Rating: 
Summary: Interesting But Inaccurate
Review: As a former Chicagoan who finds the history of the city fascinating, I appreciate the intent of this book. Tho I realize that histories of the city are written for a broad based audience, I am nevertheless frustrated when historical scenes are described without reference to specific locations / addresses, which of course would be meaningless to most readers who are not also residents. This book fills a void in that it attempts to be specific as to locations, in the way that the Dominic Pacyga / Ellen Skerrett book "Chicago City of Neighborhoods: Histories and Tours" accomplishes as a more general (and more accurate) historical guide. While "Return To The Scene" serves as a crude and basic guide, there are numerous errors which make the book virtually useless to anyone not familiar with the city. For example, Damen Avenue and Winchester Avenue are listed as an intersection when they are in fact parallel streets; in at least a dozen instances addresses on South Austin Blvd. in Cicero are given as West Austin; the Great Lakes Naval Training Center is located by the book in Glenview, IL. Ironically, in the bibliography, the author criticizes the book "Mr. Capone" as written by "two out-of-town authors whose unfamiliarity with Chicago neighborhoods is painfully evident". This book is of value only as a supplement to provide an historical context to a hopefully more accurate geographical guide to Chicago.
Rating: 
Summary: A terrific read - great Chicago stories
Review: As an attorney and a journalist, I tend to be both critical and somewhat cynical, so please forgive me if I'm a bit harsh in this comment on "Return to the Scene of the Crime." When I find blatant errors in a book, it frankly sours me on the whole book. So while I found this book entertaining, I wouldn't recommend it. Error #1 was in the chapter on Richard Speck, convicted of killing eight student nurses. Lindberg says Speck never admitted guilt, but he did exactly that in an interview on the TV program "Investigative Reports." Error #2 was in one of the chapters on William Heirens, convicted of killing a girl and two women in the 1940s. Lindberg says police found personal items belonging to the women at Heirens' residence at the University of Chicago and calls it "compelling" evidence. There is simply no basis for this statement. Dolores Kennedy's definitive book on Heirens, "William Heirens: His Day in Court," makes it clear that while police found items belonging to burglary victims, they never found anything belonging to the murder victims. The newspapers even ran interviews with the victims' families confirming this. It's an important point, considering that Heirens' lawyers, 53 years after his arrest, are continuing to seek his release on the grounds that he is innocent.
Rating: 
Summary: Authors lose credibility when they're not accurate
Review: As an attorney and a journalist, I tend to be both critical and somewhat cynical, so please forgive me if I'm a bit harsh in this comment on "Return to the Scene of the Crime." When I find blatant errors in a book, it frankly sours me on the whole book. So while I found this book entertaining, I wouldn't recommend it. Error #1 was in the chapter on Richard Speck, convicted of killing eight student nurses. Lindberg says Speck never admitted guilt, but he did exactly that in an interview on the TV program "Investigative Reports." Error #2 was in one of the chapters on William Heirens, convicted of killing a girl and two women in the 1940s. Lindberg says police found personal items belonging to the women at Heirens' residence at the University of Chicago and calls it "compelling" evidence. There is simply no basis for this statement. Dolores Kennedy's definitive book on Heirens, "William Heirens: His Day in Court," makes it clear that while police found items belonging to burglary victims, they never found anything belonging to the murder victims. The newspapers even ran interviews with the victims' families confirming this. It's an important point, considering that Heirens' lawyers, 53 years after his arrest, are continuing to seek his release on the grounds that he is innocent.
