Nick van der Leek

Slaughter

Vincent van Gogh is the world's most popular and expensive artist, the father of modern art, and yet no one really knows how he died, when, how or where. If he didn't commit suicide, what happened?If Vincent did commit suicide, why would the master of expressionism fail to express himself on his own death? Why would a man whose art, beloved for its effusiveness, remain mum on this most primary of primary motives; why not reveal his motives for snuffing out his own yellow flame?Why would someone who wrote so many letters - 830 that we know of, at a rate of almost a letter a day - fail to write a suicide note on the day of his death? Why would anyone who wanted to escape his painful existence, shoot himself in the stomach, only to endure an agonising 30 hour exit?Why did Vincent cut off his ear, and how much ear did really he cut off? Does the calculus hold, that the bigger the piece of severed ear, the more tortured, the more mad, the artist must be in the eyes of the world?Why was Vincent such a tortured artist? What is the modern medical diagnosis for his particular brand of mental illness?"We want to inflate the various theories into bulging balloons, float them alongside one another and then reach for the true crime needle. The process of popping the unlikelier versions dogging Vincent's story, fundamental as it may be to the popular museum and PR narrative, must be balanced by the synthesis of a new version, a new integrated picture of what happened that has never been painted before..."In The Murder of Vincent van Gogh true crime maestro Nick van der Leek does what few have done in over a century of feverish postulations - he blows away the murk and reveals the motive behind the most beloved artist's unhappy end, and does so in expressive, crystal clear detail.

The Murder of Vincent Van Gogh

Lisa Wilson

Nobody knows who killed JonBen�t Ramsey. Despite the efforts of Colorado's legendary super sleuth Lou Smit, the JonBen�t Ramsey case has - to the present date - defied demystification. Smit, who cracked over 200 cases and had a 90% success record, devoted the last years of his life to finding JonBen�t's killer. Smit died in 2010 having failed to solve this confounding case. 6 years later, despite massive media attention and widespread public scrutiny the most famous of cold cases remains unsolved.Now two rising stars of the true crime genre have put their heads together for their toughest assignment yet. "The caseload involved is colossal. It's overwhelming. At times I've felt like I was drowning; literally dying while I was investigating this case. I haven't felt anything as bad on any other case; that should indicate what we're dealing with here." - Nick van der Leek, PhotojournalistBut The Craven Silence is more than just an investigation into the murder of a beautiful little girl, it's an investigation into the very basements of the human condition. To genuinely probe the cold desecration of our common humanity, the authors move through the veneers of winter and Christmas to deeper and darker places."I can understand how this case obsessed Smit but ultimately it defeated him and just about everyone else. We're trying to avoid getting bogged down or lost inside this twenty year old story; we're trying to find something no one else has and when we do, stay humble." - Lisa Wilson, bestselling author and bloggerIn The Craven Silence the authors have burrowed behind Boulder's chummy bureaucracy in search of not one murderer, but several...

Nick van der Leek

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