Read-Handed: LCN, DNA, and the OC

American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate (Eric Lichtblau) // The 2018 murder of Blaze Bernstein is Lichtblau’s entrance point into a catalog of the rise of violent white supremacists, in the OC and around the country, over the last decade. This is not an easy listen; it took me most of this calendar year to finish it, thanks to the loathsome attitudes and actions Lichtblau catalogs, but narrator Gary Tiedemann is excellent, infusing his tone with just enough weariness and disgust.

Chapters that will stick with me include the braiding of January 6 into the narrative, which could have felt gratuitous or disingenuous, but is carefully tied in and therefore perfectly relevant; and the story of an Asian family subjected to a harassment campaign by shithead tweens during covid lockdown. When that family’s patriarch, despairing of help from law enforcement, decided to go the public-shaming route instead by posting security video of a few of the racist brats trespassing, the mother of one of them doubled down, calling the video defamatory and whining that the evidence of her son’s antisocial behavior (read: “the morally indifferent parenting he had received”) constituted harassment. Every bully a ref-working coward, every single one. Revolting. 

A compelling read that I recommend, but see above re: the caveat that it’s infuriating and absolutely not a bedtime listen.

James L. Swanson passed away last year. Apologies for only now getting around to a quick remembrance of Swanson, a lawyer and Reagan-DOJ “grad” who kindly sat for an interview with me about his last book, The Deerfield Massacre, in early 2024. 

Swanson’s prose is, well, lawyerly – i.e., once you realize it’s an attorney writing, its occasionally plodding quality comes across as thorough care – but I quite liked Bloody Crimes, and while I found the TV adaptation of Manhunt exhausting, that’s not on Swanson.

And Selwyn Raab, the dean of NYC LCN writing, had passed not two months prior. I’ve gift-linked Raab’s NYT obituary here. For many years, Raab also served as my go-to “he’d go to the opening of an envelope” reference, for the sort of genre interviewee who is literally in every single docuseries on his chosen sub-topic (see also: Beth Karas) – but 1) there’s nothing wrong with that, really and 2) it understates Raab’s genre contributions. 

Raab’s hall-of-fame LCN doorstop, Five Families, didn’t come out until Raab was 70 years old; prior to that, he’d served as the inspiration for Kojak, and dug into the wrongful convictions of Ruben Carter and George Whitmore Jr. (the latter was (wrongly) serving time for the so-called career-girls murders; a TV movie about the fight to free him served as the Kojak pilot. TIL!).

Raab’s writing isn’t sugarcoated in Clyde Haberman’s obit – “tended to stray from elegance” is a stiletto of a line – but his “Joe Friday-style just-the-facts-ma’am approach” finds a defender in Bryan Burrough, which is good enough for most.

(Exhibit B. doesn’t have a ton in stock for either author – Raab in particular tends to go out only days after it’s processed – but there is a sale until 9.20.26 on New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania titles if you’d like to have a look at other organized-crime materials. And if you try my new recommendations-concierge service, you’ll get a $10 gift card!)

No Return (William Finnegan for The New Yorker) // The “alpine divorce” longread everyone was talking about this past summer – in part, no doubt, because hikes and boating outings from which only one romantic partner returns have become a shorthand for genre consumers. (I can’t tell you how many apologies to my spouse for something or other have ended with a rueful “now about that dinghy you rented…”) 

Finnegan’s prose is a little winkier than you’re maybe used to from a TNY criminal-justice piece (calling Kitzbühel “a sort of oom-pah Aspen”), but you’ll acclimate quickly.

A couple of hours after dark, a climber descending past the Stüdlgrat saw lights on the ridge and heard voices. He shouted but got no reply. Concerned, he called the Alpine Police, who dispatched a rescue helicopter from Salzburg. The helicopter reached the Stüdlgrat shortly after 10:40 p.m. It hovered, rocking in the wind, above the two figures on the exposed ridge. It made six separate passes, looking for the universal distress signal: two arms held up in a V. The climbers never even looked up. This was strange. [The accused, Thomas] Plamberger said that he did not react to the helicopter because they were not in a state of emergency. But there is also an arm signal for needing no help, which tells rescuers that, if they’re looking for a party in trouble, they should look elsewhere on the mountain. Instead, Thomas and Kerstin [Gurtner] started moving again. My guess is that Thomas was furious. He was proud of his climbing, fiercely proud. He had, to our knowledge, never been rescued in his life.

L.A. Woman Makes Shocking Discovery: My Grandfather Was Charles Manson (Exclusive) (Stacy Lambe for People) // “After her father learned he was the son of the murder cult leader, Sophia Maddox went on a quest to find out what it means to be related to an infamous criminal.” Maddox pere dropped the genealogical info bomb on Maddox when she got covid, which is an odd detail; once her horror had receded somewhat, she teamed up with Alexandra Orton (ReMastered) to make a documentary about her emotional journey into her new family tree. 

The doc, My Grandfather Charles Manson, dropped on Hulu back in July. I don’t remember hearing anything about it at the time (it’s…been that kind of year) but I’ve added it to my TBW.