The Pied Piper

Bloodlands collection

By: Harold Schechter

Narrated by: Steven Weber

Length: 1 hr and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

With makeup and an affected Elvis pout, Tucson’s Charlie Schmid was a crude parody of a bad-boy heartthrob. In 1964, he still had a hold on girls who’d follow him anywhere. He murdered three of them.

It was the dawn of the free-love movement - perfect for a magnetic madman who’d also foreshadow its end a few years later in the malignant charisma of Charles Manson. The inspiration for a classic story by Joyce Carol Oates, Schmid, the most bizarre serial killer of any era, was the epitome of a narcissist flattered into believing he could get away with murder.

The Pied Piper 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.

A bit sexist but informative

At first I thought this was the literal old story of the pied Piper complete with magical flute. Imagine my surprise when the narrator began talking about murder.

I found it to be a good summary of the story, however, the author seemed to be a bit judgy of women. Calling Mary Finch "dumpy" and another "promiscuous/ admired prostitutes" for getting paid for what other girls gave away for free. The book might be old though. It's very factual and that's about all.

interesting

very interesting story. a lot better than the others. I cant believe how crazy some people are.

enjoying the bloodland collection

I am enjoying the bloodland collection! this is my fourth book of the series. I really like the little bits of history you get in each story.

Fast read

Simple read and straight tell. No speculation or insight into criminality. The subject is hidden in the past.

Arizona murders

Pied Piper – 1950’s killer. This story didn’t have an enormous amount of background info but just was interesting in the peculiarities of the murder and his garish obsession with his appearance/make-up.

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…

Poetry and Thrill Kill

Creepy story effectively, if unimaginatively told. Without the racist epiphets in number of other Harold Schechter books. Perhaps because victims and killers were all anglo?

Love this author!

I have very much enjoyed the true crime books by the author, all very engrossing and well written, so when I saw this, (one of a series of short true crime stories) and saw it would be free + included in my Audible membership, I just had to grab it for my library. Under 2 hours long, it was an easy, 1-session listen. Narrator has a pleasant voice, and good pacing, doesn't drone on or use a monotone. Story itself is very interesting and engaging, my only issue with it is the frequently condescending discriptions of the main people involved (example, calling Ms French a 'dumpy high school dropout', and a few other less-than-generous descriptions of other girls and of one of the boys). I'm not usually judgemental about the way people describe other people, but I have seen documentaries about this case before, and I have seen pictures of these girls, who are in NO WAY WHATSOEVER as he describes their physical attributes. ('dumpy', 'a skinny tramp', 'a plain, mousy girl, who made up for her deficiencies in appearance with a puppy-ish devotion', 'a weedy, asthmatic little runt' ) He does the same thing, in reverse, for one of the victims, exaggeratedly overstating her looks in positive terms (' prom queen type looks' etc) . My personal opinion is, it is authorial intent to make the 'bad guys' (and gals) in this case look worse, uglier and utterly non attractive. He didn't really have much to say in positive terms about anyone involved with this case who was not one of Schmidt Jr's victims. I'm not saying in any way that these people who fell under Schmidt Jr's spell should be held up as examples or exemplified in any way, I'm just pointing out something that made an impression on me, because I have seen photos of the people involved in this case. While writing tactics like this are great in the world of fiction, I feel it doesn't have a place in relating something that really happened, to real life people. In reality, not every villain is ugly or undesirable, not every victim is a beauty queen. More realistic descriptions of the person's involved in this would improve the narrative, in my opinion.
Otherwise, no complaints at all, I very much like the author's 'voice' and the chosen narrator performs well. Just the author's name on the cover is enough to get me to use a credit on one of his books, I was lucky this series was available to me for free. The others in the series are good too, the first one I listened to in the series was 'Little Slaughterhouse on the Prarie', about the murderous Bender family.

Superb Narration of a Chilling Tale

This is another excellent chapter in the Bloodlands series. The Pied Piper recounts a series of murders by a psychopath from Arizona. A riveting read and superb listen, it paints a portrait of restless teens led astray and manipulated into trouble. At one time 30 people knew that some of the missing girls were dead and said nothing to authorities about it. Even after the killer was caught and unfortunately spared the death penalty he so richly deserved, he made friends with a professor of poetry. The professor began a thirty year program working with inmates. Killer Schmidt was brutally assaulted and ultimately died of his wounds. Only the killer's mother and the instructor mourned him. I find it distressing that the professor became such good friends with this fiend. A thrilling read and another superb narrative performance by Steven Weber.

Dark History

This story gives the reader a very differwnt view of Americas sweetheart period! Great performance!

Nicely done

Proper depth and length, very well done. Interesting story. The time will fly right by.