The Battle of Little Bighorn retold in Tom Clavin's Vengeance

 Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull by Tom Clavin

Vengeance book cover

Author Tom Clavin

A corrupt government is populated with friends and relations of the president who seem to plunder and take advantage of lax oversight in the bureaucracy. The government displays animosity and weaponizes the military towards a disempowered minority, attempting to silence critics and minority factions that resist attempts at command and control. American society has been torn apart by serious issues of race, identity, and the economy, while politicians and people grapple with the future direction of the country.

Although these events seem like they may be ripped from today’s salacious headlines, it’s really a summary of some of the events that gripped America nearly 150 years ago 1876, as America grappled with westward expansion and removing the indigenous plains Indians from their roaming ways and proposing a more farmer like existence for these nomadic people. Tom Clavin’s excellent new book, Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull, captures much of the turmoil and resentment that festered between the government and the Plains Indians, resulting in one of the most stunning military defeats in American history.

I’m generally fascinated by this time period, and have read some other books about Indigenous People, but Clavin’s book was one of the more compelling and engaging books I’ve read about the frontier expansion. Maybe because he focuses on three of the primary characters in the Battle of Little Bighorn, Clavin is able to create a story where three distinct individuals collide in a violent fashion in this epic battle of the plains when America was still expanding its western territory, frequently making and breaking treaties. Clavin acknowledges that he’s not the first to write about this battle, and some of the other authors who he references throughout the book have wrote distinct and significant books outlining and analyzing the factors leading up to the battle and its aftermath. However, Clavin likens the story to a myth, where we recount the deeds of epic heroes, seeming to result in tragedy, whether through hubris or ignorance, and learn something new every time we recount the story. Thus, his contributions to this epic battle frame the battle by following the paths of Custer, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse, and how they all ended up converging in June 1876 on this field in the territory that would become Montana.

I loved how Clavin organizes the chapters to focus on each individual, and he keeps them brief, which kept me reading. The book is organized into 6 parts- The Invaders, The Defenders, The Expeditions, The Searchers, The Avengers, and the Last Stands. Each section focuses on events leading up to the battle, and Clavin’s keen eye for details limits overwhelming readers with too much information about how the Indian Plains Wars against the Sioux especially started. Nevertheless, he provides a fair amount of information to let us know about how Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse eventually came to power, as well as how Custer, a lackluster West Point graduate, leveraged some heroics and bravado during the Civil War to eventually become a general. Through Clavin’s recounting and analysis of the events, it seems like some of Custer’s meteoric rise and bravado created a kind of arrogance that brought about his violent end. Interestingly, I learned that Crazy Horse, while exalted as a great Lakota warrior, also experienced his own downfall in claiming the wife of another man before they were officially divorced. It’s these kinds of little details that provide a broader idea of the decisions and strategies that Custer, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse may have implemented during other events, giving us a sense of the kind of flawed heroes that our textbooks or high school history don’t always present to us for various reasons.

Clavin not only isolates these individuals but provides some important background in the policies of the US around the time of the Civil War, and how the focus was off westward expansion, during this time. When the war ended, it seemed like there was a large army in need of work and vast lands where gold and other resources were with people looking to move out of overcrowded cities for new opportunities and adventure. This led to threats and attacks on settlers, necessitating the building of forts and protection of the US Army on certain routes, like the Oregon Trail. It was fascinating to learn more about how these events and policies boiled tensions between different plains Indian tribes and the federal government. Along with broken treaties, reduced rations, and disease and illness, readers can also learn how the plains Indians were reduced in numbers and spirit, and yet leaders and warriors like Sitting Bull and Red Cloud arose to challenge the authority of the US government and the great father in DC.

