The Murder Room

Informationen zum Autor Born in Boston and educated at Northwestern University, Michael Capuzzo is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Bestseller Close to Shore , a historical thriller of the true story that inspired the novel and movie Jaws . Winner of many writing prizes as a staff reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald , and for stories in magazines including Sports Illustrated, Esquire and Life , he lives in Pennsylvania, where he and his wife publish a prize-winning storytelling magazine, Mountain Home . Klappentext Thrilling! true crime tales from the Vidocq Society - a team of the world's finest forensic investigators whose monthly lunches lead to justice in ice-cold murders. Three of the greatest detectives in the world were heartsick over the growing tide of unsolved murders. Good friends and sometime rivals William Fleisher! Frank Bender! and Richard Walter decided one day over lunch that something had to be done! and pledged themselves to a grand quest for justice. The Murder Room draws the reader into a chilling! darkly humorous! awe-inspiring world as the three partners travel far from their Victorian dining room to hunt ruthless killers! among them the grisly murderer of a millionaire's son! a serial killer who carves off faces! and a child killer enjoying fifty years of freedom and dark fantasy. Acclaimed bestselling author Michael Capuzzo brings true crime realistically and vividly to life in this account of a group of passionate men and women! inspired by their own wounded hearts to make a stand for truth! goodness! and justice in a world gone mad. Chapter 1 The Connoisseurs of Murder The great hall was filled with the lingering aroma of pork and mallard duck sausage as black-vested waiters appeared, shouldering cups of vanilla bean blancmange. Connoisseurs sat at tables between the hearths under glittering eighteenth-century chandeliers, chatting amiably in several languages. When the coffee arrived, a fine Colombian supremo steaming in its pots, the image of the corpse of a young man of uncommon beauty, lying on his back, materialized in the center of the room. A gray winter light slanted into the hall, as the midday sun had sailed beyond the city, and the image on the large screen was crisp. The young man's blond locks were matted in a corona of dried blood, his sculpted cheekbones reduced to a pulp. The police photograph had been taken at night in a restaurant alley, and the surrounding scene was obscured in darkness. Yet the strobe light had thrown the young man's face into sharp relief. Out of the shadows of a distant southern night, the stark, wide-open eyes loomed over the room. It was shortly before one o'clock in the afternoon, and the fifth and final course had been served to the connoisseurs of the Vidocq Society. "My goodness," said a short-haired young woman in a red dress. Patting her mouth with a napkin, she excused herself from the table and, a hand over her mouth, hurried to the door. William Fleisher, a big man in a magnificent blue suit, WLF embroidered on his custom shirt, sadly shook his large, bearded head. "We need to do a better job screening guests," he said. Richard Walter, his gaunt cheekbones sunken in the wan light, glared at the departing figure. Frank Benderclad in a tight black T-shirt and jeans, the only man in the hall not wearing a suitwhispered to the detective next to him, "Nice legs." Fleisher shook his head in wonderment at the two eccentric, moody geniuses with whom he had thrown in his lot. His partners were criminologists without peer or precedent in his thirty years with the feds. Forensic psychologist Richard Walter was the coolest eye on murder in the world. Tall and acerbic, he spoke with a clipped propriety that had earned him the moniker the Englishman from ...

Auteur

Michael Capuzzo

Texte du rabat

Thrilling, true crime tales from the Vidocq Society - a team of the world's finest forensic investigators whose monthly lunches lead to justice in ice-cold murders.

Three of the greatest detectives in the world were heartsick over the growing tide of unsolved murders. Good friends and sometime rivals William Fleisher, Frank Bender, and Richard Walter decided one day over lunch that something had to be done, and pledged themselves to a grand quest for justice.

The Murder Room draws the reader into a chilling, darkly humorous, awe-inspiring world as the three partners travel far from their Victorian dining room to hunt ruthless killers, among them the grisly murderer of a millionaire's son, a serial killer who carves off faces, and a child killer enjoying fifty years of freedom and dark fantasy.

Acclaimed bestselling author Michael Capuzzo brings true crime realistically and vividly to life in this account of a group of passionate men and women, inspired by their own wounded hearts to make a stand for truth, goodness, and justice in a world gone mad.

Échantillon de lecture
**Chapter 1
The Connoisseurs of Murder The great hall was filled with the lingering aroma of pork and mallard duck sausage as black-vested waiters appeared, shouldering cups of vanilla bean blancmange. Connoisseurs sat at tables between the hearths under glittering eighteenth-century chandeliers, chatting amiably in several languages. When the coffee arrived, a fine Colombian supremo steaming in its pots, the image of the corpse of a young man of uncommon beauty, lying on his back, materialized in the center of the room.

A gray winter light slanted into the hall, as the midday sun had sailed beyond the city, and the image on the large screen was crisp. The young man's blond locks were matted in a corona of dried blood, his sculpted cheekbones reduced to a pulp. The police photograph had been taken at night in a restaurant alley, and the surrounding scene was obscured in darkness. Yet the strobe light had thrown the young man's face into sharp relief. Out of the shadows of a distant southern night, the stark, wide-open eyes loomed over the room.

It was shortly before one o'clock in the afternoon, and the fifth and final course had been served to the connoisseurs of the Vidocq Society.

"My goodness," said a short-haired young woman in a red dress. Patting her mouth with a napkin, she excused herself from the table and, a hand over her mouth, hurried to the door. William Fleisher, a big man in a magnificent blue suit, WLF embroidered on his custom shirt, sadly shook his large, bearded head. "We need to do a better job screening guests," he said. Richard Walter, his gaunt cheekbones sunken in the wan light, glared at the departing figure. Frank Bender—clad in a tight black T-shirt and jeans, the only man in the hall not wearing a suit—whispered to the detective next to him, "Nice legs."

Fleisher shook his head in wonderment at the two eccentric, moody geniuses with whom he had thrown in his lot. His partners were criminologists without peer or precedent in his thirty years with the feds.

Forensic psychologist Richard Walter was the coolest eye on murder in the world. Tall and acerbic, he spoke with a clipped propriety that had earned him the moniker the Englishman from certain criminal elements. Walter had spent twenty years treating the most violent psychopaths in the state of Michigan at the largest walled penitentiary in the world, in Jackson, and at one of the toughest, the old Romanesque castle in Marquette on Lake Superior. His habit of peering over the top of his owlish black glasses and boring into the souls of inmates was known as the "Marquette stare," and it was a look to be avoided at all costs. He employed it to crack the façade of psychopaths. Walter was unsurpassed in his understanding of the darkest regions of the heart. In his spare time, moonlighting as a consulting detective, he was one of the small group of American criminologists who invented modern criminal profiling in…