Screams From the Courthouse Basement: The Monaghan Affair

by Wolford Swimmer and Beverly Peterson

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0970847904
• ISBN13: 9780970847904
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: P. S. Campus Publishing
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Suspense packed

It generally takes me a long time to get through a book but I couldn't put this down til I finished it. Move over Salamin Rushdi. Any more details and the authors lives would be at stake.

Screams from the Courthouse Basement

When the book first arrived, I scanned the early pages and was intrigued to find a cast of characters and a definition of the Third Degree. What was this all about? So I read a few words of the story and the next thing I knew I had finished the story. This is a fascinating book detailing sordid politics in "small town" Pennsylvania and will be a plot source for mystery writers for years to come. All books should be so engrossing!

The pot still boils

Professors Peterson and Swimmer have written a fascinatingly unbiased account of a period where nobody was unbiased. I first heard about the case in American History class when my teacher ranted on and on about sneaky lawyers getting the guilty off. He was talking about John Duggan, Jr., my grandfather. That was in 1958. The numbers racket was still quite popular, sports betting a malor industry, politics intimate to everyone, unions a subject to start fights in bars. Bev and Wolf researched to the max. It is unfortunate that only one of the participants was still alive when they started but. The authors have captured the wild personalities, the trial ploys, the volatile political setting, the questionable media coverage, the nature of policemen, the effect of friendship and political and professional affiliations on prosecutions and trials. And the effect of huge egos and political aspirations on the legal process. The book is fantastic and delightfully accurate (as best we can tell). I only wish it had been about a thousand pages longer. If it weren't so darn readable it should be mandatory reading in every civics class. There are so many lessons to be learned from it.

Fascinating tue murder story, I felt like I was there.

This is a great book! True life, once again, is way more interesting than fiction. Anyone who would like to learn about murder, politics, cover-ups, violence, sex, gambling and courtroom drama must read this thriller. Swimmer and Peterson should now do a current events piece on Fayette County, to see if things have changed!

Uniontown Confidential

Frank Monaghan Sr. was having a "bad day" with the law on Sept 11, 1936; it would also be his last day. If you like gritty police stories, here's a real one from the days of the Bertillon profiling system and the "Third Degree" method of intimidating and subduing suspects . In a readable and compelling account, Swimmer and Peterson shine the interrogation lamp into the dark recesses of the courthouse crime scene. The resulting legal juggernaut threatened the reputation of several prominent Uniontown citizens. The authors clearly present the legal issues and provide several dossiers to help the reader sort out the colorful cast of characters. This is a riveting book.