John D Rockefeller (1839-1937)

Nelson Rockefeller (1908-1979)

Keep Calm

Happy February

A Slaying In The Suburbs: The Tara Grant Murder by Steve Miller and Andrea Billups

Paperback with excerpts from the Foreword:  The taking of a life prematurely is a painful and final gesture with widespread effects.

And yet people continue to commit murders, including the case of a suburban husband with no criminal history who, one cold winter night, strangled his attractive wife, chopping her body into fourteen pieces and burying it haphazardly in a snowy forest in a macabre act of deception.

The murder of Tara Grant drew some of the most intense public interest in Michigan history and the 2007 case will not soon be forgotten.

The Grant story is a gripping dark tale of loss and one in which there are no winners.

Everyone thought the Grant family was living the American dream.

Everyone was wrong.

That it occurred in an upscale town, in a nice home, in a seemingly loving and happy family, taking frequent vacations and hosting parties for their children - the truth of what went on behind closed doors we will never know - shakes observers to the core.

With Tara's every step up the corporate ladder, Stephen grew more resentful of her success in comparison to his own stay-at-home role and both husband and wife lashed out.

Their children were all that held them together until the night Stephen snapped, strangled and dismembered his wife, then disposed of her body, piece by piece, in the very park his children played in.

The victims continue to accumulate:  Tara's family and friends, who lost her love, support and companionship;  Stephen's relatives, who must bear the shame of a son and brother who will forever be known as one of the state's most brutal killers.  His father, Al Grant, committed suicide less than six months after his son's conviction.  Stephen's friends, shocked that their pal could suffer such a bizarre break from reality, were affected as well.

Most heartbreaking, two children have lost both parents, one to murder and one to prison, and must grow up with the knowledge that their father killed their mother, an act that will be difficult for family to explain and for them to ever understand.

A Slaying in the Suburbs (2009) is a frank and heartbreaking portrayal of murder, a dysfunctional marriage, the actions that destroyed a family and its painful legacy.

Stephen Grant was found guilty on count one of the charge of murder in the second degree in the same year he took his wife's life.  On count two, mutilation of a corpse, he received six to ten years.  The sentences, per Michigan law, would run concurrently.  In 2008, he was sentenced to a minimum of fifty years in prison (Bellamy Creek Correctional Center in Ionia, Michigan).  In 2010, Stephen lost his final appeal in state court, leaving intact the original sentence of fifty to eighty years.  Stephen would be eighty-eight in the year 2058 before he could apply for parole.

About the authors:  Steve Miller has been a reporter for the Dallas Morning News and the Washington Times.  He has also worked as a correspondent for People magazine and US News and World Report.  He lives in Lansing, Michigan.

Andrea Billups is a Midwest-based national reporter for the Washington Times.  She has worked as a staff correspondent at People magazine and reported for a number of national publications including Reader's Digest and Money magazine.

F Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

If You Can Get So That You Can Give That To People

Deliver Us (True Crime) by Kathryn Casey

Paperback:  "Deliver us from evil."

Deliver Us (2015) is a journalistic account of the murders of young women around the I-45 corridor that runs south from Houston into Galveston between 1970 and 2000, an area loosely dubbed by the press as the I-45/Texas Killing Fields.  Three decades of loss and redemption all center on a fifty-mile section of Interstate 45.  

The events recounted in this book are true.  The personalities, events, actions and conversations in this book have been constructed using court documents including trial transcripts, extensive interviews, letters, personal papers, research and press accounts.  Quoted testimony has been taken from court transcripts and other sworn statements.  

Kathryn Casey wrote in the Prologue, "As I began writing this book, my goal was  simple:  to tell not all but some of the victims' stories along with those of the people who toiled to bring their killers to justice.  I hoped to share the trials of the families, those who never overcame their grief and others who used it to build a better world.  For even in the deepest despair, there were those who found inspiration and redemption.  At the same time, I wanted to give a voice to those suspected of the crimes, for they, too, had important stories to tell."  

