FROM THE DUST JACKET:"Charmer is a wonderful book, so full of America that reading it makes me feel like driving my Chevy to the levee. It doesn't even matter that the subject is crime, violence, whatever. Mr. Olsen is a prose poet ... And he calls himself a journalist!"
In a writing career that has taken him from Time magazine to the prestigious Edgar Awards to The New York Times best-seller list, Jack Olsen has written over twenty-five books and earned international acclaim for his brilliant recounting of real-life crimes.
Now, Charmer brings together all of the Olsen trademarks that make him the Master of True Crime: a spellbinding case of murder and sex, a story with genuine sociological importance, and a richly textured narrative.
In a tree-lined community near Seattle, young women and girls were drawn to George Russell, Jr. They crowned him "cool," trusted him as their protector, and took him to their hearts. And why not? An articulate young African American, he was a cheerful companion, flashy dancer, and urban sophisticate. He had good looks, professional parents, rich friends, a beguiling style and smile. George was a local favorite.
Then bodies started turning up -- in a nightclub parking lot, in a quiet, out-of-the-way house, and in a tastefully decorated apartment. The victims, attractive young females, had been bludgeoned to death, violated sexually, then outrageously posed like gallery sculptures. Seasoned investigators were sickened by the cold brutality. A prosecutor described the bodies as "the killer's collected works of art."
No one suspected George Russell. He offered the police helpful clues and even put the finger on a pal. When frustrated detectives ran out of leads, they came close to giving up on the case.
In this riveting examination into the mind and life of a vicious killer and his deceptively charming persona, Jack Olsen tracks Russell's thirty-year psychological decline, which culminated in a shocking killing spree. But Charmer is more than the tragic story of a murderer and his victims. Written with a thriller's edge, it is a stirring portrait of race and crime in America today.
Read an interview with Jack about Charmer.
A REVIEW
By Fiona Webster, True Crime Editor, Amazon.com
Visit Fiona's WWW site: True Crime Is Ugly (but fun to read about)This is the story of George, an African-American who grew up in a Caucasian suburb of Seattle, where his unaffectionate mother and racial isolation led him to develop an effervescent personality in order to get along. He became a petty burglar and an accomplished liar--a wisecracking "smoothy" who pretended to be an undercover detective. George made lots of friends, especially within a subculture of giggly young white women who partied endlessly in upscale Seattle clubs during 1989-90. And he murdered three of them, bizarrely mutilating and "staging" their bodies. The drinks, dancing, and deejays--the group pad where George lived with an adoring coterie of feckless college kids--Olsen gives us the quirky details that make the murderer's well-hidden rage and misogyny all the more shocking. As The New York Times wrote, "Like fine cinema verité, [Charmer] mesmerizes us with the sense of watching real life, unaugmented, move before our eyes."
Copyright © Amazon.com, Inc. 1997