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A Cast of Killers
by Sidney Kirkpatrick
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Dutton Books (1986-06)
ISBN: 5551541355
EAN: 9785551541356
Binding/Media: Hardcover - 301 pages
Edition: 3rd Printing
SKU: 60007
Condition: New
Comments: **A HARDCOVER BOOK** First edition, early print. Hardcover book, Dust cover and pages are in great condition, clean and tight. Ships rapidly with a free tracking and offers expedited. Priority air mail for overseas.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
An illustrated account of the 1922 murder of flamboyant director William Desmond Taylor reconstructs the events leading up to the crime and speculates about the possible murderer. Reprint. NYT.
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Customer Reviews
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Cast of Killers
Rating  (5)
Date: 2010-07-06
Loved this book and it's better in hardback with nice big pix. Quick service and a pristine copy of the book. Terrific!
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Thanks for putting a spoiler in the book description!
Rating  (1)
Date: 2009-12-12
0 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
You just saved me the price of this book. Nice work--now I already know who dunnit.
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Great mystery that left me mystified.
Rating (5)
Date: 2009-11-25
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
The book is a one sitting read; it holds your attention from start to finish
and as you blaze through it you constantly anticipate what the next character is going to divulge. As a lifelong movie buff I found the conversations between Vidor and those who had been there and done that absolutely fascinating. And that is the problem. At times it reads like a Chandler novel and I was left wondering how the author constructed the book. Did he take Vidor's papers and take license to put words in the mouths of those interviewed or did he write verbatim from the notes? Other reviewers have noted there are no citations or bibliography and I find this unsettling as well. I would love to see an addition to the book showing examples of Vidor's papers and an explanation by the author as to how he went about putting it together. I, for one, have no
doubt about the conclusions drawn: the lawsuits filed by Shelby, Minter, and especially Minter's sister Margaret,
are public record. The next edition should include testimony from those proceedings with proper citations
for all the author's sources. Quite simply, I loved the book as it gives us an insight into an American
art form that has all but vanished from our consciousness.
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Fabulously entertaining, but not so fabulously factual
Rating  (4)
Date: 2009-11-21
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
A CAST OF KILLERS is a compelling look back into the 1922 unsolved murder of William Desmond Taylor. The author tells the story through the eyes of director King Vidor, using his actual research of the murder during the years sixty-six and sixty-seven.
Once I picked this up, I could not put it back down, or rather, I didn't want to put it down for a second. Sydney D. Kirkpatrick knows how to grab ahold of a reader and keep them locked into the book until the very end. To make sure nothing spoiled the book for me, I didn't look anything up online (as I'm apt to do) until after I had read the last sentence. This proved to be for the best. Unfortunately, this is not the definitive answer to an unsolved crime, but just Vidor's (and I assume the author's) theory in a case that will likely never be truly solved. Also, the newsletter called Taylorology, which specializes in the murder, found 175 errors and contradictions in the 1986 edition of the book (the one I read). According to their website, most of those errors were corrected in the Twentieth Anniversary Edition.
Still, I found the book to be absolutely riveting and was a good starting place to learn the basics of a crime I had never heard of before. A CAST OF KILLERS is written like a novel, therefore it's a fast read and very entertaining. I take the theory used in it with a grain of salt, but all-in-all, it was a worthwhile read.
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20 years later or more
Rating (5)
Date: 2009-10-09
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I first read this book when it came out in the 80's, this book introduced me to the careers of William Desmond Taylor and MMM, I already knew a little about Mabel. I loved the mystery surrounding the case and how it has never been solved. I bought the new book mainly because my original was pretty beat up and it's one of those books I like to bring out now and then and re read. There is a new intro from the author and the bio's at the back have been updated slightly, no new pics which would have been nice but all in all I love revisiting this story. Does it solve the mystery??? Depends on your views, everyone who knows of the case has their own opinion but I enjoyed the book and am glad to have it in my collection.
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