Rating: 
Summary: Cruising Chronicles of Chicagoland Criminolgy
Review: Hail! Hail! The gangsters are all here, along with other unsavory characters and scenes from the seamy sides of Chicago.Home Boy Richard Lindberg has done a fine job of plotting tours with concise briefings, maps, and photos from Chicago's worst. Sure, there are some errors - but, as other reviews here attest, the True Crime buff knows what they are, for example: the perpetrators of the Brown's Chicken Massacre have been apprehended since the book's publication and this reviewer disagrees with Lindberg's speculation that, were it not for Nicole Brown Simpson's violent death, O.J "would have drifted into permanent obscurity remembered by a handful of autograph chasers at sports memorabilia shows and admirers from his football days." What is OJ doing in this book, you ask? Remember, he was flying out of LA that night? The Chauffeur came to get him at the house in Brentwood to take him to the airport to Chicago. The Hotel where he may or may not have cut his hand on a broken glass is on the Tour, just about a mile north of John Wayne Gacy's former residence. In the Grand Scheme, the errors or disagreements are a minor nuisance and the tour just moves on. The book is arranged in geographical groupings, so that a reader could take the walking tour of the Loop and Near Neighborhoods and then continue on by car. The Tours are:
1. On the Waterfront: Downtown Chicago
2. The Gold Coast and the Slum: the Near North Side from the Chicago River to Division Street
3. North Side Pursuits: Lincoln Park to Rogers Park
4. The Land Approaching O'Hare: Chicago's Northwest Side
5. North by Northwest: Kenilworth to Barrington
6. West Side Stories
7. Residences of Organized Crime: the Western Suburbs
8. South Side Sinners Tour takers will take in the sites of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, John Dillinger's "bad date" at the Biograph, the office of Eliot Ness and "the Untouchables," Richard Speck's slaying of the Nurses, the "Police Riot" at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and many other "low Lights" in Chicagoland history. All this and Mrs. O'Leary's cow, too! Reviewed by TundraVision, former friend of Garfield Goose, Amazon Reviewer
Rating:
Summary: exceptional
Review: I can't believe the above nit-picking.....I'm sure this was not writen as a textbook. It is an exceptionally entertaining history of past crime scenes in and around Chicago. As an "old and retired" Chicago Police Department "work'n street dick" it brought back many memories. Especially the cases I was, personally, involved with. I've read most of Linberg's books about Chicago and thoroughly enjoyed each and every one.....his wit is precious. When I think of the thousands of hours of research that were put in........the endless pages of old newspapers that were turned and read, to get this material together.........I say , thanks Richard for a job well done.
Rating: 
Summary: Errors in the book make me suspect
Review: I enjoyed the book, but I found errors that make me suspect about the rest of the book I wasn't familiar with. The author lists, at various places, three different dates for the murder of Deanie O'Banion: November 1st, (P. 158), November 9th (P.95), and November 10th (P. 101). November 10th, of course, is correct. The author also states on P. 102 that Mike Genna was the one who shot O'Banion. I'm not sure on this myself, but most sources I've read state that Frankie Yale was brought in from New York and did the shooting. Finally, the author states that Richard Speck never admitted to killing the eight student nurses in 1966, but on the televised program on Investigative Reports, a reporter asked Speck if he had killed the nurses and why, Speck said he did and "it just wasn't their night." I enjoyed the book, but the irritating mistakes made me wonder about the accuracy about the rest of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Errors in the book make me suspect
Review: I enjoyed the book, but I found errors that make me suspect about the rest of the book I wasn't familiar with. The author lists, at various places, three different dates for the murder of Deanie O'Banion: November 1st, (P. 158), November 9th (P.95), and November 10th (P. 101). November 10th, of course, is correct. The author also states on P. 102 that Mike Genna was the one who shot O'Banion. I'm not sure on this myself, but most sources I've read state that Frankie Yale was brought in from New York and did the shooting. Finally, the author states that Richard Speck never admitted to killing the eight student nurses in 1966, but on the televised program on Investigative Reports, a reporter asked Speck if he had killed the nurses and why, Speck said he did and "it just wasn't their night." I enjoyed the book, but the irritating mistakes made me wonder about the accuracy about the rest of the book.