"This book is divided into three sections organized by decades:  the seventies, eighties and nineties.  For the most part, the first two, the seventies and eighties, are organized chronologically.  In contrast, the nineties unfold in two distinct parts.  The first set of chapters explores the 1996 murder of Krystal Jean Baker, the investigation into her death and the trial of her killer.  The final chapters examine one of the Gulf Coast's most infamous case, the 1997 abduction and killing of little Laura Kate Smither."  

The victims were strangled, shot or savagely beaten.  Six met their demise in pairs.  They had one thing in common:  being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Suzanne Bowers, 12, left her grandparents' Galveston house on 21 May 1977, intending to walk home and get a swimsuit.  She never arrived.

Heide Villareal Fye, 25, waitress and bartender, left her parents' house to hitchhike to see her boyfriend on 7 October 1983.

Jessica Cain, 17, left a cast party after appearing in a play on 17 August 1997.

In this harrowing true crime expedition, award-winning journalist Kathryn Casey tracks these tragic cases, investigates the evidence, interviews the suspects and pulls back the cloak of secrecy in search of elusive answers.  

"The young girls in the newspaper pictures troubled me, seemed to ask for help, wanting their stories to be told...  I had to do something because the victims were real, they mattered and they deserved not to be forgotten...  In the end, if nothing else, I hope this book serves as light into the darkness."

About the author:  Kathryn Casey is an award-winning journalist who has written for Rolling Stone, TV Guide, Reader's Digest, Texas Monthly and many other publications.  She's the author of seven previous true crime books and the creator of the highly acclaimed Sarah Armstrong mystery series.  Casey has appeared on Oprah, Oprah Winfrey's Oxygen network, Biography, Nancy Grace, E! network, truTV, Investigation Discovery, the Travel Channel and A&E.  She lives in Houston with her husband and their dog, Nelson.  For more information, visit her website.

Solitude and Quiet

That Could Be Me

The Prince of Paradise: The True Story of a Hotel Heir, His Seductive Wife and A Ruthless Murder by John Glatt

Paperback:  The Prince of Paradise (2013) examines a startling case of greed and violence set against the backdrop of one of America's most iconic hotels.  It is also about a multi-millionaire Florida businessman, tawdry secrets and a family murder mystery.

In its glittering heyday, the Fontainebleau was the gold standard in luxury hotel grace and sophistication.  With its sweeping Art Deco design, antique French décor and furniture, the landmark hotel put Miami Beach on the map in the 1950s and '60s.

Built by the legendary hotelier Ben Novack Sr, the Fontainebleau laid the groundwork for today's Las Vegas.  Indeed, casino mogul Steve Wynn often stayed there as a boy, learning valuable lessons for his future dream palaces.

For almost two decades Ben Novack Sr and his ex-model wife, Bernice, reigned over Miami Beach.  Always larger than life, they entertained presidents, heads of state and movie stars at their dazzling Miami palace.

World-class entertainers such as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lewis played the La Ronde Room, and iconic movies like The Bellboy, Goldfinger, Scarface as well as an episode of The Sopranos were filmed there.

In January 1956, Ben Novack Jr was born and became the Prince of the Fontainebleau.  Known to one and all as "Benji," he grew up in his father's seventeenth-floor luxury penthouse with room service at his beck and call.  The little prince may have been spoiled and petted by the likes of Sinatra and the Rat Pack but he received scant attention from his parents.

Naturally nervous, Benji grew up with a revolving door of nannies and housekeepers and developed a chronic stammer which would plague him for life.

When Miami Beach fell out of fashion in the 1970s, Ben Novack Sr went bankrupt, eventually losing his beloved Fontainebleau in 1977.  A few years later, he died a broken man.

Ben Jr then launched a convention-planning business and made millions, having absorbed considerable knowledge from his father.

