It began with an addiction to Nancy Drew books, recalling that my parents saw the light shining under my bedroom door hours past my bedtime in elementary school. I came by the addiction honestly. Every night my father read Earl Stanley Gardner, Dashielle Hammett, and the like and kept a library of mystery and thriller paperbacks. By the fourth grade I had graduated from Nancy Drew to my father's collection.
Eventually, when it came time to start a career, the prospect of writing for a living didn't seem very practical.
I landed a demanding position that quickly evolved into being an editor of five business reference publications. On top of that had I married a man with five school-age children. I already had one child from my first marriage and then one with the new husband. It was a very substantial amount of work. It might have seemed that the dream of becoming a writer had been crushed by my responsibilities to my job, family, and education except that when the work day was done and face-time with the kids was complete, my husband and I indulged in our own form of enjoyment -- we wrote stories, screenplays, and books.
As we looked at new ideas for books, I remembered hearing about a terrifying unsolved murder case from the s in my city.
There were thirteen official victims, almost of all of whom were killed by expert decapitation. How truly bizarre is that? At that time the famous Eliot Ness from the Capone era was head of the police and fire department in Cleveland. Ness's inability to solve the notorious case seriously tarnished his reputation.
I became obsessed with the case and dragged my reluctant husband into our private investigation. Quite reasonably, he argued that it was unlikely that in the s we could ever find the identity of the killer when it had been a top priority of Ness and the resources of a big city police force. But we did it! It took several years and a huge amount of our time.
Our reward was death threats, surveillance, the theft of our manuscript, and a shady lawyer who lied his way onto my office staff to spy on me. Why all this drama four decades later? The answer was that we had inadvertently stepped on an old, buried political land mine. Well, this story had a happy ending even though it took a very long time to happen.
In early , I finally published The American Sweeney Todd, the nickname the serial killer gave to himself. I got to know this brilliant man with an extraordinary sense of humor quite well from the mountain of records and documents that I had collected for many years and interviews with his family, colleagues, neighbors, the detectives who followed him, and people close to Eliot Ness.
With this intimate knowledge I created the journals of this unusual man whose decades of exhausting work lifted him from abject poverty to a surgeon with great promise but who fell prey to his inner demons and lost it all. For more information and videos, go to MarilynJBardsley.
Bardsley is the CEO of Crimescape. Crimescape is a collection of compelling full length novels in ebook and print editions and nonfiction crime ebooks by the best true crime authors in the business. Crimescape short nonfiction ebooks are designed to give the reader all the information needed to understand everything relevant to the story.
One thing that differentiates Crimescape books from other true crime books is that our authors are selected for their experience in crime investigation, whether as a police detective, investigative reporter, forensics professional or criminal psychologist. Crimescape authors are good storytellers. Follow the expanding list of true crime fiction and true crime ebooks and paperbacks at http: Bardsley's bestselling book, After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, is in paperback and well as e-book formats.
Learn more at http: Bardsley is the former executive editor and founder of Time Warner's Crime Library, the premier true crime site on the Internet. Marilyn has written extensively on true crime and is an expert on serial killers. Her feature story on the Atlanta child murders, co-authored with Rachael Bell, was required reading for the police task force investigating the Green River serial murder case.
Before starting the Crime Library, Marilyn J. Bardsley was a telecommunications marketing executive for several multibillion-dollar companies, including British Telecom North America and MCI. Bruno is currently serving as executive producer for this film. He acted as consultant to the producers and wrote key scenes.
Taking readers into the dark minds of criminals and the tense hunt to bring perpetrators to justice, Crimescape authors stand apart from other true crime writers because they have personal experience in crime investigations, whether as police detectives, investigative reporters, forensics professionals or criminal psychologists.
Interesting characters, an engrossing plot, situations that often teeter between life and death. Sometimes truth really is more compelling than fiction. Published first published December 15th To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Roppongi Stalker , please sign up. Lists with This Book.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Mar 25, Mandy Tanksley rated it it was ok Shelves: The story of the Roppongi killer is an interesting case study.
Editorial Reviews. Review. "Anthony Bruno's The Roppongi Stalker takes you deep into the strange culture of Japan's sex and entertainment industry, where a . The Roppongi Stalker (Crimescape Book 12) by Anthony Bruno, Marilyn and Cal Callahan True Crime Thriller (Crimescape Book 21) by Marilyn J. Bardsley.
This book reads more like a student's research paper than an actual book which doesn't help the story come to life nearly as well as it could have done. I would like to read more about this though. Jennieblakey rated it it was amazing Dec 29, Smith rated it liked it Aug 13, Teresa rated it really liked it Dec 17, Gsbtrainman rated it it was amazing Jan 08, Karen rated it it was amazing Jun 05, Gillian rated it liked it Sep 22, Jbwow rated it did not like it Jun 12, Ngo rated it liked it Dec 02, Walter Herrick rated it liked it Mar 04, Meghan McD rated it liked it Nov 18, Luz De Jesus rated it it was ok Mar 24, Lori Weyrick rated it liked it Mar 16, Emma rated it really liked it Dec 23, Brandy rated it liked it Oct 02, Richard Swanson rated it it was ok Jan 09, Beke rated it did not like it May 16, Elise Burns rated it really liked it Dec 25,