The Midnight Assassin: The Hunt for America’s First Serial Killer by Skip Hollandsworth (Epub)

Description

In nineteenth-century Austin, Texas, a ruthless murderer terrorized the city in what would soon become a story more shocking than any fiction.

In the late 1800s, just as Austin was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis, a series of brutal murders rocked the burgeoning city and shook it to its core. At the time, the concept of a serial killer was unknown and unimaginable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen, and the citizens’ panic reached a fever pitch.

For more than a decade, Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth has researched this gripping tale of murder and madness that plays out like a well-crafted whodunit. With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair, Hollandsworth’s The Midnight Assassin: The Hunt for America’s First Serial Killer brings this terrifying saga to life.

User’s Reviews

Review “Skip Hollandsworth knows his way around a crime scene…Fans of Erik Larson’s 2003 hit, The Devil in the White City…will find similar pleasures here. This is true crime of high quality. . . Mr. Hollandsworth handles gruesome details with a smart, restrained touch…Chilling.”―The New York Times”Gripping and atmospheric…This true crime page-turner is a balanced and insightful examination of one of the most stirring serial killing sprees in American history, and certainly one of the least well-known.”―Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)“Readers who loved The Devil in the White City now have the pleasure of reading The Midnight Assassin. It paints a compelling portrait of a culture at a turning point – that is, the capitol of Texas at the end of the 19th Century, when the barbarism of the frontier was giving way to the savagery of urban life.”―Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winning author The Looming Towerand Thirteen Days in September“As a magazine journalist, Skip Hollandsworth has forged a reputation as one of the best storytellers in the country. The Midnight Assassin takes his singular narrative skills to a thrilling new level. Reading this book is like cracking open a time capsule and breathing the air of a vanished era. In Hollandsworth’s hands, one of the ghastliest and most inscrutable crimes in American history becomes hair-raisingly immediate, and the mystery at its center grows ever more mysterious with every page.”―Stephen Harrigan, author of The Gates of the Alamo and A Friend of Mr. Lincoln”Skip Hollandsworth has achieved a literary miracle with The Midnight Assassin. With haunting granularity, Hollandsworth breathes vivid life into a forgotten, century-old tale of the hunt for America’s first diabolical serial murderer―set in, of all places, the quaint but upwardly mobile town of Austin, Texas. To read The Midnight Assassin is to experience the lost innocence of a 19th-century capital city set on edge by the unseen monster in its midst.”―Robert Draper, The New York Times Magazine and author of Dead Certain “Skip Hollandsworth, one of the great true-crime writers of our era, has brought his remarkable talent to bear on one of the most fascinating untold criminal stories in American history. The Midnight Assassin captures a time, a place, and a feeling―booming Texas in the latter 19th century―in a way no nonfiction account I have read has done. A jewel of a book.”―S.C. Gwynne, author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Rebel Yell“Skip Hollandsworth has a bloodhound’s nose for a great tale. With The Midnight Assassin, he’s found the perfect subject for his many talents. Through scrupulous research and a finely tuned sense of the gothic, Hollandsworth has brought this Texas-sized true-crime story, more than a century old, to vivid, chilling life on the page.”―Hampton Sides, author of Hellhound On His Trail and In the Kingdom of Ice”As the state of Texas’s best-known magazine writer, Skip Hollandsworth is not just a Lone Star treasure, but a national treasure. In this, his first book, he uncovers the amazing untold story of America’s first serial killer, a phantom who stalked the streets of Austin in 1885, three years before Jack the Ripper. Whether you love true crime, history or Texana, The Midnight Assassin is bursting at the seams with everything you want in a great book; a spellbinding mix of mystery, horror and historical detective work. It’s the book Hollandsworth was born to write.”―Bryan Burrough, Vanity Fair special correspondent and author of Barbarians at the Gate, Days of Rage and The Big Rich

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ When I was a teenager, I devoured the first of several books I’ve read about the infamous Lizzie Borden (“Lizzie Borden took an ax, gave her mother forty whacks; when she saw what she had done, gave her father forty-one.”) I became fascinated with true-murder stories, and over the years I’ve read several. Perhaps as I matured, my thirst for murder, thank goodness, lessened, so it has been quite a while since I delved into true crime. But when I heard about Skip Hollandsworth’s The Midnight Assassin, I knew I had to read it. It has one of the things I like in a book: a compelling story set in Texas, my home state. Hollandsworth’s book is compelling, indeed. He spent hours and hours perusing old news stories, interviewing descendants, and peering over vintage photographs to piece together the story of the first serial killings in the US. We find, in the epilogue, that the author became so engrossed in his research that he had an overwhelming desire to solve these murders from well over a century ago. I won’t tell you if he did or not, for that would spoil the hunt. Hollandsworth, a journalist, does not just relate the murders, however. He also “sets the scene,” giving us copious details about Austin, Texas, at the time of the murders. And his writing style is far from cold journalism. While leading up to yet another murder, the author regales the good times, the calm, the everyday living going on in the town, and then he whops us with a two sentence chapter ending that sets us smack in the middle of yet another killing. And what makes this technique even more compelling is that not every chapter that utitilizes the “fun times” narrative ends with a gruesome murder, so we, the readers, are constantly wondering if he is leading up to another horrific crime or not. And along the way, we are treated to tales of the politicians, the lawmen, the doctors, the servants, the prominent citizens, and the blunders that made Austin the town it was in the late eighteen hundreds. This is fascinating journalism and fascinating story-telling.

