{"id":20026,"date":"2020-01-07T16:25:04","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T16:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lelandhale.com\/butcherbaker\/wordpress\/?p=20026"},"modified":"2020-01-07T16:35:52","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T16:35:52","slug":"46-books-54-years-1-butcher-baker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lelandhale.com\/butcherbaker\/wordpress\/2020\/01\/07\/46-books-54-years-1-butcher-baker\/","title":{"rendered":"46 Books, 54 Years, 1 Butcher, Baker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">To be placed in the &#8220;top 46&#8221; of any list is an honor worth noting. To be on a list recognizing 46 landmark true-crime books going back fifty-plus years is truly humbling. Many thanks to Open Road Media for putting us here&#8230; And to the late, great Maj. Walter J. Gilmour for pushing us into this arena in the first place. In case you haven&#8217;t noticed, 2018-2019 was very good to yours truly. Finding this list was just the topper (even if I was six months late to the party). [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"FULL LIST HERE (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/the-line-up.com\/true-crime-books\" target=\"_blank\">FULL LIST HERE<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lelandhale.com\/butcherbaker\/images\/46-gripping-true-crime-54years.png\" alt=\"46\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Because a few of these works impressed me more than others &#8212; nobody writes in a vacuum &#8212; I share some of my top picks below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>I start with Truman Capote&#8217;s <em>In Cold Blood<\/em>. It boggles me to think I was still in high-school when it was published. I&#8217;ll venture that every contemporary true-crime author worth her salt has read this one. Multiple times. Capote creatively challenged the rules of crime writing, so that the novelist&#8217;s instincts can emerge while staying faithful to the truth this genre demands. It&#8217;s worth noting that this book served as a touchstone while I was editing <em>What Happened in Craig<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the Bugliosi book about the Manson murders? It&#8217;s an insider&#8217;s delight, just like <em>Butcher, Baker<\/em>. Yeah, I was influenced by this book, too. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lelandhale.com\/butcherbaker\/images\/46-gripping-capote-bugliosi.png\" alt=\"46\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As a Northwest author, I&#8217;d be remiss not to mention Ann Rule&#8217;s <em>The Stranger Beside Me<\/em>, which documents her very personal insights into Ted Bundy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lelandhale.com\/butcherbaker\/images\/46-ann-rule.png\" alt=\"46\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s with Ann Rule that my personal anecdotes begin. In the earliest days of <em>Butcher, Baker<\/em>, I decided to contact her and ask for advice. It was a cold call. She generously offered some great insights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>One, don&#8217;t use a lawyer to negotiate a book contract (she used a lawyer for <em>The Stranger Beside Me<\/em> and she regretted it). Instead, she advised, get a literary agent (we did). <\/li><li>Two, don&#8217;t bother sending a completed manuscript. Instead, write six full chapters and then provide a detailed outline of the remainder (we did). <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>And then she asked me what my book was about. I already knew she had a habit of reclaiming stories as her own. That was a battle I didn&#8217;t want to fight. I gave a vague answer about &#8220;working with a cop on something in Alaska.&#8221; That seemed to satisfy her. She never tried to poach our contribution to <em>The 46<\/em>. Thanks, Ann!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lelandhale.com\/butcherbaker\/images\/46-butcher-baker.png\" alt=\"46\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, that wasn&#8217;t my only encounter with the crazy, mixed up world of Ted Bundy. I lived in Seattle while he was active. The women of Seattle were afraid. Very afraid.  In truth, so was I. There seemed to be no stopping him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, a few years later, I worked in Olympia with a group of government folks who counted Ted Bundy among their former co-workers. Ted had only recently been arrested in Florida and all of them thought he was guilty as charged. Except one. That was Ted&#8217;s erstwhile girlfriend, who was in my carpool and, later on, gifted Ted with a son after a liaison in a Florida jail. You can&#8217;t make up this stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, you can, actually, But then it&#8217;s not true-crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n<hr>\n<p><em>Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Purchase <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Leland-E.-Hale\/e\/B005LEATVA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Butcher, Baker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Order my latest book, &#8220;<strong>What Happened In Craig<\/strong>,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1941890229?pf_rd_p=d1f45e03-8b73-4c9a-9beb-4819111bef9a&amp;pf_rd_r=7G8DPC5WNEGBWK8G6981\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>HERE<\/strong><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/what-happened-in-craig-leland-e-hale\/1129010868;jsessionid=BB32A736B72D9908645D42CAB43111BE.prodny_store01-atgap08?ean=9781941890226\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>HERE<\/strong><\/a>, true crime on Epicenter Press about <em>Alaska\u2019s Worst Unsolved Mass Murder.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lelandhale.com\/images\/WhatHappenedinCraig-crop.png\" alt=\"Craig\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To be placed in the &#8220;top 46&#8221; of any list is an honor worth noting. To be on a list&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,589,9,27,28,31,590],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anchorage-1970s","category-audible","category-butcher-baker","category-robert-hansen","category-serial-murder","category-true-crime","category-walter-gilmour"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>46 Books, 54 Years, 1 Butcher, Baker - Butcher Baker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There are lots of lists about all manner of things. There&#039;s one that lists 46 thrilling true crime books from the last 54 years. 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