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Jay Robert Nash knows crime, not speculatively or academically but reportorially, at the level of the most intense and thorough investigative journalism. Some 50,000 entries in six volumes range from biblical times through 1988, and include a dictionary volume and an index volume. The entries present the most notable and important international criminal cases, persons, places, and events, as well as important persons in the fields of law enforcement, criminal justice, the judiciary, criminology, forensic medicine, pathology, penology, and criminal psychiatry and psychology. They also cover works of drama, fiction, film, poetry, and song, explaining the real-life role models for such works. Nash does fall prey to some common and insidious myths: his dictionary, for example, lists anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, and anarchy, but not capitalism, which is clearly more intimately (i.e. structurally) and extensively connected with crime and criminality. But the areas he knows, he knows better than just about anyone else. Note: this is a continuity series encyclopedia, offering annual editions, the year 1989 to be covered in CrimeBook's 1990 annual. Published by CrimeBooks, Inc., 1213 Wilmette Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091. Libraries and schools order from the distributor, Marshall Cavendish. (RC) Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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Library Journal Review

Nash has compiled a huge amount of information in this set, detailing every aspect of crime from biblical times to 1988 (yearly updates are planned). The first four volumes have entries from A to Z, mainly by name (of criminals, lawyers, etc.). Volume 5 contains a dictionary and many helpful supplements, e.g., a listing of landmark court cases; Volume 6 is an index by name and subject. This mammoth undertaking makes available in one source almost every major crime in history, and the range is amazing, from Roman emperors to the Wild West and the Chicago underworld. Each entry ends with a helpful bibliography, and many have photographs. There are errors, however, ranging from somewhat minor (William Cruse's murder spree was in Palm Bay, Florida, not Bartow) to more egregious (a murderer named Hickman is the subject of two entries--a two-page one with photos, and a shorter one under the misspelled name Hinkman). Such errors, combined with a claim on the copyright page that the set has somehow been ``seeded with information to detect any unauthorized use or duplication,'' make this a fascinating yet flawed set, useful mainly as a background source for information to be verified elsewhere (and here the bibliographies will be handy). Recommended, with reservations, for large reference and law collections.-- Sally G. Waters, Stetson Law Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

The review for this title will appear for the present only in the printed version of CHOICE. -C. H. Handy, Westfield State College