Rating:
Summary: A terrific read - great Chicago stories
Review: I just finished Return to the Scene of the Crime,and I agree with the newspaper and magazine reviewers who are pretty unanimous in their opinions - and not these nitpickers who can never find anything good to say about anything. This is an engrossing, fabulous book, that really covers the bases as far as Chicago crime is concerned. The author knows his stuff. I hope there's more to come, but I would like to see a few more pictures. I know they're tough to get a hold of, but what he had in the book was great - just needs more of the same.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, Rich Work From a Knowledgeable Source
Review: Let me first say that I hate "true crime" books. I have never read "Helter Skelter." I do not possess any books on the Brown's Chicken and Pasta murders. I watched the infamous Geraldo Rivera "Al Capone's Vaults" special in 1987, but that was for a class assignment. Honest. That having been said, this book is a fascinating read. Having lived in Chicago for eight years total, many of the events recounted in "Return to the Scene of the Crime" were merely hints, off-handedly dropped by natives in conversation. Unpleasant topics, deliberately skirted, best avoided. However lurid, however horrifying, however infamous, Speck, Gacy, the Lexington Hotel, the Summerdale police scandal--these are all indelible parts of our town's history, and Lindberg writes of them with the sort of expertise that can only be gained from intimate familiarity, some from word of mouth, some from the papers, some from dusty files in ancient cabinets. The author's documentary sources have largely been in the care and custody of the Chicago Crime Commission since the events originally occurred, and it's hard to imagine a more authoritative repository for this information. As a survey work, you'd be hard-pressed to find better. If there is a problem with the book, it is that a number of the maps cite incorrect locations for certain addresses provided in the text. I recall about half a dozen or so spots which were anywhere from a couple of blocks to a half-mile distant from the actual location referenced. In case of conflict, go with the text. If you're really touring these locations, though, Chicago's grid system was designed to make navigation easy, and I wish you the best of luck. I was occasionally jarred by Lindberg's insertion of political commentary into what I felt would have been better served as an unbiased reporting of events. For instance, the author has quite a bit to say on the subject of inter-jurisdictional squabbling among the northwest suburban police departments during the Brown's investigation. A number of discursions are taken into the issue of police corruption (the section on the Summerdale police scandal is one of the largest in the book). These would have detracted from an academic historical text, but the savvy reader should keep in mind that this isn't *really* a book of history (not even really a tour guide), so much as a book of local folklore. Chicago is as much a city of myth and legend as any other in America. With that in mind, I feel the book as a whole is a success. Fair warning, these tales really aren't for the squeamish. A number of stories involve some graphic detail, so be prepared.
Rating:
Summary: Colorful, Fact-filled, and Highly Readable
Review: Let me first say that I hate "true crime" books. I have never read "Helter Skelter." I do not possess any books on the Brown's Chicken and Pasta murders. I watched the infamous Geraldo Rivera "Al Capone's Vaults" special in 1987, but that was for a class assignment. Honest. That having been said, this book is a fascinating read. Having lived in Chicago for eight years total, many of the events recounted in "Return to the Scene of the Crime" were merely hints, off-handedly dropped by natives in conversation. Unpleasant topics, deliberately skirted, best avoided. However lurid, however horrifying, however infamous, Speck, Gacy, the Lexington Hotel, the Summerdale police scandal--these are all indelible parts of our town's history, and Lindberg writes of them with the sort of expertise that can only be gained from intimate familiarity, some from word of mouth, some from the papers, some from dusty files in ancient cabinets. The author's documentary sources have largely been in the care and custody of the Chicago Crime Commission since the events originally occurred, and it's hard to imagine a more authoritative repository for this information. As a survey work, you'd be hard-pressed to find better. If there is a problem with the book, it is that a number of the maps cite incorrect locations for certain addresses provided in the text. I recall about half a dozen or so spots which were anywhere from a couple of blocks to a half-mile distant from the actual location referenced. In case of conflict, go with the text. If you're really touring these locations, though, Chicago's grid system was designed to make navigation easy, and I wish you the best of luck. I was occasionally jarred by Lindberg's insertion of political commentary into what I felt would have been better served as an unbiased reporting of events. For instance, the author has quite a bit to say on the subject of inter-jurisdictional squabbling among the northwest suburban police departments during the Brown's investigation. A number of discursions are taken into the issue of police corruption (the section on the Summerdale police scandal is one of the largest in the book). These would have detracted from an academic historical text, but the savvy reader should keep in mind that this isn't *really* a book of history (not even really a tour guide), so much as a book of local folklore. Chicago is as much a city of myth and legend as any other in America. With that in mind, I feel the book as a whole is a success. Fair warning, these tales really aren't for the squeamish. A number of stories involve some graphic detail, so be prepared.
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