CRIMES OF PASSION

A fairly lifeless exhumation and examination of criminal cases in which misguided passions and psychosexual impulses have been the main determinants. Joe Ball, of Texas, was more than sociable with the waitresses he hired at the Sociable Inn and later killed at least five of them; Hollywood's Fatty Arbuckle was acquitted of the murder and rape of an actress and is now better remembered for his physique; balding, middle-aged Dr. Snook was indeed the shnook in his love tryst with a schizoid young girl; Winnie Ruth Judd's trunk murders of two friends still hold their elements of enigma; only the poisoning of Daddy Samples, a quiet bachelor of 69, revealed his startling prowess; etc. These and others make up a folio of follies and perverse passions for those with a taste for violence at an elemental rather than intellectual level. A carrion trade here.