Swift Justice: Murder and Vengeance in a California Town - Hardcover

Farrell, Harry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312070861 ISBN 13: 9780312070861

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1992

Synopsis

Describes the kidnapping of the son of a San Jose, California, department store owner, and tells how a band of vigilantes stormed the town jail and hanged the kidnappers in the town square as ten thousand people watched

About this title

Review:

In 1933, a couple of losers kidnapped and killed the son of a department store owner in San Jose, California. Little did they know of the fury they would unleash. The men were captured, and then, just hours after the victim's body was found, a mob stormed the city jail and held "a necktie party" (lynching) in a nearby park. Harry Farrell is a superb writer who researched this case so thoroughly that he has the details to produce an unnerving degree of suspense. He provides ample maps, photos, and reproduced newspaper articles, making it all too easy to visualize the horrifying events. His interviews even include descriptions of the noise of the mob as heard from afar: "a kind of keening that stirred a primeval tingling on the back of my neck." And his account of the politics involved, including the governor's praise for the lynchers, is a shocking denouement to the story. Swift Justice won the 1993 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime.

About the Author:

Harry Farrell was fourty-four years a reporter, editor and columnist for the San Jose Mercury News. Now retired, he still lives in San Jose.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0312070861
• ISBN 13: 9780312070861
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320