by Glenn | Jan 10, 2012 | Writing
Review: “Bloodstains” Author: Jeff Mudgett
I received a copy of “Bloodstains” from a friend. My only knowledge of it was that the author was said to be the great-great-grandson of a man believed to have been Jack the Ripper.
As a former law enforcement officer my interest in the psychological makeup of serial killers and sociopaths was heightened by this book. I had read articles, books, watched movies and documentaries, and heard countless theories about the true “Jack.” Nothing seemed of a definitive nature to truly identify the infamous murderer and in all honesty, part of me doubted this writing would be any different. But, I remained open to all possibilities—and am glad I did. I wasn’t disappointed in the least.
In the prologue you are introduced to Herman Webster Mudgett, the great-great-grandfather. History knows him as Dr. H. H. Holmes, the infamous serial killer, yet calling him such does his pure evil little justice as you come to know him throughout the book. In the cover’s photo of Holmes’ eyes you sense he is devoid of emotion. It is the indifferent stare of a man who sets his own boundaries of humanity regardless of how degenerate they may be.
Within the first chapter you realize a dysfunctional chord runs throughout the Mudgett family. Bert, the grandfather, was a man who remained to himself: cold, hard, seemingly without love from his family, or displays of love to anyone. In life he was focused on his grandson, Jeff. Yet never was there outward affection a loving grandfather should have for a grandson. In death, he was only considered with disregard. Other family members have their problems as well, but it is Jeff’s introspection as an adult, his questions about lack of emotions, concerns about his lineage, his odd thoughts and such that becomes our focal point. And it is not until his father presents two boxes, items willed to Jeff by an uncaring grandfather that the true essence of the book begins to be revealed.
I now take absolute care in not writing any form of spoiler pertaining to “Bloodstains.” I state this because the story is well written, each page so masterfully woven with the next that I fear too much information could easily be divulged. But once the boxes were produced, my mind locked upon them, demanding to learn more.
The boxes contain two private journals of his great-great-grandfather, Herman W. Mudgett, aka Dr. H. H. Holmes. The journals are keys which unlock doors of knowledge that have never been ventured through since the beast closed them. And like Pandora’s Box, once the doors were opened, the evil within escapes.
This book is not for anyone with a weak constitution. It is not a graphically written horror story or tainted with pornographic flavor. But it will be disturbing, chilling, and emotionally destructive to the average person innocent of the mindsets and actions of serial killers. I also believe there will be readers who do not complete the book simply because it evokes such a spectrum of horrid mental images.
You follow Jeff’s plight and struggle with his bloodline demon. You begin to learn information which contradicts other writings about H. H. Holmes, about Jack the Ripper, yet you will find yourself nodding agreement that this is plausible and sickeningly truthful. There will be moments of doubt and confusion, and you will wonder about Jeff’s own degree of sanity, but the threads of the story are so tightly woven that soon its full tapestry, however macabre, comes clearly into view.
Could a demon have risen from the entries of a murderer’s journal, infect and disease Jeff’s soul as it did, especially with the writer being his lineage? Such a question is one each individual must answer for themselves. After having spent time as part of a paranormal investigative team and researched related subject matter through the years, I would not cast it all aside as foolishness. After all, the Catholic Church still performs exorcisms.
The presentation of Dr. H. H. Holmes in “Bloodstains” rightfully depicts a man as heartless as Vlad the Impaler, but displays a level of intelligence worthy of acknowledgment in the field of medicine. This acceptance of his dual nature creates conflict with a reader because you want to see him solely as a wrong-doer, not one involved with academic scientific pursuits.
When the last page was read, I sat in silence, debating my new concerns with all the tales about Jack the Ripper. Within the book I had viewed Jeff’s internal struggle with a demon so vile Hannibal Lecter paled in comparison to, and realized once more the mind still retains unexplored regions. I was relieved though that a troubled grandfather at last received his worthy redemption. And when I closed the book, I felt it remain in my thoughts for many hours.
“Bloodstains” is well written—no, it is masterfully written. Jeff Mudgett has bared himself for all to see, whether good or bad, presenting the reader with a turbulent story that allows for personal acceptance or denial. I give this book the highest marks for the depth its journey carries a reader. Everyone has skeletons in their family closet. Unfortunately, some have demons.
