Review by Gee-Ruth -- Cold Serial: The Jack the Strangle...

[Gee-Ruth]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Cold Serial: The Jack the Strangler Murders" by Brian E. Forschner.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Cold Serial: The Jack The Strangler Murders is a chilling account of real life crimes that took place in Dayton, Ohio, in the early 1900's. In an effort to trace his line of ancestry, Brian Forschner uncovers a string of unsolved murders and rapes cases of young girls and women. Through extensive research and descriptive writing, the author paints a vivid picture of an error where street lighting was the leading method in ensuring security and safety of Dayton dwellers.

Ada Lantz is everyone's typical younger sister, stubborn, curious, cheerful and indiscreet. Ada brightens the first chapter of this book at her parent’s birthday party. I imagine it would be priceless watching this bubbly young life blossom into maturity and I believe so does her family...But evil knows no bounds and in the case of little miss Ada, we encounter evil on its purest form. She goes missing and the birthday party turns into a search party for Ada. After hours and hours of searching, the lifeless body of Ada is found brutally murdered and dumped in an outhouse. Police are alerted and after a post mortem is conducted, bad only gets worse, not only was she murdered she was also "criminally assaulted." My heart breaks as I grief the loss of Ada and I feel like I can't read the book anymore, but I know the only way I will have peace of mind is knowing that the miscreant that robbed us of miss Ada is found and brought to justice. Armed with nothing but emotions I closely follow the story.

I found the book absolutely fascinating despite the gore details of the crimes committed. The historical accuracy of each story was so overwhelming that it felt like I was in that century watching everything unravel. Watching the families of the bereaved suffer endlessly as the incapacitated police department did the best they could at the time just filled my heart with sorrow. Times must have been very difficult as the most reliable piece of evidence would be catching a person in the act or getting a confession from a perpetrator. Police were not the only ones having a hard time, as being a "Negro" or a Jew automatically made you a suspect. Liberated women were openly condemned and accused of having 'loose morals.' I must say the best thing that could happen to you in that century was being born a man. The petty rivalry between media houses did not make things easier, they thrived on outshining each other rather than selling facts.

Even though I extremely enjoyed reading this book, at some point I felt like the author's account of the events that took place was exaggerated. For instance even though the murders appeared to have the same modus operandi, the police never seemed to link the murders and always made the same mistakes when it came to making arrests. The police may have lacked the resources they needed to do a proper investigation, but it does not take technology to smell a dead rat lying right in front of you. Ultimately, I chose to overlook that fact because after all what's literature without some hyperbole.

I was moved by the book because it tackled such a sensitive issue in the most delicate, humanly way possible. My heart goes out to the author, being a relative of one of the victims, this must have been a very personal issue and that's why he put a lot of passion in it. The ending may have been abrupt but I’m happy I got some closure and the lingering question in my head was answered. We need more people like Brian Forschner to speak for the voiceless. I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars . I would recommend this book to lovers of true historical crime mysteries and fictional crime.

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Cold Serial: The Jack the Strangler Murders
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[Bianka Walter]

This sounds super interesting. Crimes that happened at the turn of the century are bound to give some cool facts.
Great review, thanks!