The Brick Slayer

Bloodlands collection

By: Harold Schechter

Narrated by: Steven Weber

Length: 58 mins

Publisher's summary

A series of brutal home invasions terrified Los Angeles in 1937. They ended in Chicago a year later with the arrest of African American teenager Robert Nixon, igniting racial tensions in an already appallingly divided city.

Tortured in custody and portrayed by the press in the most lurid and flagrantly racist terms, Nixon faced an all-white jury. It would be the fastest conviction in the history of Cook County. Used as inspiration for Richard Wright’s classic social protest novel, Native Son, the case against Nixon is a still-relevant examination of bigotry, suppressed rage, and the making of a murderer.

The Brick Slayer is part of Bloodlands, a chilling collection of short addictive historical narratives from bestselling true-crime master Harold Schechter. Spanning a century in our nation’s murderous past, Schechter resurrects nearly forgotten tales of madmen and thrill-killers that dominated the most sensational headlines of their day.

©2018 Harold Schechter (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Native Son reference

Bloodlands collection – 6 books The Pirate, Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie, Brick Slayer, Panic, Pied Piper, Rampage
Crime stories, whether in movies, TV or books always reflect the morality and mortality of humans – as cautionary tales to warn us…me especially. The bigger the human flaws or outsized characters; the villain(s) or defenseless victim(s), the press (broadsheet & tabloid), psychiatrists, police, and/or lawyers the more I gawk...
Note: all the ebooks were tricked out with Kindle in motion special effects. Bumped up the ante to the sensationalism...can’t tell if that’s a shot at the press or not…
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Brick Slayer – short story with racism and murder at its core. What makes it significant is the fact that author Richard Wright was greatly influenced by this killer trial & news fodder to create his epic novel, ‘Native Son’, which is on my to-read list and I’ll probably read it much sooner now.

Short and Troubling Topic, but Good

A compelling story about a disturbing historical practice and equally disturbing murders. Well written and we'll voiced by the narrator.

Fans of Richard Wright/Native Son must read!

A historically important case, as well as a juicy true crime fix, which I'd never heard of, with very good and important context provided. Admirers of Richard Wright and/or Native Son, may be as grateful as I am for the amazing links...including relevant citations. (NOTE: While very worthwhile and interesting info, it's still a very scanty read. It seems like a poor business ploy to create all these tiny Schecter pieces as separate purchases. They know many admire him and want to read all we can, but, really?)

American Darkside

The performance is phenomenal—Weber is fantastic. The story is dark and deals with race tensions within the proper American framework.

Schechter is a gifted storyteller and he understands how to craft an individual narrative within a broader framework. His handling of the Nixon murder “spree” is amazing—great listen. This is part of a series that I would definitely recommend to fans of American history, social dynamics, psychology and horror.

An Interesting Case

This was another excellent short book about a string of crimes committed by what the press dubbed The Brick Slayer. I had never heard of this story, nor the defendant, even though a major a American author had based a landmark work on this subject. It serves as both a case of racial profiling of the time and yet true. It ended a bit roughly. The narrator was excellent as before.

love

the series is unbelievably amazing I love everything about it. the narrator is top-notch too

Wow

This is one I hadn’t heard of. Sadly, it’s still relates too todays issues. It was well written and the reader was fantastic. There were complaints about the ending, but I found it to be clarification. Not to mention completely truthful. Highly suggest this book!

interesting

I had never heard of this story, was short but interesting. I thought it was worth my time.

The narrator did a nice job, pauses when needs to. It was dry but that is expected in this type of story. There were no repeating of words, no volume changes, was a very clear audio. The narrator has a very pleasant voice.

loving these stories

Really good story and performance. Interesting little snapshots of history. I recommend picking up all the books in the bloobland collection.

Wow

This has to be my favorite of the set so far. I really want to spend hours researching about this case and learning everything I can possibly learn. I believe there is a book specifically about this case that I'd love to get ahold of and learn more about. I do fully recommend this book. I recommend all six books in this little bundle/series. Whatever you want to call it. My schedule is very busy, but I will gladly make time to research these cases!