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Reading Map: Murder in Greenwich

Media & Crime

The Murder Business: How the Media Turns Crime into Entertainment and Subverts Justice
Fuhrman, Mark 364.1523 FUH
More than a crime, murder has become big business. An entire industry depends on the steady drumbeat of horror that starts up at the first signs that a pretty white girl is missing. Suddenly, law enforcement's difficult task is made worse by media carnival barkers who cavalierly tamper with witnesses, throw up false leads, and subvert justice in pursuit of the "story."

The Kennedys

Best American Crime Writing 2004 edition
 374.973 BES
Contains "A Miscarriage of Justice," by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy asserts that his cousin is innocent of the murder of Martha Moxley. The 48-page article examines the role of Dominick Dunne, Mark Fuhrman and various witnesses who testified in the case.

The Other Mrs. Kennedy: Ethel Skakel Kennedy
Oppenheimer, Jerry BIOGRAPHY KENNEDY ETHEL
Chips away at the veneer of the Kennedy mystique in this gossipy, sometimes shocking biography of Ethel Skakel Kennedy (born in 1928), widow of Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Daughter of a driven, alcoholic coal magnate and a borderline-alcoholic mother, Ethel Kennedy is portrayed as an arrogant, abusive, highly erratic woman who spent her married life trying to prove herself as competitive and shrewd as the Kennedys. At the same time, she devoted considerable energy to covering up the scandals of some of her 11 children and relatives that included arson, drug addiction, even two murders.

Kennedy Curse
 DVD 973.9/KEN
America's most famous political family has undoubtedly suffered more than its share of tragedy, beginning with the untimely deaths of Joe Jr. and Kathleen in separate airplane crashes during WWII to John Jr.'s fatal airplane crash. In the interim there have been two assassinations, as well as murder, rape and drug charges for the Kennedy cousins.

The case

Greentown: Murder and Mystery in Greenwich, America's Wealthiest Community
Dumas, Timothy 364.1523 DUM
Dumas takes his readers on a literate excursion through the darkest secrets and fears of the girl's neighbors and fellow townspeople as they attempt to cope--first with the murder itself, and then with the helplessness of almost a quarter century of frustration as the case remained unsolved.

Conviction: Solving the Moxley Murder
Levitt, Leonard 364.1523 LEV
In 1982, the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time newspapers asked investigative reporter Levitt to look into the murder and the undying rumors of a cover-up. He soon uncovered groundbreaking information about how the police had bungled the investigation, and he learned that Tommy and Michael had lied about their activities on the night of the murder. But Levitt's articles almost never saw the light of day. For years, Levitt's superiors mysteriously refused to publish the stories. Convinced that the Moxley family deserved the peace and closure they had so long been denied, Levitt fought desperately to keep his discoveries alive. Finally, after his first article appeared, the case was reopened.

Murder in Greenwich
 DVD/MUR
The made-for-TV Murder in Greenwich is a true crime story with a twist: the sleuth in pursuit of the truth here is former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman, who gained infamy during the O.J. Simpson trial.

Above the Law?

A Season in Purgatory
Dunne, Dominick FICTION DUNNE
It's Kennedy-bashing time again, as rich-and-venal chronicler Dunne (An Inconvenient Woman, etc.) drags writer-hero Harrison Burns through 20 years of guilt for having helped our most prominent Irish Catholic family cover up a sex murder by its fair-haired scion.

A Dangerous Fortune
Follett, Ken FICTION FOLLETT
Years after their part in the death of a student at the Windfield School, three friends--industrial heirs Hugh and Edward Pilaster and the son of a brutal South American landowner--and their descendants feel the reverberations of that death.

Murder in Greenwich Village
Harris, Lee FICTION PB M HARRIS LEE
NYPD detective Jane Bauer and her team reopen a ten-year-old case involving the killing of Micah Anthony, a young African-American undercover cop who had infiltrated a profitable gun-trading operation, following a trail that leads from the brownstones of Greenwich Village, to middle-class Queens and wealthy Sutton Place, to the city's dark underbelly.

Bright Futures: a Lew Fonesca Mystery
Kaminsky, Stuart M FICTION M KAMINSKY STUART
The important thing to know about Lew Fonesca, one of Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Kaminsky's series characters, is that he is a depressive detective who drove as far south as his car could make it four years ago, after his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident in Chicago. In this novel he takes on the cases of seventeen-year-old Ronnie Graeill accused of bludgeoning to death a local curmudgeon who has been campaigning to end state-sponsored school funding and a semi-retired and much beloved singer of children's songs who is being blackmailed.

Perfect Family
Lewis, Pam FICTION LEWIS PAM
In this combination murder mystery/family saga from Lewis (Speak Softly, She Can Hear, 2005), a seemingly close-knit New England WASP family turns out to be riddled with resentments and secrets. A masterful atmospheric tale about the ways in which family secrets, no matter how long they're buried, can wield their tremendous power.

School Days
Parker, Robert B. FICTION M PARKER ROBERT B.
Hired by a Massachusetts grand dame to prove the innocence of her grandson, who has been implicated in a school shooting, Spenser wonders why the boy seems unconcerned about his possible wrongful imprisonment.

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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle : A Year of Food Life
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Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Island Beneath the Sea
The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn
More Than It Hurts You
Room: a Novel