Clavin’s recap of the battle alternates between the US forces, and the divisions of Custer’s men, who split up into separate groups, which ultimately led to their demise, and the warriors who followed Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Clavin’s even-handed research presents much of the arrogance and mismanagement, including the drinking from Major Reno, and the friction with Captain Benteen, which also seemed to factor into the poor decisions and fractured strategy in this campaign. Although there were no survivors in Custer’s actual group, Clavin referenced other books and the Sioux and Cheyenne survivors who participated and provided accounts of what exactly happened. It presents an important recounting that challenges many of the myths and heroic portraits of Custer that were pumped out as propaganda after the battle. As Clavin notes, Custer was considered a potential presidential candidate and was set to speak in Philadelphia for the Centennial celebration about a week later. However, due to the vast distance and limited reporting at the time, people were unsure of where he was or what happened in the battle. This kind of limited access to information allowed the military and Custer’s widow, Libbie, to reshape the narrative, which ultimately painted Custer as a hero and victim, a view that persisted for many years.

The last section of the book went by quickly, and it moves from the summer of 1876 to the aftermath in the next few years, and how this led to the last stands of Crazy Horse shortly after and Sitting Bull more than a decade later. Clavin also frames this idea of the government and military continuing to seek and harass these tribes for the defeat at Little Bighorn. Sadly, it ends with the slaughter at Wounded Knee, where nearly 300 Lakota people, mostly women and children, were murdered by the military. Clavin notes like Little Bighorn, the limited information available at the time worked to the military’s advantage, allowing them to frame this as another battle like Little Bighorn, but that was ultimately prevented from major military casualties. In fact, there were several commendations and awards given. Tying these events to the present, Clavin notes that there have been recent attempts to rescind these awards and commendations, although the current administration has fought that, despite legislation that has authorized taking these awards away from the unjust murder of hundreds of Lakota women and children.

Clavin has written a compelling and important story detailing the history and facts of a inflection point in American history, one which has been mythologized and used to create a kind of narrative about American exceptionalism while denigrating the role of Indigenous people in American history, and has helped to educate and reframe the narrative. I learned a lot from this book. Furthermore, Clavin’s clear and engaging prose and his focus on the main protagonists in this tragedy, Custer, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse, creates a compelling story of three flawed men who converge on a hot battlefield in June of 1876. The story still resonates today, and it serves an even more important lesson in understanding the truth in history, and how events can be twisted and propagandized to either avoid accountability or to create American heroes. This is a really important and engaging read. Highly recommended! Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Tom Clavin’s latest historical book Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull. 

Exploring and Overcoming Past Trauma in Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker

 Japanese Gothic: A Gothic, Dual-Time Novel of Ghosts, Hauntings, and Redemption by Kylie Lee Baker

Japanese Gothic book cover

Author Kylie Lee Baker

Many thanks to Harlequin Trade Publishing, Hanover Square Press, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of Kylie Lee Baker’s latest book Japanese Gothic. Gothic literature has been around since the 18^th century, and is largely characterized by a dark and dreary mood and environment, and often involves hauntings, tragedies, and horror. Furthermore, architecture and buildings, including the surrounding environments like nature, forests, beaches, and gardens can all play an important, if not sinister role in the plots of gothic literature. Kylie Lee Baker’s latest novel emphasizes the dark and dreary elements of gothic, with the occasional blood-soaked violence and gore that was a part of her last book, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng. I was really impressed with Bat Eater, finding it surprisingly dark and gory, yet also offering a sense of hope and a way to deal with the anger and frustration of racism and discrimination. I thought that maybe Baker had traded the rambling noise and squalid urban decay of NYC for the quieter, if not more ominous trappings of the ghostly countryside of Japan. Although Japanese Gothic is tonally different from Bat Eater, there are still many similarities, including protagonists haunted and traumatized by their past losses, a connection with spirits, and Baker’s unrelenting pursuit of some of the goriest descriptions of violence (and I say this as a commendation). I was cringing at the blood-soaked ending of the book. Like Bat Eater, this book is also a wild ride, with many unexpected stops along the way; however, there are also more moments of quiet introspection, as the main character, Lee Turner, is kind of an introverted loner, whose dependence on medications keeps him in a perpetual state of haze and fog. Part of this dependency, we learn, is from his mother’s mysterious disappearance on a holiday in Cambodia when Lee was 12.