⭐ In depth history of one of America’s first (or possibly the first) serial killer set in 1880’s Austin, TX.The book, while mostly interesting, reads really almost more like a research paper or a dissertation than a book. More time was spent describing events, styles and general happenings in 1885 Austin than dissecting the actual murders and their aftermath. I understand that the author had to work with the limited information available to him, but I felt more like a was reading a book about the politics of Austin, the building of the capital, the growth, the outdoor lighting and general philosophy of the day than reading a mystery.Definitely a well researched book, worth reading (particularly for Texans) and full of interesting tid bits of the day.

⭐ Riveting & informative read about a new kind of killer–a serial murderer–terrorizing Austin, Texas, from December 1884 through December 1885 in the days before forensic science. The police force had no clue how to catch this fiend or stop the reign of terror. Although many men were arrested and three prosecuted the killer of several women in grusome fashion was never identified or apprehended. When Jack the Ripper started killing prostitutes in 1888 in London many wondered if the Midnight Assassin of Austin had gone to London & started over. Both killers abruptly stopped killing & disappeared from history. Most Austin residents thought blacks were responsible for the murders as the first victims were black servant women until the double event on Christmas Eve 1885 when two white women were murdered. The prejudices of the time were on display but the inability of authorities to do anything led to political careers being ruined & a sex scandal developed for good measure. Highly recommended.

⭐ Lived in Texas all my life and never heard this story. Not only do you get a history lesson about Austin, Texas, but you will read a bizarre, grisly story that’s chilling in every sense of the word. Who could be roaming the streets of Austin late at night killing women for no perceptible reason while often leaving their husbands or lovers damaged, but not dead. And not only killing them but inflicting horrific physical damage. The city becomes paralyzed while both local and imported law officers make no headway. Lots of detail given how long ago it happened (1885), but all necessary and informative.

⭐ Fans of Erik Larson will enjoy Midnight Assassin. (BTW, there are at least two other books out there titled Midnight Assassin, so make sure you get the one by Skip Hollandsworth.)In 1884 to 1885, someone was slaughtering women in Austin, Texas. Both black servants and white society women were targeted, and were killed by ax blows to the head. No one ever got a good look at the killer but witnesses insisted he was black. No, white. Bloodhounds brought in to track the killer could never get a proper scent since the crime scenes were trampled by family, police and the multitude of “lookie lou” townspeople.In 1888, when Jack the Ripper began carving up Whitechapel prostitutes, London police wondered if it was the American Midnight Assassin come to town.The reason I’ve mentioned Erik Larson is because Midnight Assassin is very much like Larson’s book “The Devil in the White City” in which serial killer H.H. Holmes built a “murder hotel” at the 1893 World’s Fair so he could experiment on, torture, and murder people who came to the fair.Midnight Assassin includes photos from 1880s Austin, and interesting facts about the city and its citizens.

⭐ Engrossing, painstakingly researched true crime history of America’s first serial killer; crimes still unsolved to this day.Author Skip Hollandsworth has brilliantly captured the time and place in his re-creation of the hunt for an unknown killer with the burgeoning growth of Austin, Texas from frontier town to the bustling metropolis of a state capital. A fascinating study which combines all the fear generated by crimes of appalling depravity, investigative incompetence by “Town Hall”, racial intolerance and political shenanigans in late 19th. Century Austin.As much a history of a city as of a crime, best summed up by the author’s own words in his notes section: “In many ways, Austin became the most interesting character in the book, an intoxicating mixture of the Old South, the Old West, and the new Gilded Age. Because the murders affected every level of Austin society -from the most privileged members of white society to desperately impoverished African-Americans- I had a rare opportunity to create a portrait of race, class, gender, urban life, and, most significantly, the nature of American violence.”

⭐ Excellent book. The research is solid, the writing is clear and evocative, and the story is compelling. By coincidence, I’m also the author of a book with the title Midnight Assassin. I have an interest in true crimes and read a lot in this genre. Hollandsworth’s book is one of the best I’ve read. I would recommend this book to all interested readers of narrative nonfiction, especially those with a passion for well-told true crime stories.

⭐ I thought this was a really interesting book and I read some reviews as it was more like a history book than a novel but I disagree I think that writer did a excellent job of bringing in local culture and history to help make the story in that time frame make sense. It was well done it was a bit gruesome in some part if you’re not used to that kind of thing but also I felt like it didn’t glorified is glorified or glamorized anything and it was a well done book.

⭐ Skip Hollandsworth does a really good job of giving you a glimpse of life in Austin in the late 1800s. He works the murders into the hustle and bustle of a growing city. The murders and the efforts to find the killer are described well. But truth be told, I just don’t think there is enough information out there to truly give us an in-depth look at each murder. This book does a great job of giving you the insight into the impact the murders had in a community that is still trying to go on with daily life and grow. Just like with any event that changes a city, there’s intrigue, curiosity, scandal, and ultimately a town that moves forward and tries to forget that it was once under siege.

⭐ History of a serial killer who murders women staff who live on the premises of wealthy employers describes how stealthy the killer is and the racial bias-assumption that deaths caused my black men/mobs. Austin, originally called Waterloo!, is the new state capital and is growing in size, prosperity and features such as paved street and water. The book tells the harrowing tale of people who look but can not see.

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