A skillfully written, well-informed account of startling real-life crimes by family members.
This true-crime book links a North Carolina man’s violent, homicidal acts to his DNA.
Lukah Chang had a relatively quiet childhood. He and his little sister grew up in a Christian household, where their mother home-schooled them and they helped raise rabbits to sell. So what led this young man to murder Amyjane Brandhagen in a hotel in 2012 and nearly kill another woman a year later? Zacharias argues that a genetic defect may have ignited his brutal behavior. As she explains in this work, scientists have tied a marker, the MAOA gene, to violence. There’s a chance that Chang’s maternal grandfather, Gene Dale Lincoln, passed this gene down. In 1973, Lincoln murdered a woman and later attacked and abducted a 12-year-old Michigan girl, who narrowly escaped. Chang forged a similar path after joining the Marines and befriending a fellow soldier who showed him “enticements” (alcohol) that he seemingly bypassed in his youth. As Chang’s violent urges may have been latent, it was only a matter of time before rage surfaced—the emotion he “felt the most kinship with.” The author provides an extensive, engrossing background for this true account. She devotes pages to such striking developments as Lincoln stalking victims at a campground and Chang entering into a “loveless contract marriage.” There are also copious details about the investigation of Brandhagen’s murder, which involved a prolonged hunt for the culprit and a suspect list that kept growing without any arrests. Zacharias is an exceptional writer and turns her thorough research on genetics into lucid, absorbing chapters. But her argument that Chang’s propensity toward violence was hereditary, while intelligent, isn’t entirely convincing. For example, she notes his drinking and synthetic-marijuana abuse may have exacerbated “compromised DNA,” whereas some readers will speculate those addictions alone may have incited his ferocious acts. In addition, Chang, who’s in prison, and his parents declined to be interviewed for this work, so there may have been telling signs in his childhood or environmental factors that the author never learned about. Still, this book will unquestionably spark a healthy discourse on the titular gene.
A skillfully written, well-informed account of startling real-life crimes by family members.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64663-648-8
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Koehler Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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