Glenn
@GStarkeyBooks
by Glenn | Jan 3, 2012 | Writing
Yes, that is my current status. The holidays are behind us and a new year is here. I’m sitting in my office, drinking coffee and staring at “Willie” (my Labradoodle), wondering what I should do next. Okay, I know my desk is here, somewhere, even though it’s buried beneath an avalanche of papers, business cards, and small boxes. I should clean it. But I also need to play ‘catch-up’ with backlogged correspondence, file some documents, make data entries for income tax purposes, review today’s marketing numbers of my books, and considering I am a novelist – actually work on my current novel. Of course I cannot forget the tribulations of daily life mixed in as well; to-do lists, gym time, car problems, house maintenance repairs, and filling the holes in the yard that Willie dug last night.
So, what comes first? How do I develop a daily work schedule which allows me to accomplish a multitude of tasks? Have you found yourself in this writer’s quagmire? Anyone have a magic answer? If so, I’m open to suggestions.
Recently while reading various postings from writers, I’ve seen a common complaint about having too many websites to monitor, i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Goodreads, and dozens more. These sites devour a majority of your time with marketing postings and responses to their internal writing groups. Some authors have stated they are reducing their activities on several sites to allow better focus on their projects. I agree. There are almost too many social media activities. Like the old saying goes, “Too much of a good thing can become bad.” But which sites will serve an author best? And for what reasons?
I know I’m not the only one weighing all of these factors in order to find a balance in life. I would love to hear some of the “tricks of the trade” from seasoned writers and everyone in general. Meanwhile, I better put on another pot of coffee because I can already see this is going to be a long day.
Glenn
@GStarkeyBooks
Photo credit: Unknown, Internet.
by Glenn | Dec 29, 2011 | General
by Glenn Starkey.
Television has become as comical to me as it is frustrating. On those rare occasions when I may relax and enjoy a program without the guilt of neglecting my ‘to-do’ list, I scan through the cable channels, pause on one and find myself saying, “Life is not fair.”
Have you taken a serious look at the variety and popularity of shows that are available? I’m always left wondering, “How do the people in these television shows find these jobs?” I know you have at least seen the commercials for these shows. Imagine the various resumes these ‘stars’ have:
“….For years I chased Sasquatch through the forest. Never found the big bugger, but came close. I stepped in his poop one time. I did catch a bad case of poison ivy though!”
“….I was the star of a show where I raced against the clock to gorge myself with plates the size of Texas, overflowing with spicy, fried foods! Some had peppers so hot I could start a campfire when I passed gas!”
“….Before I went to rehab, I was the star of show where I traveled the world drinking and reporting on booze in every bar we could find. I can only remember some locations; most are black spots in my memory.”
“….For seven years my team and I traveled America in search of ghosts. We only found demons though and performed over three-thousand exorcisms. Nebraska and Iowa are safe now because of us!”
There are also other superb shows to choose from such as the rich, irritating housewives from various cities who spend their time arguing and shopping; the twenty young, beautiful women cat-fighting over a single guy who they had never met before yet want to marry because he is their ‘true’ love; and of course, the house filled with cameras for voyeuristic pleasure to watch young men and women connive to be the last person remaining. The list goes on and sounds worse as you define the shows in basic terms. It’s the dumbing of America. Excellent role models for our youth. These stars and starlets will have fine resumes of their careers.
But what about the unknown people who daily star in our lives with little or no recognition or a good-salary spot on a television show? Their work resumes would be simple:
“….I taught school.”
“….I fought fires.”
“….I drove ambulances.”
“….I patrolled the city streets.”
“….I carried a rifle and a hundred pound pack across Iraq and Afghanistan.”
So, the next time I see a television show where a man’s sole job is to travel the world to reel in a monster fish or I see screaming legions of Beiber-fevered teenagers adding to his billion-dollar plus yearly income, I will once more say, “Life is not fair….”
Fortunately, I never expected it to be.
photo credit: unknown photographer
by Glenn | Dec 16, 2011 | Writing
- “It won’t happen to me….”
“It won’t happen to me….”
by Glenn Starkey
I’ve spent the majority of my adult life protecting people in some manner whether alone or with a team, unarmed or carrying concealed weapons. Shadowing people of all levels on executive protection details may sound exciting, but they encompass tiring, long hours of extreme alertness.
We wish the world was only filled with good people. Unfortunately, that is not the case. With a holiday season, the flow of money and opportunities for crime are higher than normal. Protecting yourself and loved ones daily doesn’t require a bodyguard or the carrying of automatic weapons, but it does demand your personal awareness of immediate surroundings and common-sense.
