Jack Huddleston

This is mostly pictures, so it took very little time to 'read'. The text explaining the context and meaning behind the photos is well put together, even if it is a little dated.

Crime scene photos have always fascinated me. I need the story behind them. I want to know how the person lived and understand how they died.

One of the most heartbreaking photos in the book is of a 74-year-old man who lost his wife to a random rape/homicide. The detective explains the basic story and the follow up with a bit of obvious anger. I did some quick math and realized that the two were born right after the civil war ended; when California was barely settled. The things they'd seen and done through their lives must have been amazing. Then, at the end, their lives are shattered with criminal violence and horror.

And here I am, so many years later, wishing that it hadn't happened to them. It's powerful.

There are a lot of pictures of suicide. Not a good way to die.

Those black and white photos have a profound effect. The victims in them demand justice. They don't always get it.

This is not a book for anyone who is squeamish, obviously. It is also not for anyone who is unable to compartmentalize language and era: You will not understand the detective's writing and you will hate him undeservedly.… (mere)

Throughout his career, LAPD detective Jack Huddleston collected a scrapbook of some of the strangest, most macabre imagery to be found in print. The book itself is a distressing and fascinating look into the past made all the more harrowing by the fact that "things" just haven't gotten a whole lot better when it comes to man's mistreatment of his fellows and his ability to get himself into all manner of dangerous trouble. Worse, though - you'll most likely want a shower after looking through these images with their scrawled, crass commentary (in Huddleston's very handwriting, presumably). If he hadn't have been a cop, Huddleston may have become a world-class sadist. Maybe he was both.… (mere)