Synopses & Reviews
Thrilling, true crime tales from the Vidocq Society — a team of the world's finest forensic investigators whose monthly lunches lead to justice in ice-cold murders.
Three of the greatest detectives in the world were heartsick over the growing tide of unsolved murders. Good friends and sometime rivals William Fleisher, Frank Bender, and Richard Walter decided one day over lunch that something had to be done, and pledged themselves to a grand quest for justice.
The Murder Room draws the reader into a chilling, darkly humorous, awe-inspiring world as the three partners travel far from their Victorian dining room to hunt ruthless killers, among them the grisly murderer of a millionaire's son, a serial killer who carves off faces, and a child killer enjoying fifty years of freedom and dark fantasy.
Acclaimed bestselling author Michael Capuzzo brings true crime realistically and vividly to life in this account of a group of passionate men and women, inspired by their own wounded hearts to make a stand for truth, goodness, and justice in a world gone mad.
Review
"The Murder Room is a gripping page-turner, masterfully drawn and full of truth, dedication, and darkness." Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of Nine Dragons
Review
"At once terrifying and satisfying." Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"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
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"Some of the most exciting detective work I've ever read." John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted
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"The Murder Room is flat-out fantastic. Even better than Close to Shore, which is one of my all-time favorites. Capuzzo's new book 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, Washington Post Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Kings of Cocaine and The Queen of the Ring
Review
"Murder-mystery fans would kill for entry to the Vidocq Society, the Philadelphia-based crime-probing organization Michael Capuzzo describes in The Murder Room. Imagine the thrill of being in the same room with some of the world's most resourceful detectives, coroners, profilers, polygraph experts and forensic artists when they're presented details of a particularly perplexing homicide and challenged to put their formidable minds to solving it. If there's not a movie in the works about this charmed circle of cold-casers, someone is missing the boat." Bookpage
Review
"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
About the Author
Michael Capuzzo is the author of the New York Times bestseller Close to Shore and a former award-winning writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald. His stories have appeared in Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Life, and Reader's Digest. He lives in the Pennsylvania mountains.