In 1991, he fell in love with an Ecuadorian stripper named Narcisa Veliz or Narcy, as everyone knew her, embarking on a roller-coaster marriage that would ultimately claim his life more than a quarter of a century later.

It was ironic that Ben Novack Jr should die in a hotel room where the police found him bound up in duct tape, beaten to death.  Seven years earlier in 2002, police found Benji in an eerily similar situation when his ex-stripper wife Narcy duct-taped him to a chair for twenty-four hours and robbed him.  Claiming it was a sex game, he never pressed charges and never followed through with a divorce.

Prosecutors believed Narcy let the killers into the room and watched them brutalize Novack.  They also suspected she was involved in the death of Novack's mother, who took a fatal fall months before.  Strangely, it was Narcy's own daughter, May Abad, who implicated her to the police.

In April 2012, the final chapter in the long, strange story of the Fontainebleau Hotel was written in a federal courtroom in White Plains, New York.  In a stunning nine-week trial, Narcy Novack and her brother Cristobal stood accused of orchestrating the brutal murders of Ben Novack Jr and his eighty-six-year-old mother, Bernice.

It played out like classic film noir as the two siblings absolutely denied any involvement in the murders, claiming they were innocent pawns who had been framed by Narcy's daughter.

In recounting the story for his book, John Glatt used personal interviews, police records and trial transcripts to report the events leading up to the murders of Ben and his mother.  Regarding the alleged 2002 home invasion robbery, the author reviewed police records and interviewed participants but no charges were ever brought, Narcy denied any wrongdoing and evidence of the incident was excluded from the murder trial.

Novack's case has also been televised on several programs including My Dirty Little Secret (ID), 48 Hours, Dateline NBC, Snapped, True Crime with Aphrodite Jones and Beautiful & Twisted (Lifetime).

Narcy Novack and Cristobal Veliz were sentenced to spend the rest of their natural lives in prison for orchestrating the vile killings of Ben and Bernice Novack.

About the author:  John Glatt is the author of twenty-two books and has more than thirty years of experience as an investigative journalist in England and America.  He has appeared on television and radio programs all over the world including Dateline NBC, Fox News, A Current Affair, BBC World News and A&E Biography.  Visit him at www.johnglatt.com

Reading Great Literature

Amelia Earhart

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly

Hardback:  A bullet has taken ten years to find its mark.  Now Harry Bosch needs to find a killer before it's too late.

The Burning Room (2014) is the nineteenth book in the stupendous Detective Harry Bosch series set in Los Angeles.

In the Los Angeles Police Department's Open-Unsolved Unit, not many murder victims die a decade after the crime.

So when Orlando Merced finally succumbs to complications from being shot ten years earlier, Bosch catches a case in which the body is still fresh, but any other evidence is virtually nonexistent.

Partnered with Lucia Soto, a rookie detective who made her name in a violent liquor store shoot-out, Bosch begins to see political dimensions to the case - a case where, despite the seemingly impossible odds, failure to find the killer is simply not an option.

Not only does Soto soon reveal a burning obsession that could make her a loose cannon, the one piece of evidence they have on the Merced shooting also points in a shocking and unexpected direction that could unsettle the very people who want Bosch to close out the case.

It's looking like Orlando Merced may not be the investigation's only victim.

That includes Bosch himself.

About the author:  Michael Connelly, a former police reporter for the Los Angeles Times, is the author of more than a dozen acclaimed Harry Bosch thrillers and several courtroom dramas featuring Mickey Haller (the Lincoln Lawyer series), as well as standalone bestsellers such as The Poet (1996).

Michael Connelly is a former President of the Mystery Writers of America.  His books have been translated into thirty-one languages and have won numerous awards and have sold more than fifty-eight million copies worldwide.

He is the executive producer of the forthcoming series Bosch, starring Titus Welliver.  All ten episodes of the series will begin streaming on 13 February 2015 on Amazon Prime Instant Video in the USA and the UK.

He spends his time in Florida and California.

Rating:  6/5