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: Second rate city, third rate writer
Review: Mr. Lindberg clearly was absent the day that they taught research development and writing classes. His latest book, not unlike all of the previous selections, is sloppy, inaccurate and poorly written. Don't waste your time with this book. It is tedious and disappointing reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Badly arranged walking tour book
Review: Return to the Scene of the Crime is chock full of interesting information and written in high gun-slingin style, but as a walking tour book it's a mess. If you're willing to go through the book with a pair of scissors, a marker, and tape it might work. The crime scenes are not arranged chronologically, geographically or by subject but seemingly at random. Most walking guide books arrange the subject matter geographically and will try to put stories together into a narrative, because presumably you are going to trudge around with this book in your hands. It would be nice to recreate the scene in your mind as you walk through the neighborhoods, trying to imagine what it was like "way back when." But this book doesn't allow that. It sends you here and there, from Dillinger to Al Capone and then throws in totally unrelated crimes. And be prepared for sore feet. For instance, In the downtown tour you start on the northern edge of the loop, are instructed to walk to the southern edge of the loop for an unrelated second crime scene and then you're sent to the western outer limits of the loop for yet a third scene. Once you get there, if you haven't looked ahead, you'll find that you've just walked right past most of the other 30 scenes on the tour. After the first three scenes you will probably want to go home and sleep the rest of the day. We tried to do the north shore tour by car (walking would have been impossible because it is too dispersed) and found ourselves constantly doubling back on ourselves and jumping back and forth between decades and stories. The frustrating part was that the tour could easily have been a great one, and an atmosphere created for each particular neighborhood (gangsters on the gold coast, for example) but these larger themes were lost because of the poor organization both in terms of subject and geography. Even the little details are maddening. Every chapter starts with a map with numbers designating the crime scenes and a correspondingly numbered one-sentance description of the scene on the next page. However, the longer stories that follow are not numbered so if you lose your place (which you inevitably do) you wind up standing on the corner, or in the car, thumbing through the pages looking for the next scene's location. what a pain!! What a pity - there's a lot there, but you have to be willing to re-edit the book yourself to make any use of it either as a tour guide or as an historical narrative.
Rating: 
Summary: Well intended guide to Chicago crime scenes.
Review: Richard Lindberg knows his way around Chicago, having become something of an expert in its lore, particularly in the areas of sports and crime scenes. Return to the Scene of the Crime is supposedly a factual account of some of Chicago's most notorious crimes and it is an interesting journey around town. But I question how many of the "facts" are truly factual? As biographer of William Heirens, to whom Lindberg devotes two chapters, I found damaging statements which were blatantly untrue. I am not an expert in the other numerous crimes with which he deals, but based on his treatment of Heirens, he is suspect.
Rating:
Summary: Colorful, Fact-filled, and Highly Readable
Review: The fact that the cable documentary channels borrow heavily from the content of this book, and that the author is constantly showing up on Discovery, the Travel Channel and A & E talking about Windy City bad guys like Dillinger, Capone, et. al., says a lot about the quality of the writing and the public fascination with the subject matter. Return to the Scene is loaded with lot's of good stuff. It has a "film noir," shadows and night look and feel to it. But that's Chicago. And I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Colorful, Fact-filled, and Highly Readable
Review: The fact that the cable documentary channels borrow heavily from the content of this book, and that the author is constantly showing up on Discovery, the Travel Channel and A & E talking about Windy City bad guys like Dillinger, Capone, et. al., says a lot about the quality of the writing and the public fascination with the subject matter. Return to the Scene is loaded with lot's of good stuff. It has a "film noir," shadows and night look and feel to it. But that's Chicago. And I highly recommend this book.
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