I was blessed for Murder Book to be nominated as a finalist for Best Mystery, Best Young Adult Novel and Best Romance of 2018 at the Midwest Book Awards for a 12 state area in the Midwest. Why didn’t I win? I defer to Occam’s Razor: The simplest explanation is often the best. It wasn’t as good as the other books. For example, Rebecca Davis won Best Young Adult Novel and she is an outstanding author as well as a very classy person. Still, the obsessive investigator in me had to look over the judges' scoring sheets. This is when I developed a better understanding of how subjective scoring can be. There were some wonderful comments, including 1 judge who wrote if I wrote 18 books he would buy and read every one. Each book is evaluated by 3 judges. Judge 1 gave me a perfect score of 25, stating, “Strong easy dialog that suited each person. Well crafted. Excellent read. Fun story-telling style. I like the clues without a give-away.” Judge 2 gave me a score of 24.5 with an arrow pointing up, “I delighted in the little factoids. Well-developed characters. The plot is engaging and original.” Judge 3 gave me a 19, which took me out of the running. Criticism was, “I don’t believe they would have released the killer from jail in the last section.” Here’s my frustration with the criticism from judge 3. It did happen in a case I worked, where the judge set the stage for releasing a murderer from prison, based on the suspected perjury by his son, just as it is in the book. I was warned by an editor (a month before the awards) who was now working closely with an investigator in Cleveland. She commented that she is learning that what actually happens with some of these cases is more unbelievable than fiction, and someone will eventually judge me poorly, even when I’m reporting the truth, because real life cases can be unbelievable. Murder Book has created a following from amazing people and I am so grateful. People stop and talk to me about it every week, all over the state. The sequel, The I-94 Murders, is at North Star Press ready to roll. I’ll let the readers be the judge! Before Me Too, There Was He Won. In 1992, New York socialite Joy Silverman was relentlessly terrorized by a man she did not know. She received creepy hang-up calls at all hours, lewd cards and letters. When the man sets his sights on her teenage daughter – sending the teen a sexually lewd message and threatening to kidnap her – Silverman finally called the FBI. Who was her sadistic stalker? And how far did it go? Joy Silverman was born Joy Fererh to a Jewish family of modest means on April 8, 1947. She worked as a trusted secretary for elite firms, following her mother’s footsteps. Her mother married well, and Solomon Wachtler was the attorney the family hired to protect Joy Silverman's $2.4 million inheritance she received from her stepfather. In 1988, Joy worked for the New York presidential campaign of then-Vice President George H. W. Bush, raising over $600,000 and becoming one of his top fundraisers. After Bush's victory, Joy was recommended for an ambassadorship and she was nominated as United States Ambassador to Barbados. Senator Paul Sarbanes shut down the nomination stating she is "a candidate with no ostensible qualifications for ambassadorship other than her campaign contributions." Solomon Wachtler tried to intervene on her behalf but the nomination eventually expired in the U.S. Senate never coming to a vote. President Bush then appointed her as a trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Solomon "Sol" Wachtler (born April 29, 1930) is an American lawyer and Republican politician from New York. He was Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 1985 to 1992. Wachtler's most famous quote, made shortly after his appointment as Chief Judge, was that district attorneys could get grand juries to "indict a ham sandwich." This quote was then used by Tom Wolfe in Wolfe's 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, paraphrased into "a grand jury would 'indict a ham sandwich,' if that's what you wanted." Wachtler was also known for the remark, "A marriage license should not be viewed as a license for a husband to forcibly rape his wife with impunity" (in People v. Liberta). Wachtler was elected to the New York State Supreme Court in 1968, and to the New York Court of Appeals in 1972, and was appointed Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals in January 1985. In 1988, Sol Wachtler began an affair with Republican fundraiser Joy Silverman. At the time, Wachtler was a co-executor of the estate of Alvin Wolosoff, Silverman's stepfather and the uncle of Wachtler's wife. He was also trustee of four trusts worth $24 million stemming from Wolosoff's estate for the benefit of Silverman and her family. Joy Silverman ended her affair with Sol Wachtler in 1991 after Sol indicated he had no plans of leaving his wife. Joy Silverman began receiving calls day and night, lewd letters and cards. When a card arrived to her 13-year-old daughter, containing a condom, and a threat to kidnap her, Joy involved the FBI. Joy’s harasser wanted $20,000 to stop. They arranged a meeting. The harasser didn’t pick up the money, but instead left a note stating it would take $200,000. The FBI followed the man, and arrested the highest seated judge in the New York Court of Appeals, Sol Wachtler. In November of 1992 Sol was arrested on charges of extortion, racketeering, and blackmail. Wachtler was sentenced to 15 months after pleading guilty to harassing Silverman and threatening to kidnap her daughter. He served his sentence, first at the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina, and from December 1993 at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota after he was stabbed in the shoulder while dozing in his cell in November. Wachtler was sentenced to 15 months, but received time off for good behavior. His sentence started September 28, 1993. He was released after serving 13 months. After his release from prison, Wachtler wrote a prison memoir, After the Madness, and has written as a critic-at-large for The New Yorker Magazine. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at Touro Law School and Chair of the Law and Psychiatry Institute of North Shore Long Island Jewish Hospital. Wachtler's New York law license was restored by the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division on October 2, 2007. Sol maintained his marriage. Wachtler lives in Manhasset, New York. His son, Phillip Wachtler, is married to Robin Wilpon, daughter of New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon. Joy and her millionaire husband, Jeff Silverman, divorced in 1995, after Joy’s affair with Sol Wachtler. Jeff Silverman remarried but later committed suicide. Joy Silverman was fired as a fundraiser for the Republican party. It doesn’t seem like a fair ending for a woman who was harassed and for the man who harassed her. I have to believe this would end differently today. Like I suggested, before the “Me Too” movement, it was “He Won.” Quotes: (more from Mitch Hedberg) I saw a band in LA and the band was having an off night and some people starting throwing tomatoes at the band. I thought "Who would throw a tomato at a band?" That’s bad. But then I considered, "Who would bring a tomato to a show?" That's even worse. I play golf. I'm not good at golf, I never got good. I never got a hole-in-one. But I did hit a guy. And that's way more satisfying. You're supposed to yell "Fore!" but I was too busying mumbling, "There ain't no way that's gonna hit him." When you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things besides comedy. They say "All right you're a stand up comedian, can you act? Can you write? Write us a script." They want me to do things that's related to comedy, but it's not comedy. That's not fair. It's as though if I was a cook, they’d say "All right you're a cook... but can you farm?" I saw a lady on TV, she was born without arms. Literally. She was born with her hands attached to her shoulders. And that was sad. But then they said "Lola does not know the meaning of the word "can't." And that to me was actually kind of worse, in a way. Not only does she not have arms, but she doesn't understand simple contractions. Thanks for listening, Frank Kaycee offering to give her new sister, Andrea Ethel Deal, a shot if necessary. Andrea was born to Branden and Nicolette Deal.
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AuthorFrank F. Weber is a forensic psychologist specializing in homicide and sexual and physical assault cases. He uses his unique understanding of how predator’s think, knowledge of victim trauma, actual court cases, and passion for writing true crime thrillers. His Award Winning books include "Murder Book" (2017) "The I-94 Murders" (2018) "Last Call" (2019) and "Lying Close" (September 2020). Archives
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