Lee struggles to make sense of his mother’s disappearance and his father’s muted response to this. Lee retains some strange memories from this trip, recalling a voice from a suitcase, which leads him to conclude that his mother was inside and possibly abducted by human traffickers. The police and Lee’s father come to a different conclusion, assuming that Lee’s mother drowned while out swimming. Neither option offers much solace to Lee, who internalizes the absence and tries to please his father by being an ideal son. Lee eventually ends up at NYU, while his father, a professor of Japanese, ends up living in Japan after dating a series of Japanese women. The story starts when Lee absconds to his father’s house, thinking he has fled the murder of his roommate James, but unsure of what he did with the body. Lee decides that fleeing to Japan to stay with his distant father and his girlfriend Hina will allow him to escape responsibility and try to make sense of his messy life.

Baker alternates chapters with the story of Sen Iwasaki, a daughter of a samurai who lived in the house Lee’s father now occupies, nearly 150 years before. Sen’s father was a prominent samurai for the Shimazu Clan, but by 1877, samurais have basically been eradicated, and Sen’s family struggles to find work and food to survive. We gradually learn about Sen’s struggles to connect with her father, whose battle against the empire led him to return a defeated and somewhat darker individual. Nevertheless, he continues to train Sen since his sons are too young and weak to train. He sees something in Sen, despite belittling her and sowing doubt about her instincts to kill. We also learn about the tragedy of the house, as this once proud family is reduced to eating porridge and hunting small animals while awaiting for reprisals from their enemies. It’s a stark life that both contrasts and mirrors Lee’s life in the present in some ways. Both characters deal with distant or lost parents for whom they grieve, and both Sen and Lee try to accommodate their living parents and connect with them in ways that seem futile. The book is divided into 4 sections, and each section ends with a short excerpt from a fairy tale about a fisherman who helps an injured turtle return to the see. The turtle turns out to be the daughter of the Emperor of the Sea, and as a result of the fisherman’s kindness, the fisherman is rewarded. It’s a little unclear why this story is at the end of each section, but the ending of the book ties these three stories together.

Both Lee and Sen are haunted by those they lost. In addition to her father returning as a shamed warrior, Sen has also lost a sister, and her spirit haunts Sen. Lee is also haunted by the loss of his mother, but his senses are also highly attuned to others. He can hear their heartbeats and know when others are lying due to their posture or movements. These kinds of perceptions make Lee keenly aware of others’ emotions but also seem to provide a kind of fixation that slowly drives him mad (almost like a Poe narrator). One night, Lee hears and feels a heartbeat while lying in bed. He gets up and listens to the room, eventually discovering a doorway in the closet. Likewise, Sen lies awake in her room, communicating with her dead sister, when she eventually is led to the doorway, allowing Lee and Sen to transcend time and meet through this portal.

At first skeptical and defensive against one another, the two must learn to make sense of their newfound connection, and we see how each of them faces challenges in their own worlds, trying to navigate the destruction of each of their own broken families. I was particularly interested in Sen’s challenges as a daughter in a patriarchal society that favors sons, and how she repeatedly receives messages that women cannot be samurais. Nevertheless, she continues to train, fight, and push against these ideas, proving to her father and others that women can be just as fierce warriors. Likewise, Lee must challenge his father’s perceptions about his lack of masculinity, while also challenging his dad’s fetishization of Japanese women. In their work together and trying to understand what brought them together, Lee and Sen form an unlikely bond of shared trauma and doubt. I appreciated how Lee uses technology like the internet to find out about Sen’s history and death, and while Sen thinks Lee might be a demon, he proves his knowledge by predicting a fire that will occur in the town on a specific date. Baker creates an interesting pair whose differences complement one another. However, I really appreciated how the characters and their dialogue all seemed so unique and different. While Lee doesn’t say a whole lot, readers witness his thinking move from the kind of addled-hazy thoughts of someone addicted to allergy medicine to the kind of paranoid and anxious thoughts of someone struggling with withdrawal and trauma. Sen, on the other hand, is much prone to fighting, and readers witness her training springing to action as she is pushed by doubts about Lee’s intentions and the modern world. Baker has created an interesting dynamic that stretches belief, but also keeps readers engaged and makes it work.

