Rope: The Twisted Life and Crimes of Harvey Glatman

by Michael Newton

JOURNEY TO THE KILLING GROUND It was an age of innocence -- an era of carhops, poodle skirts, and hula hoops. It was also a time of terror. In 1958, a man named Harvey Glatman sped along the Santa Ana freeway out of L.A., headed to the desert with his "date" huddled in the passenger seat beside him. In his pockets Harvey had a gun and a length of rope. Drunk on power, arousal, and rage, Harvey also had a plan. And beneath the desert stars, by the light of the moon, he carried out his ordeal of unimaginable cruelty -- using his body, a camera, and his rope.... Months later, after one of his inhuman attacks went awry, Harvey's torture killings were described to a shocked and silent California courtroom. For decades, these infamous deeds would inspire television and movie plots. But until now, there has been no definitive account of the forces that drove one of America's most legendary serial killers. And never before has it been explained why, for Harvey Glatman, his crimes weren't about killing, raping, and torturing at all -- they were all about the rope.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

From Wikipedia:
"Michael Newton (born 1951) is an American author best known for his work on Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan series. Newton first began work on the Executioner series by co-writing "The Executioner's War Book" with Don Pendleton in 1977. Since then he has been a steady writer for the series with almost 90 entries to his credit, which triples the amount written by creator Don Pendleton. His skills and knowledge of the series have allowed him to be picked by the publishers to write the milestone novels such as #100, #200, and #300.

Writing under the pseudonym Lyle Brandt, Michael Newton has also become a popular writer of Western novels. He has written a number of successful non-fiction titles as well, including a book on genre writing (How to Write Action Adventure Novels). His book Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Florida won the Florida Historical Society's 2002 Rembert Patrick Award for Best Book in Florida History. Newton's "Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology" won the American Library Association's award for Outstanding Reference Work in 2006."

Pen names: Lyle Brandt, Don Pendleton, Jack Buchanan

Bibiliography available here.

Reviews

[♥ Marlene♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old review of mine:

Rope is the story of Harvey Glatman, a shy young man with few social skills, who raped and strangled women in California in the 1950s. It is a meticulous account of Glatman's life, from the paraphilia of his youth to the depravity of his adulthood. Michael Newton's telling of Glatman's story shows as much fastidiousness as the killer did in committing his crimes, with every detail painstakingly recounted: from what Glatman wore to what he ate to where he parked his car on the days of his crimes. The book also contains many disturbing posed photographs that Glatman, an amateur shutterbug, took of his bound victims before raping and murdering them.

I read this a few years back and I see that I decided back then I wanted to re read so I guess I did like it. I remember how shocked I was about the photo's in the book.(and I've read a lot of true crime books)
Maybe not the best writing but I liked the book. Interesting story.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I couldn't finish it. It's not bad for true crime, but once the story of the crimes is told, and then the story of how he's caught, and the fact that you know the outcome—then the author's concentrating on all of the testimony at the trial is, well, boring.

I guess it was necessary to tell the complete story, but I put it down once the medical examiner started giving testimony.

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gripping read, dragging only when they went in excruciating detail over the killer's confessions. It was easy to feel the pain of what the victims went through and it felt right as rain when the jury made its recommendation. Recommended.