THE MAN FROM THE TRAIN

Interest in true crime has to be at an all-time high right now, with the number of documentaries, podcasts, TV shows and books devoted to the topic too high to count.

One incredible book that shouldn’t get lost in today’s flood of true crime material is The Man From the Train: The Solving of A Century-old Serial Killer Mystery by Bill James with research assistance from his daughter, Rachel Mccarthy James.

The book centres around The Villisca Axe Murders of 1912, a case often described as the greatest unsolved crime in American history. I count at least seven podcasts with episodes on the Villisca murders. But James’ book goes way beyond that one horrific act — the gruesome murder of an entire family of six plus two young neighbour girls in the small town of Villisca, Iowa — to connect that crime to a series of axe murders that took place across the United States between 1898 and 1912.