Public Enemies: The Host of America's Most Wanted Targets the Nation's Most Notorious Criminals

New York: Pocket Star, 2002. Very Good. In his third literary foray into the dark territory of violent crime, Walsh (Tears of Rage) once again invites readers behind the scenes of America's Most Wanted. But this is hardly 1998's No Mercy redux. The stories are fres h, and the depictions are not as grisly as those of the earlier book. The c rimes and their perpetrators are no less monstrous, however, in chronicles that are as compelling as they are disturbing. From the media-popular "Rail road Killer" to a remorseless member of the Symbionese Liberation Army with 25 years on the lam, to '70s iconoclast Ira Einhorn, who murdered his girl friend and hid her body for 18 months in a steamer trunk, this title captur es the television show's highlights. More importantly, in a genre where the reader is commonly a voyeur, Walsh goes to great lengths to avoid revictim izing survivors of violent crime and relatives of those whose lives have be en lost. Over and over, Walsh renders sincere, indelible portraits of victi ms and their families, both before and in the aftermath of these crimes, ex ploring the labyrinth of disbelief, bottomless grief, rage and, sometimes, the strength they have mustered to endure the everyday. Their emotional tur bulence is both stunning and provocative. At once gallant and crusading, th is is Walsh's most tempered and clearly written work.