Rope: The Twisted Life and Crimes of Harvey Glatman

I am kind of surprised by some of the other reviews here. I found Rope about Harvey Glatman to be one of the most interesting books about real crime. First, the crimes are done in the 1950s in Southern California. He was no Ted Bundy because he at least went quietly to his death. He was the only child of older parents who never really understood him at all. His crimes start early and escalate into murder. He almost got away with it until one woman was smart enough to escape his capture. Rope is written with a lot of detail in explaining culture, society, and how Harvey was raised and his adulthood. We will never really know why Harvey got his thrills from tangling a rope around the neck of his victims and watching him to die. We can understand after his death, that his mother, Ophelia Gold Glatman never even went to claim his ashes at San Quentin. I think this book is very well written and interesting to read over again.

Much better written, researched, and documented than most books of this type, Michael Newton does a very good job detailing the "life and crimes" of the unappetizing Harvey Glatman.As other reviewers have pointed out, there are some redundancies. And, yes, Glatman is only moderately interesting (though let's not kid ourselves -- once you've read about one of these weirdos, you've pretty much read about them all). In addition, there's way too much filler in this book. There are numerous examples, but I'll mention only a couple.First: At one point, Mr. Newton describes the crimes of the exceptionally repulsive Melvin Rees. Why? What on earth does he have to do with Glatman? Why not bring up Penny Bjorkland while he's at it? Carole Tregoff? And let's not forget good old Jack the Ripper. Second: Many pages are devoted to the history of Jewish immigration to the U.S. This is an interesting topic, nicely addressed by Mr. Newton, but it's completely irrelevant to the Glatman case. I'll add that I was a bit disappointed in not knowing what happened to some of the key players -- Lorraine Vigil, for example. And when did Mrs. Glatman die? And I was surprised that Mr. Newton didn't quote, or even mention, Dr. David Abrahamsen, a forensic psychiatrist who knew Glatman.Despite all my belly-aching, this is the book to read if you're interested in Glatman. Why you should be (and why I was) is another matter.P.S. Don't kid yourself that Glatman wasn't a sadist. Sure he was. That's why he used a rope, instead of his gun.

I have read several true crime books and rate this one highly. A lot of transcript from original files are included. A good writing style that flows nicely. Material not found in most true crime was presented here.