There’s a lot to like about this book, especially if you liked Bat Eater. It doesn’t have quite the kinetic energy of that book’s urban setting, yet the rural Japanese setting creates an equally ominous and unsettling mood, especially with the sword ferns in the garden that sway and scratch the house, threatening to poke and stab, as if wielded by some psychotic samurai. Similarly, Baker’s writing is more descriptive and poetic in this book. I kept highlighting these passages that either described Lee’s anxious inner thoughts or reflected them in the environment. For example, from the first chapter “But Lee hadn’t wanted to know the taste of James’s blood, hadn’t wanted to hold this awful feeling inside him, like the collapse of an entire star system inside his rib cage. Lee was full of dead stars and empty universes now.” Or later on in the book “He liked how small the ocean made him feel, like it could devour him and all his problems in a single gulp. Nothing mattered in the face of the endless churning sea. It was important, all-consuming, all-devouring. It might have been beautiful, but Lee had never been good at discerning beauty.” There is darkness in this story, but it’s also brilliantly projected onto the environment and setting, and Baker really captures the characters’ inner turmoil through these descriptions and metaphors.

While I enjoyed the atmospheric and moody nature of the book, and Baker’s ability to distill emotional turmoil either with great analogies or through the surrounding environment, the story is complicated and at times a little hard to follow. There are some loose ends that don’t get completely tied up until the ending, which I won’t reveal. Furthermore, I grew a little frustrated with Lee and his downtrodden nature, but I can see how Baker made him really depressed and traumatized by the loss of his mother, so he also becomes a sympathetic figure. The book also has a lot of incluing and indirect exposition, where we are left to draw conclusions about Lee’s background based on his spotty and naïve memory. And although the premise of this kind of secret portal that allows the characters to meet across time is somewhat unbelievable, I actually enjoyed this element of the story. It reminded me of another Japanese writer who often writes about loss and different dimensions- Haruki Murakami. Although this is like if Murakami was paired up with Stephen King and writing more of a gothic horror novel rather than more of a fantasy sci-fi story about identity. Japanese Gothic’s focus on the gothic elements along with some Japanese mythology and ghost stories creates a compelling atmosphere that engaged me and kept me turning pages, wanting to find out more. I also appreciated the dueling narratives where one chapter focused on Lee and another focused on Sen. It was interesting to see how their stories mirrored and converged. Although it’s not the same as Bat Eater, Japanese Gothic has a lot to offer, especially if you enjoy ghost stories, folk horror, and characters who are prone to hallucinations and fugue states. I’m really excited for Kylie Lee Baker’s next book, as she crafted another complex ghost story about the past that still addresses relevant and current issues in society. Her descriptions, especially the characters’ turbulent emotional states, stand out, but her descriptions of the gore and violence in the book are visceral and left me cringing at the end. Highly recommended!

Ain't No New Thing: Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage by Heather Thomspon

 Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage by Heather Ann Thompson

Fear and Fury book cover

Author and scholar Heather Ann Thompson

Many thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of Heather Ann Thompson’s detailed and compelling new book Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage. I was floored by the events in this book, and I’m glad that Thompson has re-examined the facts of this case, including the lives of Goetz’s victims, James Ramesuer, Darrell Cabey, Barry Allen, and Troy Canty. While Thompson’s book accomplishes many things, one of the most important is to humanize these victims who were degraded and criminalized for being young Black men in NYC not only by the violent judgement of Bernie Goetz, but also by the emerging NYC tabloid press, The NY Post, which was acquired by Rupert Murdoch in the late 1970s. Thompson details how Reagan’s cultivation of white resentment through targeting civil rights and poverty initiatives from the 1930s through the 1960s led to his election and mandate to cut government waste, with the unstated consequences of easing taxes for the aristocracy and corporations. Whether it was magical thinking or just a kind of splashy statement that would silence critics, the trickle down economics never happened, and income inequality worsened as those in big cities and those who lived below the poverty line saw reductions in services and aid that helped with everything from accessing food, housing and education. Sound familiar? In reading this, it was hard to stomach the ways that conservatives have repurposed Reagan’s failed ideas, ignoring the damage it wrought to all Americans, but in particular the injustices and inequalities that deepened for Black Americans. However, while Thompson draws parallels between society and politics in America today and America 40-45 years ago, the main focus of this book is on how this context set the stage for the kind of vigilantism that Bernhard Goetz was allowed to perpetuate on 4 Black teenagers in a NYC subway in 1984.

While I don’t remember when this even occurred, I do remember some aspects of the trial, which occurred significantly after it happened. I also think that Wu-Tang Clan’s “Clan in da Front” helped to remind me about “Bernhard Goetz what he deserves,” shouting out the kind of injustice and violence that was a part of being young and Black in NYC in the 80s and 90s. Regardless, it was shocking to learn more about this case and the way that it played out in the media, which ended up shaping not only public opinion, but also that of the jury. A majority of the book details the actual shooting, its aftermath, and the trial, which took place nearly 3 years after the shooting. Thompson’s research and retelling lets us know about the lives of both the teenage victims and their shooter. It was interesting to learn about Bernie’s own troubles with authority, his inability to hold a job, and his disgust with NYC. Although his family moved to Orlando after his father was revealed to have inappropriate relationships with young boys, I was surprised that Bernie never moved there since he seemed to really despise the city. Furthermore, Thompson shares the challenges that the boys experienced as NYC slipped into debt and in particular the Bronx experienced a series of fires in the late 70s. The city takes on its own important role in Thompson’s book, noting how crime, cuts, politics, economics, race, and growing diversity with urban flight all played roles in heightening tensions and distrust among different groups of people. In fact, as Thompson presents the shooting and the trials of Goetz, we see how biases and beliefs were already shaped based on the perceptions of the events, rather than the actual evidence or outcomes. I was shocked to see the ways that these boys were convicted in public without any kind of trial. There was no presumption of innocence for them, and yet, the man who actually pulled the trigger, who shockingly went back to shoot Darrell Cabey, telling him he didn’t look so bad, was applauded, rewarded, and treated as a hero in the city, although not by all. The boys were repeatedly referred to as criminals, violent thugs, whose intention was to rob, yet they were not even tried or charged with any crimes. It was shocking, but also not surprising in the examination of the history of white rage and vigilantism, which Thompson presents more recent examples of Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, and most recently Jordan Neely, whose killer was invited to watch the Army Navy football game with the president and vice president. Thompson also mentions other prominent extrajudicial killings, including acquitted murderer Kyle Rittenhouse, to show how Goetz’s trial and acquittal on more serious charges wasn’t a bug, but rather a feature of the American justice system that often allows for violence and a wide berth of “self-defense” for some citizens, but not others. Thompson’s book helps to highlight how Goetz’s trial was conducted not just in the courtroom, but also in the court of public opinion, and helped to leverage the kind of white rage and fear that presented him as a sympathetic figure to many in NYC, rather than the violent, paranoid thug he was.