The subject of this writing could be a semester long course or months of intensive hands-on training. I do not have the luxury of time and space here so I will touch upon a few basic elements to consider. By the end you will be shaking your head and saying, “I knew that!” yet these very points have been the most overlooked by crime victims because they believed “It won’t happen to me.”
We’re going to look at personal security actions from the level of an everyday citizen, not a CEO or major public figure. For now let’s break your life into four components: (1) Personal Communications, (2) At Home, (3) Travel and, (4) Public Venues. There are more we could use but we are keeping this simple due to brevity.
PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS: Think about computer fraud, those phishing and scam emails, and computer viruses. Some of the banking phishing/scam emails appear quite authentic and it’s easy to be duped into submitting your personal data. And don’t fall for the “Millions of dollars are waiting for you to claim in Nigeria” scams. Primarily, bad guys are trying to hook the greed in weak people with these emails. Another scam is to receive an email from a friend which states he/she is overseas, lost their wallet and need you to wire them money. Of course they will repay you upon their return. The email address looks authentic, you want to assist your dear friend, you send money and later discover they were simply in the next state visiting relatives. It’s amazing what all scams are out there. Changing passwords on your computer and the various programs you use also helps. One last item; be careful what personal information you give out over the telephone. Be sure who you are talking to before providing information to callers, even if it means you must call the main number of a company and request to speak to the caller again.
AT HOME: If you park your vehicle in your residence driveway, lock it when unattended. Don’t leave valuables lying in the seats. These attract the attention of car burglars prowling neighborhoods at night. Keep a cell phone in your bedroom at night to use to call the police if needed. Remember to lock your residence’s doors after you have entered the house. Check your windows to insure they are locked. People often open windows to air their homes and forget to lock the windows later after closing them. Don’t open the door to strangers or allow them to enter unless you know them. If someone displays an ID of some official nature, don’t be afraid to call their agency or the police to properly identify them. When ID’s are flashed at you then quickly closed and put away by the unknown person, simply tell them to display it again so you can better read it. Don’t be intimidated by shiny badges and fancy ID’s in leather wallets. Fake badges and homemade ID’s are easy to acquire. Insure your residential alarm works properly. Call your alarm monitoring company at least once a month and advise them you are going to test it – or set off the alarm to see if the alarm company is actually monitoring. During Christmas, don’t display wrapped gifts where they can be seen through the windows. Everyone wants to stand their Christmas tree in the front main window of their homes, but it also serves as a beacon for burglars wanting quick hit and runs.
TRAVEL: When you are out and about, keep your vehicle doors locked. Be aware of vehicles that seem to be following you on roadways or from store to store. Be alert to your driving; no texting or long unnecessary mobile phone conversations. At a red light, leave space between your front bumper and the vehicle in front of you. You want enough room to pull out and go around them if needed. Car jackers will attempt to box you in between their vehicle behind you and their partner in front of you. Always park your vehicle at businesses in well-lit areas if possible. Try not to park in desolate areas. Does your car alarm work? Remember, you can use the alarm function to attract attention along with sounding your car horn (and headlights on bright during daylight hours also grabs attention.)
PUBLIC VENUES: Be aware of people around you, especially those people that seem to be too close when there is no need to be. When out in public, don’t flash your money where everyone can see. You would be surprised how often people do this without realizing their actions. Ladies, keep your purses zipped, snapped, and closed under your arm in front of you, not swinging open behind you. Men and women – if you carry briefcases or laptop bags keep them with you and beware when setting them down. It takes less than a second to calmly walk by and grab one. When walking through a parking lot, keep your head up and scan the area around you as you walk. Bad guys don’t generally want eye contact with their victims before they strike. Don’t walk like a victim with head down and shoulders slumped as if you were a meek lamb. When walking to your car, have your keys out, finger on the panic button, and look about your vehicle as you approach. If you see someone lingering around your vehicle or cutting through a parking lot walking toward you, slow down to see where they are truly heading or even return inside the business where you just came from. When you enter your vehicle, the first thing to do is lock all doors, then do the thousand little things you would normally do which distracts your attention from noticing someone is walking up to your vehicle. Also, let your family, or someone, know your basic travel schedule in the event something occurs and you are not home by an appropriate time.
These are all basic, common-sense actions you should think about year round. There are far more, and every geographical location has its own specific issues, but the ones I’ve listed will be of general everyday assistance to you.
