigative authorities and by the media because it likes a simple story line.”
—Michael Wolff, USA Today
“Epstein often is able to provide exactly the kind of comprehensive and levelheaded analysis that is usually drowned out in the sensationalism…As a longtime investigative journalist, Epstein knows how to break down a crime scene.”
—Newsday
”Armchair detectives will eat this book with a spoon. Journalism students need to read the Strauss-Kahn piece yesterday. The JFK piece is required reading for assassination buffs, And for the rest of us? The Annals of Unsolved Crime is a guilty pleasure.”—The Huffington Post
”Whether you’re a true crime devotee or simply someone who loves a good story, you’ll find things you didn’t know—maybe things you would never imagine—all served up in… The Annals of Unsolved Crime.”—Criminal Element
Praise for Edward Jay Epstein
“Epstein believes that conspiracies are more common than most journalists credit; for much of his career, he has reveled in the kind of tantalizing clues that could lead somewhere, or nowhere.” —Joe Nocera, The New York Times
“Epstein is a bulldog researcher.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
“A brilliant investigator.” — Lou Dobbs
Praise for Agency of Fear
“Part detective story, part farce, part exposé, and part textbook on investigative reporting. It is ingenious, perverse, hilarious, and shocking.”
—Victor Navasky
“Exciting research, impressive thesis.”
—Norman Mailer
“Epstein tells all.”
—John Leonard, New York Times
Praise for The Big Picture
“A rich adventure that will change the way you look at movies.”
—Businessweek
“Edward Jay Epstein is here to tell us that when it comes to Hollywood these days, we’ve got it all wrong.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“One of the virtues of The Big Picture is Mr. Epstein’s astonishing access to numbers that movie studios go to great lengths to keep secret . . . A groundbreaking work that explains the inner workings of the game.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Hollywood has needed one of these for a long time—a user’s manual. This one could not be more complete. . . .[Grade] A.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“In his adroit charting of the confidence flow between the various entities and eras Mr. Epstein kicks up a lot of little surprises. . . Edward Jay Epstein is quite good.”
—Larry McMurtry, The New York Review of Books