The Midnight Assassin: panic, scandal, and the hunt for America's first serial killer by Skip Hollandsworth (2015)

For our next depressing read, The Debbie Downer Book Club selected The Midnight Assassin by Skip Hollandsworth (2015) a rare (for us) brand new hardcover selection.

But how could we resist? This well-researched look into the series of brutal murders of Austin women in the 1880s was both sad, local, and involved historical research -- as a group of archivists / librarians / information professionals in the Austin area, we were in!

The murderer, who killed women in Austin between 1884 and 1885, has been alternately known as The Midnight Assassin and the Servant Girl Annihilator. He (or they?) killed seven women (five black and two white) and injured six other women and two men. The crimes were brutal, bloody, and violent, often committed with an axe or by sticking a sharp narrow object into the ear. Women were attacked in their homes late at night, often in the small cottages where servants lived in the backyards of their employers. As the murders continued and eventually affected white women in the town, Austin became increasingly frantic, with people buying guns and early home alarm systems to protect their families. The police were hampered by ineffective forensic techniques and the pretty intense racism that led them to haul in any black man who looked like trouble and then try to beat a confession out of him (sound familiar?). When two white women were killed on the same night, a political scandal opened up and shined a light on the dark side of upper-class Austin life. Newspapers around the country focused in on the wild happenings in this small Texas town, and the mayor and city boosters tried to deflect attention away from the crimes and towards the growth and business opportunities the city afforded. Eventually the murders just stopped. Some contemporary journalists drew a connection to the string of violent murders of prostitutes in London by Jack the Ripper, and detectives there even spent some time tracking down Americans in the area (including some Native Americans who were left behind during a wild west show) in case they might be a link between the two cases. The city of Austin installed the Moonlight Towers (many of which are still in use today) as a way to light up the night and, potentially, prevent this kind of crime from happening again.

Hollandsworth gives us a nicely researched and journalistic look into the time of the murders, pulling out details from the history of Austin that give depth and context to the reactions of the town at the time. His descriptions of the murders themselves, supported by his research in newspapers and police files, are brutal and effective, and bring the terror the town must have felt back then to life for the reader. While there is a general consensus on who the murderer was (hint: not Jack the Ripper), Hollandsworth doesn't come to any conclusions on that front, and just presents the theories and evidence as they were collected and presented to the public.

I really enjoyed this book, and if you have lived in Austin, like true crime, are interested in history, or just enjoy a good read, I think you will like it too. And now on to the next sad selection!

[A great source for pictures and more detail on the people and places involved in the murders, check out this site.]

Under the Paw: Confessions of a Cat Man by Tom Cox (2008)

I first discovered Tom Cox through his truly excellent My Sad Cat Twitter account, and later discovered that his other accounts, including the one under his own name, are equally charming. After quite some time of freely enjoying his writing and his cats, I decided to throw a little money down on his first cat book,Under the Paw: Confessions of a Cat Man (2008).

Now, it is no secret that I love cats. Lovelovelove cats. I always have. Cats have been my "thing" since I was a little kid, and if you spend more than half an hour with me, you will probably hear some adorable story about the amazing Fern and Loretta. Even with all that, though, I've never really gotten into people writing about cats. The cute cat in the bookstore that teaches you lessons about how to live your life, the adorable kittens that bring a broken family back together, the everyday cat minutia that I love going over for my own cats -- none of these things have ever appealed to me in book form. (Internet cat videos, on the other hand, are great).

But this book is about as far from a traditional "cat book" as you can get. First of all, Tom Cox is a man. He's also a former music critic and a great writer. While the book follows the journey of him, his girlfriend, and their many cats, it also covers issues like: buying a first house, dealing with eccentric parents, London vs. the countryside, getting along with your neighbors, earning a living, real estate nightmares, and just keeping on keeping on. And it's great! Cox has a natural writing style and a keen sense of humor, particularly in cat-related anecdotes. After seeing so many pictures of The Bear, Ralph, and the rest of the gang on Twitter, it was wonderful to hear more about where they came from and how their personalities evolved.

I could do without most of the jokey little listy interstitial chapters (which almost seem stuck in to gratify the traditional "cat book" crowd), but they aren't a deal breaker. If you like cats, are in your late 30s/early 40s, or just enjoy good writing, this is a good one to check out. Men who love cats should particularly pick this one up. I'm adding the sequels to my "to read" list for sure!

The Puma Blues: The Complete Saga in One Volume by Stephen Murphy and Michael Zulli [1986-1989] (2015)

Guys, in case you couldn't tell, I'm a fan of book clubs. So much so that I've joined another one. The Four Color Fabulous Book Club was organized by my friend Joe so that we could all read cool graphic novels and then talk about them at a bar. I'm in!

Our first selection is The Puma Blues: The Complete Saga in One Volume by Stephen Murphy and Michael Zulli (2015), a comic that was originally published in the late 80s, but brought together for the first time with some supplementary material and a newly written final chapter that brings us up to the present.

The most obvious (but probably not the most important) quality of this book is that it is FREAKING HEAVY. Do not bring this to read on a plane and if you are moving house, wait to buy a copy until you are settled in your new place. I'd say that is an argument for buying the electronic copy, but this is also a damn nice book, so just do as you see fit.

Murphy gives us a prescient narrative that is simultaneously mind-expanding and a little claustrophobic. The comic starts in the year 2000 (which would have been about fifteen years in the future when it was first published). The U.S. experienced a devastating act of domestic terrorism in 1995 when a nuclear weapon was set off in the Bronx. The environment is also going haywire and U.S. Agent Gavia Immer (our hero) is leading a solitary life in the woods tracking mutating animals (flying. manta. rays.) and measuring the ph levels of the water. He fills his time with video phone calls to his mom and some gut wrenching watching of old VHS movies his late father made that explore the existence of alien life forms. The amazing drawings by Zulli [do yourself a favor and check out a little Google Image search] perfectly match the (sometimes pretty abstract) tone of the writing, and his drawings of animals and the natural world are some of the best I've ever seen. The scenes from nature give the sometimes pretty dense narrative the room it needs to take effect, and also give the reader a little time to breathe.

The story is often universal, but sprinkled throughout are pretty intimate-feeling vignettes of lost parents, sexual encounters, weird dreams, and unspoken thoughts. It has a very 80s feel in its politics, technology, philosophies, and sexy ladies, but since domestic terrorism and environmental collapse are still pretty relevant topics, there is plenty to chew on here. This is a weird and wonderful book and I'm so glad I fell into it. Plus my arms are super strong now from carrying it around.