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The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases Audiobook
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(2.91) - 22 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
Thrilling, true tales from the Vidocq Society, a team of the world’s finest forensic investigators whose monthly gourmet lunches lead to justice in ice-cold murders.
Good friends and sometime rivals William Fleisher, Frank Bender, and Richard Walter—a renowned FBI agent turned private eye, a sculptor lothario who speaks to the dead, and an eccentric profiler known as “the living Sherlock Holmes”—were heartsick over the growing tide of unsolved murders of innocents. They decided one day over lunch that something had to be done, and pledged themselves to a grand quest for justice. The three men invited the greatest collection of forensic investigators ever assembled, drawn from five continents, to the Downtown Club in Philadelphia to begin an audacious quest: to bring the coldest killers in the world to an accounting. Named for the first modern detective, the Parisian Eugène François Vidocq—the flamboyant Napoleonic real-life sleuth who inspired Sherlock Holmes—the Vidocq Society meets monthly in its secretive chambers to solve a cold murder over a gourmet lunch.
The Murder Room draws the listener into a chilling, darkly humorous, awe-inspiring world as the three partners travel far from their Victorian dining room to hunt the ruthless killers of a millionaire’s son, a serial killer who carves off faces, and a child killer enjoying fifty years of freedom and dark fantasy.
Michael Capuzzo’s brilliant storytelling gifts bring true crime to life more realistically and vividly than it has ever been portrayed before. It is a world of dazzlingly bright forensic science; true evil as old as the Bible and dark as the pages of Dostoevsky; and a group of flawed, passionate men and women, inspired by their own wounded hearts to make a stand for truth, goodness, and justice in a world gone mad.
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"I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a bit choppy at the beginning, but the various threads were pulled together as I read on. This book did a good job of giving the story of the three main founders of the Vidocq Society as well as portraying some of the cases they consulted on. "
— Lauren (4 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“The Murder Room is a gripping page-turner, masterfully drawn and full of truth, dedication, and darkness.”
— Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author -
“Terrifying, engrossing, inspirational, and surprisingly funny.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Novelists know to be wary of those slices of reality that are just too outlandish to be transformed into the stuff of fiction. In the superb and tantalizing The Murder Room, Michael Capuzzo dares readers to believe the can-they-really-be-true stories of the heartbreaking cold cases that have been investigated by the forensic dream team that is the legendary Vidocq Society. The once forgotten crimes are horrendous, each bigger-than-life detective more outrageous than the next, and the circuitous paths they take to find long-delayed justice are impossible to forget.”
— Stephen White, New York Times bestselling author -
“Treats murder and the investigation of it as not just a science but an art—strange, full of wonder, terrifying, and exhilarating. It is also an odyssey of true crime that lends true grace to the genre.”
— Jeff Leen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Kings of Cocaine and The Queen of the Ring -
“With impressive access and a powerful narrative presence, Michael Capuzzo delivers an intimate portrait of the greatest crime fighters of our time. The Murder Room is as addictive as the most inventive of thriller novels, but let us not forget that these are true stories; the monsters in this book are real, and so are the dedicated men who hunt them.”
— Jason Kersten, author of The Art of Making Money and Journal of the Dead
Awards
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A New York Times bestseller
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Selected for the August 2010 Indie Next List
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
The Murder Room Listener Reviews
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" If you like non-fiction crime, this should interest you. It does jump from case to case, and you need to be prepared for lots of description of psychopaths. I found it interesting to see how experts have developed profiling skills and knowledge. "
— Smudge, 5/22/2011 -
" If there were more people like this there would be fewer killers out there. A look into what it takes to crack cold cases. "
— Nate, 5/17/2011 -
" I wish this book had focused more on the Society and less on the three founders. I was expecting a wider range of cases and experiences. "
— Ann, 5/14/2011 -
" Totally fascinating! All the more so because the book is NON-fiction. I couldn't put it down. Very interesting look at real life detectives and the cold cases they solved.<br/> "
— Peg, 5/4/2011 -
" This could have been so much better. The fascinating subject was wasted by a disjointed timeline and essentially bad writing. The timeline skips around so much I routinely had to go back to figure out if I missed sections. "
— Alli, 4/29/2011 -
" Addictive in the way that bad Criminal Minds episodes are addictive. I would rather read the true crime stories of these murders (like the Boy in the Box). While his enthusiasm for the Society is clear, the writing is just baad. Weird structure, poor editing and a little overblown. "
— Ding, 4/22/2011 -
" It started out fascinating and then became repetitive. "
— Kathy, 3/28/2011 -
" Fascinating content, bombastic writing style, poorly organized, no index. "
— Kirsti, 3/27/2011 -
" The individual pieces were interesting, but I found the book as a whole to be both disjointed and repetitive, which made it harder to sense an overall narrative. It felt like the author couldn't quite decide what was his main focus. "
— Ellen, 3/19/2011 -
" I don't really know how it's possible to write a bad book on such a nonboring subject, but...apparently it is. Sloppy, overwrought, and just not very good. "
— Loren, 3/10/2011
About Michael Capuzzo
Michael Capuzzo is the author of the New York Times bestseller Close to Shore and a former feature writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Miami Herald. His stories have appeared in Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and Life. He has been nominated four times for the Pulitzer Prize and was a National Magazine Award finalist. He lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
About Adam Grupper
Adam Grupper, award-winning narrator, has garnered honors from AudioFile magazine, Publishers Weekly, iTunes, the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences, and the Audio Publishers Association. He has been in eleven Broadway productions, including the acclaimed revival of Fiddler on the Roof. His film and television credits include The Rebound, Homeland, Master of None, Music and Lyrics, Two Weeks Notice, Elementary, and Allegiance.