The stories taking place in more current times include the tale of an online relationship gone horribly wrong; the Facebookmoord (the Facebook Murder) where an online beef between two Dutch teens friends turns murderous; a 1980's tale of a young man who steals the Brinks' Security truck in which he was working, but is the most polite criminal you could imagine; a custody battle turned ugly when a beauty queen wants her gangster boyfriend to eliminate the ex-husband standing in her way; a custody battle in which an entire family comes together to murder those who oppose them; and finally, a case in India where a serial rapist who terrorized an entire impoverished community is finally brought to justice, and in the most brutal way.
Going back to the Victorian era through WW2, there is the tale of a politician's wife who murders the newspaper man who has steadily attacked her husband's career in his paper for months; one where a woman poisons an entire town with contaminated chocolates to avoid the suspicion that she poisoned her crush's wife; tales of abusive spouses who got there comeuppance; and some where jealousy simply drove them to murder, and much more.
Personally, I am typically a huge fan of true crime, but I didn't love this book. Until I sat down to write this review, I didn't realize that each story was written by a different person, which at least explains why I enjoyed some stories more than others. I just found it a bit of a drudge to get through, almost as if I was reading a textbook for a class assignment rather than for my personal enjoyment. While I enjoyed some of the stories, others left me rather bored. Your mileage may vary, but most of the stories just got bogged down in so much minutiae that I just didn't really enjoy the ride.
