Aficionados of old-school hardboileds like the Parker books by Richard Stark (one of Donald Westlake's many pseudonyms) will feel right at home when reading John Heidenry's account of a 1953 kidnapping and murder. The bad guys are unflinchingly unsympathetic. There's nothing to redeem Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Brown Heady: Both come from financially comfortable backgrounds, but due to weakness of vanity, pride, and greed, and bolstered by vicious alcoholism, both squandered their money and respectability. Hall hatched his plan for kidnapping and murdering the six-year-old son of a wealthy Kansas City car dealer while in prison for robbing taxi drivers, and he had no trouble convincing Heady, who'd been prostituting out of her suburban house to pay her shopping bills, to be his accomplice. Heidenry tells this horrifying story with straightforward earnestness and in unflinching detail, dragging more-than-willing readers through the sludge with every blunder and shameless turn Hall and Heady make. At the time, the case captured the attention of the American public, and in Heidenry's retelling readers will be drawn in again.

Documents the sobering account of the 1953 kidnapping and murder of a wealthy automobile dealer's son, describing how former inmate Carl Austin Hal and prostitute Bonnie Heady successfully collected a lucrative ransom that was subsequently stolen by mobster Joe Costello. 20,000 first printing.

Documents the sobering account of the 1953 kidnapping and murder of a wealthy automobile dealer's son, describing how former inmate Carl Austin Hal and prostitute Bonnie Heady successfully collected a lucrative ransom that was subsequently stolen by mobster Joe Costello. 20,000 first printing.