Why Did They Kill?

By John Bartlow Martin. ”Three teen-agers” committed hammer attacks in Michigan in the fifties, seemingly without provocation. Martin, a reporter who was later ambassador to the Dominican, investigated the case for the Saturday Evening Post. The resulting book won an early Edgar. A 1953 paperback whose confidence in the author is quite charming, this Ballantine “criminal case history” is a bit down at heel, as shown: edgewear, creasing, corner splits; pretty advanced page tanning; a weak front hinge. Perfectly readable if handled gently, though, and a real window into midcentury genre reporting.