The Last Days of Cleveland: And More True Tales of Crime and Disaster from Cleveland's Past - Softcover

Bellamy, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1598510673 ISBN 13: 9781598510676

Publisher: Gray & Company Publishers, 2010

Synopsis

"Heroes and rogues fill the pages of this book. The stories will hold your attention and chill you to the bone." -- Crime Shadow News

Cleveland's master of historical crime and disaster returns with 15 more true tales in this sixth volume of his popular series, including . . .

- West Park sisters Helen, 11, and Marguerite, 10, who died after eating Rough-on-Rats brand poison in their grandmother's basement-- victims of a genetic "suicide mania," or driven to death by the cruelest caretaker since Hansel and Gretel's stepmom?

- Joseph "Specs" Russell, who vaulted to fame in the summer of 1927 by staging as many as 52 stick-ups and making fools of Cleveland lawmen with his "impossible" escapes from their dragnets;

- Jeanette McAdams--just unlucky, or the Lucretia Borgia of Ashtabula County? After the suspiciously similar deaths of her five siblings, neighbors began to take note of the crowded family graveyard;

- Salty and ageless George Wallace, who served the city as a fireman for 62 years, 30 of them as chief, and endured to become the oldest fire chief in the world--with a mastery of incessant profanity that could be heard for four city blocks and made mule skinners blush;

And more true stories of courage, fear, deception, and villainy--including a disaster caused by the author himself!

Sometimes gruesome, often surprising, John Stark Bellamy's tales are meticulously researched and delivered in a literate and entertaining style.

About this title

Review:

Bellamy does not merely recount twice-told stories. He writes like newspapermen used to write before journalists were trained to write formulaic, AP-style abomination. He writes as if his supper depended on the evening's headline . . . When Bellamy sticks to the subject, he is unimpeachable. And it's not just his knowledge. More than anything it his enthusiasm and affection for his subjects (and their city) that makes Bellamy so compelling.-- (11/10/2010)

There are half a dozen murders, several suicides, a shipwreck and the story of a persistent Roaring Twenties holdup man whose prison career was as engrossing as his crime spree. As Bellamy's other books are replete with tragedy on an epic scale, these "tales of woe," a phrase he likes to use, seem somehow intimate. That is, if a beheading can be intimate. The bloodless stories are just as interesting-- (12/14/2010)

A must for fans of local crime and disaster stories. . . The stories are at times amusing, at other times heart-wrenching . . . and always engaging.-- (12/15/2010)

Heroes and rogues fill the pages of this book. The stories will hold your attention and chill you to the bone.-- (11/23/2010)

Even if you live in Cleveland, you don't know as much about this city--rich in culture and history--as John Stark Bellamy II . . . He exposes the darker side of Cleveland--its murderers and petty thieves--and a few of the Forest City's heroes (firemen and policemen, not politicians). He has made a career of chronicling Cleveland's rowdy and sometimes funny past.-- (11/26/2010)

About the Author:

John Stark Bellamy II is the author of six books and two anthologies about Cleveland crime and disaster. The former history specialist for the Cuyahoga County Public Library, he comes by his taste for the sensational honestly, having grown up reading stories about Cleveland crime and disaster written by his grandfather, Paul, who was editor of the Plain Dealer, and his father, Peter, who wrote for the Cleveland News and the Plain Dealer.

About this edition

• Publisher: Gray & Company Publishers
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1598510673
• ISBN 13: 9781598510676
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 254