Books by James W. Clarke
Backcountry: A Novel
Beth Blanchard, a recently divorced, burnt-out prosecutor from Tucson, Arizona has quit the law, under extenuating circumstances, and has moved to West Glacier, Montana to get away from things, relax, and write a book. At first the getaway works as she meets, Harry Dawkins, a retired Marine officer who introduces her to the beauty and adventure found in Glacier National Park. But that changes when the body of a young Indian woman is found, reminding her of the unsolved murders of several Indian women near Grand Canyon National Park. She decides to investigate. Backcountry is a thriller that blends a captivating combination of outdoor adventure and high stakes suspense involving Beth and Harry, a sadistic killer and a terrified young woman, a marauding grizzly bear, and a grieving father with Blackfeet warrior traditions and revenge on his mind.
With overlapping threads following the respective paths of Beth and Harry, local law enforcement officials, an itinerant killer who views his acts of violence as a natural culling of mankind's social herd, and even the movements of the killer's next targeted victim, Backcountry provides a riveting read that sets into play the instinctive forces of predators, both animal and human, and the unforgiving nature of remote wilderness. "The book’s snappy scenes seem ripe for an adept screenwriter to turn the novel into a movie for a future summer blockbuster at the theaters." -Whitefish Review American Assassins: The Darker Side of Politics
From Richard Lawrence, who attempted to shoot President Andrew Jackson in 1835, to the assailants of contemporary American political leaders, this book examines the lives of sixteen individuals who tried to kill or did kill our presidents and other prominent politicians. Lawrence, who thought himself to be King Richard Ill of England, was so obviously insane that he was acquitted of his crime. Were the other assassins and would-be assassins equally ill? Classifying the attackers into four psychological types, James Clarke introduces evidence of real differences among men and women who until now have been lumped together as delusional or deranged.
"Certainly a suggestive and rewarding book." -- The New York Times Book Review " . . . [T]he complacent reader, always eager to blame evil and disaster on THEM -- Communists or the CIA, prime-time television or handguns, corrupt politicians or crazed assassins -- is forced, by the point of view of the 'stories' themselves, to see the world as the assassin saw it: to see, then, that the killings fell almost rationally into their scheme of things." The Los Angeles Times Book Review "Professor Clarke has written an absorbing and, in some respects, a pioneering book on a grimly fascinating subject." -- The London Times Literary Supplement "Clarke's study should be in every FBI office and jury room across the country." Pittsburgh Press "[American Assassins] combines persuasive research with crisp writing to show how we have consistently denied that rational Americans could so despair of justice that they would turn to assassination." -- Detroit Free Press [American Assassins] cuts through a tangle of myth and misconception surrounding a very perplexing issue." -- Houston Post On Being Mad or Merely Angry: John W. Hinckley, Jr. And Other Dangerous People
The author of American Assassins: The Darker Side of Politics, which told the stories of sixteen political assassins and would-be assassins, turns his attention to the Hinckley case. For the first time Clarke explores the link between mass murder and political assassination. Clarke explains the factors that motivated this strange young man who first considered mass murder before turning his attention to President Jimmy Carter and,subsequently, to President Reagan.
"Clarke has made a very significant contribution to the study of assassination. His is the first serious and scholarly -- as distinguished from journalistic -- account of Hinckley's attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. The scholarship is superb, and the book is written in a lively and interesting style." ~John Monahan, University of Virgina/Director of the Program of Research on Mental Health and the Law for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation |
Last Rampage: The Escape of Gary Tison
Now a major motion picture starring Robert Patrick and Heather Graham!
"This book has stayed in print for decades because hiding underneath its crass, blood-splattered original cover is a harrowing and powerful tale." --Bill James, American baseball writer, historian, and statistician. "Illuminating and absorbing . . . The book is more than a simple cops-and-bandit tale: It is a psychological study in the machinations of a master manipulator." --Arizona Republic. "The killings alone are chilling enough to place this fascinating book alongside Joseph Wambaugh's The Onion Field or Joe McGinniss' Fatal Vision . . . Though the details of corruption in Arizona's prison system are absorbing, the story of Tison's psychological control over his three sons provides the most rivieting reading" -- Chicago Tribune. "Gripping and violent . . . an intelligent look at the . . . factors that allowed a manipulative killer to exercise his influence." -- Kirkus Reviews "A riveting account of a bloody crime spree and a first-class study of a cunning sociopath in action." -- Publishers Weekly "Vivid, frightening, and fascinating." -- New York Times Book Review Defining Danger: American Assassins and the New Domestic Terrorists
Defining Danger explores the cultural and psychological linkages that define assassinations and a new era of domestic terrorism in America. The importance and originality of this research has been acknowledged in presentations to, and consultations with, the U.S. Secret Service and one of the nation's top independent private consulting firms on domestic violence.
" . . . Defining Danger: American Assassins and the New Domestic Terrorists is an examination of acts of terrorism and political violence on American soil throughout modern history. From the assassination attempts that killed four of America's presidents and tried to kill eight others, to "Oklahoma City Bomber" Timothy McVeigh, to abortion clinic attacks and abortion doctor killings, to analyses of twenty-one perpetrators of political violence . . . and much more, Defining Danger seeks to quantify and categorize the changing nature of violence and threat, and its impact upon American politic[s]. Meticulously researched and studiously assembled with the precision and eye to detail worth of a master surgeon, Defining Danger is a welcome addition to terrorism studies . . . and sure to prove an invaluable historical and analysis tool for examining modern risks and atrocities." -- Midwest Book Review Defining Danger is now available through Google Play, Amazon, ebrary, and other eBook venders. The Lineaments of Wrath: Race, Violent Crime, and American Culture
"In this thoroughly researched and elegantly organized study, Professor James Clarke makes a significant contribution to understanding of the historical and political origins of race-based violence in the United States. In The Lineaments of Wrath, Clarke combines archival research with an impressive range of secondary sources to examine key aspects of contemporary violence in America. It is an extremely valuable piece of research." -- Desmond King, professor of politics, University of Oxford.
"The Lineaments of Wrath by James W. Clarke stunningly treats the mighty collision of four centuries of violent oppression of African Americans by white Americans with the current subculture of black-ghetto violence. As no other scholar has done, Clarke explores the deep historical roots of our late-twentieth century crisis in American race relations -- an urgent example of how the present must learn from the past to insure a future of peace and civility." Richard Maxwell Brown, professor of history, University of Oregon. |