UNSOLVED: Great Mysteries of the 20th Century

by Kirk Wilson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 28, 1990

Who killed JFK, Jimmy Hoffa, Sir Harry Oakes? Wilson, a free-lance crime writer, can't say--but in this accomplished amateur sleuth's handbook to those murders and seven others, he presents sufficient facts and theories to allow readers to make their own best guesses. Wilson devotes over a quarter of his book to the JFK killing--""the crime of the century."" Not much of what he offers here--and elsewhere--is new (hence his thanks to the ""authors of at least fifty books"" and ""more than a thousand newspaper and magazine articles""), but he does an excellent job of marshalling the evidence, arcane (inconsistencies in the JFK autopsy report, etc.) and bold (Oswald's possible CIA ties, etc.), and evaluating likely suspects: he tosses away the lone gunman theory, calling the Warren Commission a ""whitewash,"" and gives weight to possible Cuban or mob involvement. Next up are three additional well-known mysteries--the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, certainly a mob job; the bludgeoning and burning alive of Bahamian kingpin Sir Harry Oakes; and the death of Marilyn Monroe (according to Wilson, forensic evidence points not to suicide, but to murder--ordered by mob boss Sam Giancana?). Careful siftings of less familiar crimes follow, including the unsolved 1955 beating death of Serge Rubinstein--""a scoundrel of monstrous. . .proportions""--and the disappearance of candy queen Helen Brach (ground up and fed to her pet Chihuahua?); and close looks at four men once--or still--considered the prime suspects in four high-society murders: Texas millionaire T. Cullen Davis; Texas plastic surgeon John Hill; Claus von Bulow; and Britain's Lord Lucan, vanished after being fingered by his wife as the killer of their nanny and almost--if not for Lady Lucan's nimble, clawing fingers--of herself as well. A solid fix for crime addicts, uninspired but diligently researched--and thought through with Holmesian precision.

Pub Date: March 28, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Carroll & Graf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990

Categories: NONFICTION