Uncovering a Century-Old Mystery: The Search for America's Most Elusive Serial Killer, The Man from the Train

rl2000: I liked the humour in amongst the gruesome story. Brilliantly written, a very memorable book. Difficult to sleep whilst reading it though!

United Kingdom on Nov 17, 2023

Robin Lundenius: I havn't read much crue crime before but this one was really captivating and mind-opening! And it looks like they actually solved the crimes :D

Sweden on Apr 18, 2023

Bingereader: Ashley and I just finished our first round of themed reading where we pick a theme and read books from YA, Adult and Non-Fiction categories. Our theme if you can guess was serial killers. With that being said this book 'The Man from the Train' was definitely and interesting look on serial killer/killers in the late 1800's- early 1900's. This is a chunky monkey of a book so let me tell you the basics.

Between the years 1900-1912 there were a ton of murders by axe. Every era has their "thing". This is also the second non-fiction about serial killers that I read in the last few months and so I'll be comparing 'I'll Be Gone in the Dark' to 'The Man from the Train', not by writing style or length or even by similarity of murder, but by the way the press and police handled the murders.

The Man from the Train was never caught. That's why this book is a mystery. We have evidence that a lot of murders that took place during these 12 years had a lot of similarities. The main similarity is killing people with an axe. What is not always similar is which side of the axe was used to kill the victims. Now, during this 12 year period, newspapers at the time were talking about an axe...

United States on Aug 23, 2021

D. W. O'Dell: One of the biggest surprises of my life happened a few years ago when I searched on Amazon to see if Bill James had published a new book on baseball analysis and discovered that his most recent book was on high profile criminal cases, Popular Crimes. I bought it and was not disappointed, as James brought his extraordinary powers of analysis (he is frequently referred to as a statistician, but he will point out he has no formal training in statistics and is better described as an analyst) to historical cases such as Lizzie Borden, The Boston Strangler, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and other famous and not-so-famous crimes. As always with James, I not only learned a lot but also learned that a lot of what I thought was true was not.

James is back with a book that focuses on only one historical criminal case, The Man From the Train. This is the story of a serial killer who brutally killed probably over 100 people, yet the full extent of his activities remains clouded by the passage of the years. He makes Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy look like rank amateurs. The murders took place in the early years of the 20th century in rural areas, making the connection between the...

United States on Jan 28, 2021

James S. Mclean: A chilling tale of horror in years gone by by a man who researched it by old newspaper accounts, documents and with a fine analytical mind. The real-life application of Occam's Razor. You won't be abler to stop reading, and it's all true.

Canada on Jul 04, 2019

Anonyme: A thoroughly absorbing read, and I found the case laid out for the identity of the killer convincingly argued.

India on Jun 02, 2018

CNoftle: An excellent read, well researched and well written. Fascinating methodology in seeking out answers which led to rational and long-missed resolution as to who was responsible for so many horrific crimes.

Canada on Mar 22, 2018