The entire book was shocking, especially when we consider the consequences of Goetz’s decision to shoot these boys, and how it impacted their lives, as well as the lives of those around them. Darrell Cabey, who was paralyzed and as a result of injuries to his spine and lungs, experienced oxygen deprivation that led to brain damage, is given the most attention in the book. However, all of the boys experienced physical and psychological consequences as a result of Goetz’s violence. In one of the most shocking moments of the book, Thompson details Cabey’s family’s attempts to sue Goetz in civil litigation mainly to help cover costs of the constant care required for him. Darrell was not only paralyzed, but had limited memory, which required help with daily tasks and bodily functions. Goetz, now serving as his own lawyer, requested to depose Cabey (and his mom), believing that Cabey was faking his injuries and brain damage for money. It’s hard to believe that someone who purposefully shot an unarmed teen, leading to paralysis and brain damage, would be so cynical and callous. What was even more shocking was that the judge, after several reports from physicians detailing Cabey’s mental capacity, would allow this deposition to occur. I’m curious to learn other’s perspectives on how utterly inhumane and degraded Goetz is after thinking that someone would fake brain damage for money.

In addition to Goetz’s disgusting behavior, it was also shocking to learn that he not only went on the run for more than a week after the shooting, fleeing to New Hampshire, but also that he eventually turned himself in, making a full confession after waiving his right to counsel. Despite acknowledging the boys posed no real threat and that he intended to violently harm and kill these boys, Goetz was acquitted of murder. Thompson provides a postmortem that goes through the jury’s reasoning, based on interviews and one of the jurist’s memoir of the trial. I won’t get into those details, but it was shocking to see the kinds of inferences they make to lead to an acquittal. Thompson’s book is a shocking, but important read today, especially as violence, both institutional and physical, continues to escalate. In the last section, Thompson details the more modern analogues for the Goetz shooting and trial, and how other cases and more recently racial violence and white rage have been increasing under Trump. While it’s not the main focus in the book, it does serve an important reminder and as a warning about how marshalling this kind of resentment and rage can have violent and dire consequences. Truly an important book to read in 2026. Highly recommended!

Connecting the Dots on Two Unsolved Murders: Sisters In Death by Eli Frankel

 Sisters In Death: The Black Dahlia, The Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter by Eli Frankel

Sisters In Death book cover

Author Eli Frankel

Many thinks to Kensington Publishing and NetGallery for sending me an advanced copy of Eli Frankel’s exciting new true crime book Sisters In Death: The Black Dahlia, The Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter, which takes a new look at infamous murder of Elizabeth Short, also known as the Black Dahlia. In particular Frankel’s book seeks to link Short’s gruesome murder with another murder six years prior in Kansas City, MO. While he presents some interesting and compelling circumstantial evidence, it’s hard to say that the evidence definitively points to Carl Balsiger, a man who seemingly had connections to both victims and was in both locations at the time. I’m relatively new to the case of the Black Dahlia murder, but I recently read Leila Taylor’s amazing book Sick Houses, which discussed another suspect of the Black Dahlia case, Dr. George Hodel, and the house he lived in. Taylor’s book piqued my interest in the case, and Frankel’s book provides a detailed look at Short’s brief peripatetic life and focuses on the last few months leading up to her disappearance and the gruesome discovery of her body that eventually changed Los Angeles. However, prior to discussing this case, Frankel presents the details of the case of Leila Walsh, a young, popular girl from a prominent Kansas City family who was brutally murdered in her room. Frankel’s writing is compelling and engaging. Her does well detailing the character and life of Welsh and her family members to create a sense of empathy and understanding so that when Frankel describes the murder, it is truly shocking and brutal, not only for the gore and violence, but also in how her loss impacts others with whom she was close. One of the other aspects of Frankel’s writing that I enjoyed was that he contextualizes the politics of Kansas City to better understand the kind of corruption that was pervasive in the politics of the time. This kind of bias and shoddy criminal investigation allowed the focus to point to Welsh’s brother, who didn’t really have a valid motive (they claimed it was for Leila’s cut of the inheritance) nor was there much evidence that pointed to him. However, Frankel’s detailing of the fallout from Leila’s murder shows the depths to which some prosecutors might sink to either punish perceived enemies or try to bring a show trial to appease the kind of public angst that often follows these brutal and well-publicized slayings.

