The Big Eddy Club (ISBN 1595582258)

Carlton Gary Guilty (Again), August 24, 2007:
Now that DNA has proven conclusively that Mr. Gary is an horrific rapist/murderer of women -- black, white, whatever -- perhaps those here who maligned the people who bravely (in the face of hysterical accusations of racism) put him away will feel compelled to apologize, including those comfortable enough to make such serious accusations without using their real names. Remember, the people who were actually denied justice are the murdered women -- particularly the white ones persecuted by being turned into symbols of racism, in death, via the author's lynch-mob-style accusations, his raw prejudice against white female crime victims, his self-indulgent fantasies of rescuing a grotesque murderer, and his dishonest portrayal of the case that never did stand up to the facts. He, particularly, should apologize for what he has done.

Another Yankee myth-peddler-authored book bites the dust:
From the AP on 8-24-07: DNA is break in '75 case Columbus serial killer linked to New York slaying... Poor widdu rapist/killer Carlton Gary be persecuted just 'cause he be black, by bad ol' Southern racists....pardon me momentarily while I barf!

Agenda Journalism at Its Worst:
Agenda driven, over-the-top-journalism at its worst. The author, Mr. Rose, has taken what at first was an outstanding work, and ruined it with his agenda driven ideas of American justice and the death penalty. His work and research into the murders, the arrest and early events of the story are good, oustanding perhaps, but then he unfortunately gets off track and becomes more interested in his agenda of degrading the justice system and of condemning the death penalty. One may have his or her own opinion about the jusicial system and one may have his or her own opinion about the death penalty, but one should make those points known, then move on, not pound the reader over the head again, again, and again. Mr. Rose demonizes anyone who might have a thought different from his and tries to discredit any idea or perspective that is not in lock step with his own pre-conceived ideas and opinions. In the end, he discredits only himself and his work. And that's a shame, because he had a good book going and the makings of a good, perhaps plausible argument on his positions on justice and capital punishment. In the end, by over-reaching and pounding the reader on the head too many times, he loses all credibility and what could have been a very good book goes down with him. Take for instance the title of the book, "The Big Eddy Club." Mr. Rose would have us to beleive that everyone who belongs to that dining club has the same ideas, the same opinions, and is in lock step agreement on all issues of race, prejudice and fairness. That's like saying all Democrats think alike or that all Republicans think alike. It's just not so, and Mr. Rose knows better. Or ought to.

Mr. Rose should have left "old history" out of it:
I read THE BIG EDDY CLUB in two days, without putting it down...well...hardly. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Rose in the early 90's. Having lived in Columbus,Ga. for 35 years, through an act of fate, I came across the shameful truth. The conspiracy to cover up the real facts by the Columbus police and all its "good ol' boys" ignorant and incompetent members. It was done, because they were absolutely clue-less what these murders were all about. They molded the evidence, to fit the crime...and six years later pulled out a "black Bunny" Carlton Gary, out of their hat of tricks....I hope that before I die, someone will go into it and rip up the carpet under which this has been swept and kept there all this time. I have too much evidence that someone else killed those women. There are no coincidences, not as many as I have discovered. I have moved away from Columbus years ago, but on my recent visit there, I was told by the court reporter on the Gary trial, who years later became my friend, that I am lucky to still be alive...finally, as for the book, the OLD SOUTH history, was a bit much and has absolutely nothing to do with the Columbus Strangler Case. It just angered a lot of people, which isn't helping Carlton Gary, who has been on death row for 22 years now, one bit. I pray that someone will open the Pandora's box and bring out the truth. I have tried my best, but the Columbus Police, DA's, local judges and the whole lot have just hoped I would disappear and let it die...it is long from over.

Big Non Sequitur Club:
Usually I like books by British reporters who come here to the USA and go to work on old unsolved "cold cases," or mysteries like the Lindbergh baby kidnapping in which innocent men were wrongly convicted, sometimes decades back. I remember Ludovic Kennedy's book on the Lindbergh case as one of the giants in the field. So when David Rose proposed to travel to Columbus, Georgia, and to look into the horrid 1970s rape-slayings of seven elderly white women, I was all for it! So many things failed to add up when the police brought in stylish, dapper Marvin Gaye lookalike Carlton "Mike" Gary and pinned him as their principal suspect in these heinous murders. Most of all I wondered whether or not the murders had any connection to the sinister "Big Eddy" country club, an all white organization for rich Columbians who all formed a complex social network of privilege and haute cuisine. Was it a coincidence that nearly all the victims were members of the club, and that later, many of the lawyers, judges and politicians who involved themselves in the Gary case, were also members? Could they have gotten together somehow and framed an innocent man? Isn't it a fact that at the height of these murders, a police dragnet was watching nearly every street in the small wealthy enclave these women lived in, and not one of them saw a black hipster, and in fact only a white man could have slipped through the dragnet? Not to mention only a white man could have known which houses were occupied by single white females? Possibly a white man turned on by elderly women but normal on the outside, a young member of the Big Eddy Club? As Rose points out in his dense research, Columbus was where the Klan flourished and the so-called "Southern rape fantasy" came to life with a bang. However when you get to the end of the book you realize that whatever else is happening in this book, the Big Eddy thing is a total dead end. I mean total! It will lure in people who liked MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL but they'll be lured in under false pretenses. I don't know if Gary committed these murders or not, and by two thirds of the way through I could smell the distasteful odor of an investigation gone South.