To start training yourself, play a game. The next time you are at a busy store or the mall, watch the people as they pass by. Look at the number of women’s purses that are open and hanging behind them. Watch how people carelessly set laptop bags, briefcases, and electronics down and pay little regard to them. Watch how people flash wads of money and which pocket they return the money too. Look at how people walk and their overall demeanor: are they acting like a victim or someone you wouldn’t want to confront? Next time you walk by a car parked next to you, were there valuables laying in plain view, inviting a car burglar to smash the window, grab and run? And pay attention to people’s hands, where they are and what’s in them. Any police officer or Secret Service agent that has worked the streets will tell you no one has ever been shot by someone with a pair of empty hands. If you are confronted by a robber, stay as calm as possible and don’t try to be a hero. There’s nothing in your wallet or purse that cannot be replaced. In this day and age, robbers shoot people for little to no reason in order to see them die, so don’t take chances.
As a writer, you can easily incorporate people’s antics into your novels and have a sense of realism. But most of all learn to pay attention to your “gut-feeling” that something may be wrong. Women’s intuition is real. Men have it too. Listen to your senses. Animals survive in the jungle because of their senses. We live in concrete jungles. And if you believe nothing will ever happen to you then I have some swamp land to sell you that will make a great parking lot.
Be Safe.
@GStarkeyBooks
by Glenn | Nov 27, 2011 | General
- “It’s mine…No, it’s mine…Get away!…No, you get away!”
BLACK-EYED FRIDAY
by Glenn Starkey (@GStarkeyBooks)
Prior to Halloween I walked through a major store and observed Christmas products already intermingled with Thanksgiving items on the shelves. Goblins, pilgrims, and elves are a confusing menagerie of images when you are supposed to only be buying a bag of candy for “Trick or Treaters.”
By Thanksgiving though, Christmas ornamentations were fully hung in the stores along side of “Black Friday” shopping countdowns. Now cardboard elves were staring across the isles at cardboard pilgrims standing beside native American Indians holding turkeys. And Black Friday advertisements loomed on the horizon as if announcing the coming of the end of the world!
Somewhere along the line in America we leaped from Halloween to Christmas, leaving Thanksgiving a blip on the calendar, its significance almost buried beneath the avalanche of oncoming sales the following day.
When we awakened from our naps brought on by the usual Thanksgiving over-indulgence, and the annual televised football game ended, something magical occurred. Within the snap of a finger we were catapulted into a Christmas mindset, the season of “Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men.” We had just been shot through a time-warp from witches to pilgrims to elves, yet realized the transition would not be complete until we are past the infamous gladiatorial shopping day—Black Friday. Yes, it is the single day of the entire holiday season in which we cast out all good will toward our fellow man (or woman as seen in the news) and take no prisoners at the mall!
While some people chose to forego the meaning and celebration of Thanksgiving all together and literally camped outside the doors of major retail stores, others chose to leave directly from their Thanksgiving dinners to be in line at midnight when the doors opened.
(Now play the soundtrack from THE TERMINATOR) And at the tolling of the bells, the doors swung open, the stampedes began, and the brotherly love of Christmas transformed into a gladiatorial battle…Insanity fueled the masses… By that evening, television news stations were reporting a woman pepper-sprayed fellow shoppers that had closed in about her; a shopper Tasered another shopper during an argument over a toy; a woman accidentally struck another woman’s two years-old child while in a fight over a video game, leading to further fighting between the women; police were forced to wrestle a violent shopper to the ground because he had ripped something from another person’s hands, and a 61 year old man fell dead in a store and customers stepped over his body to continue their shopping …. The news reports kept coming, growing stranger by the moment.
And by late that night, the wild-eyed, wounded combatants and weary campers returned home (or were awaiting release from jail) with precious bargains in hand, ready now to celebrate the true essence of the season and spread “Peace, Love, and Joy” among their fellow man for a few weeks. But to honor this special day and those with such Christmas spirit who found it necessary to kick, bite, punch, pepper-spray, and Taser their fellow shoppers, I believe we should now call it “BLACK-EYED FRIDAY.” Hopefully, their handcuff marks, bruises, and black-eyes will have healed in time to sing Christmas carols and rejoice with “Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men.”
Having swept through the holidays like a fast-forwarded movie and the whirlwind of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black-Eyed Friday, and Christmas activities drawing to an abrupt halt, on Christmas Day there will be people who sit in their chairs wondering why they are so mentally exhausted, glad it’s all over for another year.
What a pity. What a sad commentary it is in many ways. But as I have learned through the years, there are still good people in this world and the true essence of Christmas will not be lost.
Photo Credit: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Review: “Bloodstains” Author: Jeff Mudgett