The next section details Elizabeth Short’s life and times leading up to her murder. While Leila Welsh lived a somewhat privileged life and attended college, Elizabeth Short’s life was starkly different, and her vast travels and somewhat nomadic existence seems almost like it wouldn’t be possible today. In some ways, Short reminded me of another conspiratorial and mysterious figure- Lee Harvey Oswald, whose strange and itinerant lifestyle only added to his mystique after his violence and death. However, Frankel also does well to contextualize the historical times that Short lived in, and his writing also helps to challenge some of the myths about Short’s life that have perpetuated since her brutal murder. In fact, Frankel regularly defends her life in the ways that some of Short’s own acquaintances did. Her notes that Short avoided drinking and drugs, and was not highly sexual, especially since some of the reports seemed to suggest that Short was promiscuous. Rather, Frankel paints the picture of a young woman whose abandonment from her father and whose loss of a fiancé in a plane crash left her adrift and emotionally distant, wanting to connect with others, but also somewhat hesitant to develop deeper bonds. Frankel’s treatment of Short also presents her as naïve and too trusting in some ways, which may have been her downfall. As I was reading this book and learning more about who Elizabeth Short was, I couldn’t help but wonder whether David Lynch based Betty (a nickname Short used at times) from Mulholland Drive on this case. Betty, whose naïve and cheerful midwestern appeal is contrasted with her dark doppelgänger who seems to live amongst the trash in LA’s underbelly, seems like she shares many similarities with Elizabeth Short. Regardless, Frankel’s writing, especially his characterization from his research into Short’s life and times, elicited a lot of connections from me.

The last section of the book details Carl Balsiger, a scion of a prominent grocery and bakery family from Kansas City. Despite coming from a semi-aristocratic background, Frankel paints Balsiger as a failure in many ways. Filled with character flaws, Frankel presents us with an individual who only experiences success during World War II in developing a baking system that provided bread and nourishment to soldiers in the Pacific. I wasn’t aware of this topic in the war, but Frankel presents fresh baked bread as one of the factors that may have tipped the pacific campaign to the Americans. Although Balsiger used his background experience in food service to support the American effort, it seemed like every other opportunity he had in America was wasted and Balsiger could never live up to his father’s expectations. Throughout these chapters about Balsiger’s life, Frankel presents instances where Balsiger may have participated in violence against women and family members. For one, Balsiger’s sister died in a mysterious drowning incident when they were children. The implication from Frankel was that Balsiger could have been responsible since there was no real investigation into the details. Furthermore, Balsiger was involved in strange paddling incidents in college, suggesting that this showed his early proclivities for violence against others. Frankel also presents instances where Balsiger seemed to hover around the periphery of Leila Welsh, attending the same college and living just blocks from her. Balsiger’s connections Short are more significant, and he was viewed as a suspect in her murder, although he was never officially charged. I can’t say whether I know Balsiger is guily or not, but Frankel presents some compelling research and details, both circumstantial and evidentiary, to make his case.

I enjoyed this book and read through it quickly, often wanting to continue reading the chapters to find out what would happen next. Frankel’s writing is engaging, and he does well creating a historical context as well as some deeply engaging and human characters based on the historical records, artifacts from the case, and even interviews with family members and relatives of those involved in these cases. Although there is some evidence that points to Balsiger’s involvement especially with Elizabeth Short, his connections with Leila Welsh seem more tenuous. Nevertheless, it is an interesting connection to examine. At times, Frankel’s reporting and contextualizing can go a little too far. There were a few times when I lost track, especially with the Short section, when there were many different individuals involved. The only other aspect of the book was the brutality of the murders. Both murders were incredibly violent and graphic, and Frankel’s writing goes into depth about the violence and brutality. I’m usually one who enjoys a good scare, but maybe because these events really happened, I found myself gasping at the descriptions of the victims’ murders. Regardless, this was a compelling read, and it made me want to read more about the Black Dahlia case, especially to see what kind of evidence might point to other suspects. While Frankel makes an interesting case, I’d like to explore some other theories related to this case. Nevertheless, this is a really good book that I highly recommend.