A book that I began reading at the end of last year and completed this week was one of local and regional interest in the true crime genre of books. Courtesy of The History Press of Arcadia Publishing, our first review of 2020 delves into Unsolved Murders and Disappearances in Northeast Ohio by Jane Ann Turzillo.
(Jane Ann Turzillo wrote the book Unsolved Murders and Disappearances in Northeast Ohio).
Unsolved Murders and Disappearances in Northeast Ohio looked into eight unsolved murders and two disappearances. Seeing cases that I’ve never heard of, including setting the scene for potential motives and why they may or may not have been resolved is fascinating.
(The murder of Cleveland councilman William ‘Rarin’ Bill’ Potter was looked at in some detail, regarding both his political history and the murky details of his death in Unsolved Murders and Disappearances in Northeast Ohio).
The book itself gets into the murders of a chief engineer of a railroad, a pair of school teachers, a dairy farmer, a politician, a patrolman for a police department, a society matron, an unknown woman thought for a time to be a carnival worker, and finally a boy scout leading, Sunday School superintending father of four. Unsolved Murders and Disappearances in Northeast Ohio further gets into the separate disappearances of a toddler and a teenager set about walking somewhere and vanishing.
(The disappearance of four-year-old Melvin Horst of Orrville, with his red truck or wagon, was discussed in Unsolved Murders and Disappearances in Northeast Ohio).
There was intrigue, power, accusations of illicit dealing and infidelity, and further degrees of naughty behavior in the ten cases examined. The murder of Cleveland councilman William ‘Rarin’ Bill’ Potter along with the disappearance of four-year-old Melvin Horst of Orrville, two days after Christmas, perhaps were the most sensational. My rating of 4-stars on a scale of one-to-five for Unsolved Murders and Disappearances in Northeast Ohio has a something to do with the genre itself. I cannot compare this work with from a writing style or narrative perspective with much else that we have reviewed.
Matt – Saturday, January 4, 2020
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