The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes

it's true that since the essays are by many different authors there is a great range in the quality of writing and the validity of the content. However, this is a Mammoth book and enough of the articles are excellent that I realy don't have any qualms recommending this book. Some of the sections are dry and some of the writers seem to have adopted the title of "Armchair Detective" but alot of it is just plain interesting and a good chunk of it is obscure. Highlights: The Obsession With the Black Dahlia (The Black Dahlia Murder) A Coincidence of Corpses (The Brighton Trunk Murders) Jack the Ripper (The Whitechapel Murders) Florence Maybrick (The Death of James Maybrick) however if you're looking for something a bit more constistantly awesome I recommend The Cases That Haunt Us it's by and FBI profiler, so you know he's a bit better than an armchair detective.

No truer statement has ever been made! If you like true crime books you MUST pick this one up. Like other Wilkes books it is compiled of essays written about unsolved crime. They are presented VERY well and some are very good reading. The good thing about this book is that they take all kinds of cases and present them to you for your thoughts. Some of the crimes were 'solved' but the evidence was flimsy, at best. Some of the crimes (Jack the Ripper, The Zodiac Killer, etc.) were never solved. For you armchair crime solvers this book has everything you could possibly want.