A fast-paced reconstruction of the five-year crime spree of Cleveland serial rapist Ronnie Shelton and the case that put him behind bars. Neff (Ohio State Univ. School of Journalism; Mobbed Up, not reviewed) certainly avoids the journalistic excesses of the true- crime genre. He gathered documents ranging from private diaries to psychiatric evaluations as well as interviews to reconstruct the plentiful dialogue and interior monologue that advancs the story. He also gained Shelton's cooperation, so he's able dramatically to portray some of the rapist's life and thought. Neff writes in brief scenes: he cuts from women being raped in their homes to the rapist's childhood as a peeping Tom and a victim of physical abuse from his parents, to Shelton's adult life: at a nightclub, a wiry man with long, rock-star hair, fighting to protect a woman menaced by her boyfriend. Maybe, he thinks, he should become a cop to earn the respect of a father who had always thought him a sissy. Neff tries unsuccessfully to make drama out of the police on the case. Better is his focus on Shelton's many victims, fighting the lingering psychological horrors of the crime that has been called ``unfinished murder.'' Finally, the cops got a break, tipped to Shelton by a vague photo of his car taken by a surveillance camera at a bank where his used a victim's ATM card. Despite the testimony of Shelton's psychiatrist that he couldn't help himself, the young man was found guilty of 49 rapes and sentenced to 3,198 years imprisonment. In an epilogue, Neff recounts how he learned that many of the victims ``bonded into a remarkable sisterhood of strength'' and offers some more analysis of Shelton's twisted psyche, although he acknowledges, ``I cannot say for certain why he turned out the way he did.'' Competent and thorough—so thorough, in fact, that local color overwhelms any inquiry into the broader issues raised by Shelton's case.
Pub Date: April 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-671-73185-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A personally and politically authoritative inquiry into modern war crimes. Allen (Comparative Literature/Syracuse Univ.) describes and analyzes three kinds of genocidal rape practiced by the Serb forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. First, soldiers brutally rape women in public, returning several days later to guarantee safe passsage for the terrified villagers only if they promise never to return. Second, persons held in concentration camps are repeatedly raped and often killed. Finally, soldiers repeatedly rape women until they become pregnant. The acts of rape continue until late enough in the pregnancy to preclude a safe abortion. The women are then released, eventually to give birth to a Serb child. Using accounts of camp survivors and those who work to help them, Allen chooses to bypass ``proper scholarly standards of source documentation'' in order to ensure the safety of her informants and future survivors of genocidal rape. Allen concentrates on genocidal rape as it takes form in impregnating women, since this particular form of genocide is unprecedented. Further, according to Allen, it is a logically flawed system of genocide, ``possible only because the policy's authors erase all identity characteristics of the mother other than that as a sexual container.'' Allen attempts to locate genocidal rape in the legal text of international war crimes, but concludes that current conceptions are not sufficient to guarantee justice against such acts. Alternatively, she suggests such violence should be prosecuted as biological warfare, because the crime requires the perpetrator to be biologically male and the victim a biological female capable of conceiving a child. Throughout, Allen reminds the reader that her primary goal with providing evidence of genocidal rape is to stop the violence, and she calls everyone to action to end the aggression. Allen provides a general and informative map to decoding ethnic relations and a specific and essential outline of genocidal rape.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8166-2818-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Univ. of Minnesota
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
A dramatic account of a young immigrant, who in 1895 slit her lover's throat and became the first woman sentenced to the recently invented electric chair. Pucci (Bhima Swarga: The Balinese Divine Comedy, not reviewed) became interested in this story when she learned that her American-born grandmother, Cora Slocomb, Countess di BrazzÖ, was one of Maria Barbella's staunchest advocates, traveling from her Italian estate to New York City to directly assist and use her influential social connections to benefit a woman she saw as ``another poor Italian immigrant at the mercy of the American courts.'' Barbella, a seamstress who worked grueling hours for eight dollars a week, believed Domenico Cataldo when he lured her from her parents' home by promising marriage. Finally rejected by him, Barbella murdered Cataldo in front of witnesses; a biased judge and entirely non-Italian jury readily discounted the lame defense, which Barbella herself, who was bewildered by events and spoke little English, could not even understand. Convicted of first- degree murder, she was sentenced to die at Sing Sing Prison. While she learned English in prison, advocates wrote and petitioned on her behalf; the public devoured her story in the newspapers; and almost a year after her arrest, the state Court of Appeals ordered a retrial in which she was acquitted. Pucci's own fascination with the story's characters gives the account considerable life and immediacy. However, one senses that Pucci is less determined to peel back the layers of the story than simply to tell it well—which she does. But Barbella's conflicting explanations for her actions are unreconciled and there is no modern assessment of the medical arguments regarding her epilepsy (apparently important to her acquittal). An intriguing story, but don't count on being able to render a verdict on Barbella's case at the end of it. (12 pages photos, not seen)
Pub Date: March 2, 1996
ISBN: 1-56858-061-4
Page Count: 300
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996
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