FAVORITE AUTHORS
M. W. PHELPS
I just love Phelp’s books. He gives you a familiarity feeling for the story as if you were a part of it. I have loved him since I first read one of his books. It was only after discovering his books that I realized his background. He has a complicated background, and I am sure it is that background that makes him such a talented writer.
JOHN DOUGLAS
He is a retired FBI profiler. He was the one who created the technology to know what we are looking for in a suspect. It gives the police a way of identifying a suspect among the people that they interrogate. Today, most police investigations use that system. Critics have accused the system of profiling a certain race in crimes ranging from traffic citations to murder; but if it works — use it.
He was an extra charge to go see at CrimeCon2024, and I paid to go see him and meet him; however, his meeting was at 9pm that night, and by the time 7pm rolled around, I was in bed asleep for the night.
CrimeCons are really fun to go to, but they are extremely exhausting. I recommend any true crime junkie to go to at least one of them. The event will not disappoint you. Just know there is a lot of walking and talking. A lot of meetings and picture taking. And by 9pm, you will look for the closest bed. People will tell you to get the host hotel because you can meet some of the true crime people, but I had the host hotel, got there a day early, and never once met anyone in the elevators or halls.
APHRODITE JONES
She was one of the first true crime authors I read. I loved watching her show on the channel HLN a long time ago, and when she left, I wanted to find out if she was doing anything else, and that is how I found her. I went to her website to read about her more before getting one of her books. On her website, she was having a contest of some sort, and I entered it and she sent me an autographed copy of her book Michael Jackson the Conspiracy, again this was a book I wasn’t sure I wanted to read, but it was interesting. She explained that when she was working for HLN, they made her cover the story from the standpoint that he was guilty of all his crimes he was being charged with. However, in this book, she details why she thought that was the wrong assumption. She apologized in this book to Michael Jackson, who is long gone and will never know how she felt; and that, too, bothered her.
I had the opportunity to meet Ms. Jones at Crimecon2024 and she was so down-to-earth and easy to talk to. When she was on stage talking to us, her very first line was, “If you are planning on murdering someone, please notify me so I can get in at the beginning of the story.” She was hilarious.
