Landru’s Secret: The Deadly Seductions of France’s Lonely Hearts Serial Killer
- ISBN-10
- 1526715317
- ISBN-13
- 9781526715319
- Category
- True Crime
- Pages
- 312
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2018-10-30
- Publisher
- Casemate Publishers
- Author
- Richard Tomlinson
Description
On 12 April 1919, the Paris police arrested a bald, short, 50-year-old swindler at his apartment near the Gare du Nord, acting on a lead from a humble housemaid. A century later, Henri Désiré Landru remains the most notorious and enigmatic serial killer in French criminal history, a riddle at the heart of an unsolved murder puzzle. The official version of Landru’s lethal rampage was so shocking that it almost defied belief. According to the authorities, Landru had made “romantic contact” with 283 women during the First World War, luring ten of them to his country houses outside Paris where he killed them for their money. Yet no bodies were ever found, while Landru obdurately protested his innocence. “It is for you to prove the deeds of which I am accused,” he sneered at the investigating magistrate. The true story of l’affaire Landru, buried in the Paris police archives for the past century, was altogether more disturbing. In Landru’s Secret, Richard Tomlinson draws on more than 5,000 pages of original case documents, including witness statements, police reports and private correspondence, to reveal for the first time that: Landru killed more women than the 10 victims on the charge sheet. The police failed to trace at least 72 of the women he contacted. The authorities ignored the key victim who explained why the killings began. Landru did not kill for money, but to revel in his power over what he called the “feeble sex”. Lavishly illustrated with previous unpublished photographs, Landru’s Secret is a story for our times: a female revengers’ tragedy starring the mothers and sisters of the missing fiancées, a lethal misogynist and France’s greatest defense lawyer, intent on saving his repulsive client from the guillotine.
Get the book
Similar books
-
The ladykiller: the crimes of Landru, the French Bluebeard
By Dennis BardensThe President asked about the possibility of burning parts of a dismembered body in Landru's stove , and Dr Paul gave the ... Mme Cuchet , declared that her death was almost certainly due to her discovering Landru's secret identity .
-
Pulp Surrealism: Insolent Popular Culture in Early Twentieth-Century Paris
By Robin WalzThe conservative Le Matin focused upon the secluded village of Gambais as the source of the mystery , initially as ... did not agree on the substance of Landru's crimes , they were all incantations of a powerful and terrible secret .
-
Secrets Beyond the Door: The Story of Bluebeard and His Wives
By Maria TatarMaria Tatar analyses the many forms the tale of Bluebeard's wife has taken over time, showing how artists have taken the Bluebeard theme and revived it with their own signature twists.
-
Exploring the Next Frontier: Vietnam, NASA, Star Trek and Utopia in 1960s and 70s American Myth and History
By Matthew Wilhelm KapellVietnam, NASA, Star Trek and Utopia in 1960s and 70s American Myth and History Matthew Wilhelm Kapell. Trachtenberg, Alan. 1982. ... In Does the Frontier Experience Make America Exceptional?, edited by Richard W.Etulain, 17–43.
-
Blood & Ink: An International Guide to Fact-based Crime Literature
By Albert Borowitz... Swamp after luring him there from their native England to inspect an illusory farming property ( see w.2 ) . ... Ballistics tripped up Victor Ernest Hoffman , who senselessly shot eight victims at the Petersons ' Saskatchewan farm ...
-
Mysteries Unlocked: Essays in Honor of Douglas G. Greene
By Curtis EvansIn honor of the 70th birthday of Professor Douglas G. Greene, mystery genre scholar and publisher, this book offers 24 new essays and two reprinted classics on detective fiction by contributors around the world, including ten Edgar (Mystery ...
-
The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories: 1: First Annual Collection
By Ed GormanBest Detective Stories of the Year 1929 (1930; U.S. title Best English Detective Stories of 1929), anonymously edited, followed with a more star-studded lineup (Anthony Berkeley and G. K. Chesterton plus Leblanc, Oppenheim, ...
-
Serial Killers & Psychopaths
By John Marlowe, Charlotte GreigStarting with examples of some of the earliest recorded psychopaths and serial killers, the authors present a carefully chosen cross-section of history's most infamous criminals.
-
The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories: 5: Fifth Annual Collection
Ed McBain's 1960 novel The Heckler ( Pocket Books ) , the first appearance of the master criminal known as the Deaf Man , was reprinted with a new afterword by the author . Leo Bruce's Death at Hallows End ( Academy Chicago ) , a 1965 ...
-
Serial Killers: Psychiatry, Criminology, Responsibility
By Francesca Biagi-ChaiThis volume tackles the issue of criminal responsibility in the case of serial killers, and other 'mad' people who are nonetheless deemed to be answerable before the law in most jurisdictions.