The Darkest Glare

There has always been something about true crime stories that catch my attention, maybe it has to do with my reporter background. That’s why I’m delighted to share fellow journalist Chip Jacobs’ intriguing true crime tale.

From the most murderous era in American history, a vintage true crime tale set among Los Angeles’ glassy towers and endless ribbons of asphalt. Who could resist that?

The Darkest Glare

A True Story of Murder, Blackmail, and Real Estate Greed in 1979 Los Angeles

By Chip Jacobs

In 1979 the City of Angels had its fair share of devils. Howard Garrett was one of them. His contractor’s license bought him an entrée into a Space Matters, a real estate development company run out of a hip mansion on the edge of LA’s Miracle Mile district. The company’s owners, debonair, slick-talking Richard Kasparov and self-conscious, nerdy Jerry Schneiderman, were L.A.’s Young Turks of interior architecture.

When Richard interviewed the quiet, buzzard-faced Howard, he figured he’d found the perfect supervisor to oversee construction for a firm hungry to expand. What neither he nor his partner Jerry knew was that by hiring Howard, they’d unloosed a monster into their midst.

In The Darkest Glare: A True Story of Murder, Blackmail and Real Estate Greed in 1979 Los Angeles (Rare Bird Books; ISBN 978-1644281918; on sale March 9, 2021; $18.00), author and journalist Chip Jacobs recounts a spectacular, noir true-crime saga from one of the most murderous times in American history.

It’s 1979 and future NBA stars Magic Johnson and Larry Bird are meeting on the court for the first time, Laverne & Shirley is the most watched show on TV, and the Los Angeles murder rate is the highest in recorded history. Even before Howard Garrett entered Richard and Jerry’s lives, he had managed to slither away from a series of brutal crimes unprosecuted.

But if Howard was the violent one of the trio, Richard was its resident grifter. As the firm expanded, Richard figured out ways to bleed the company dry for his own gain, including by hitting up Howard to put up his credit line in service of the company. When Richard’s grift is exposed, Jerry cuts all ties to him while a - by now - enraged Howard loses everything.

Using his steel blue El Camino to stalk his victims and X-ray glower to intimidate everyone, Howard unleashes his blood thirsty vengeance and decides to create a murder-for-hire corporation employing a motley crew of junkies and bottom-scrapers. The first targets: the owners of Space Matters.

But Howard’s band of would-be assassins bungled through his scheme time and again in scenes more reminiscent of The Three Stooges than The Godfather. It took almost a dozen tries to kill the first Space Matters partner, Richard.

Jerry – the surviving partner and unlikely hero of the story – blackmailed and threatened, finds himself in an odyssey of disguises, getting not-so-legal, legal advice from his lawyer while surreptitiously meeting in a graveyard, seeking protection from a charismatic, ex-Israeli mercenary, and being used as bait in a LAPD-orchestrated showdown at the La Brea Tar Pits.  

Whether its stumblebum killers or a mass murder averted by a kid watching Laverne & Shirley, you’ll never read about bloodlust like this. Or see Southern California the same way. 

Chip Jacobs conducted hundreds of hours of interviews and reviewed thousands of pages in Howard Garrett’s case to connect the dots. The resulting book is a feast for true crime lovers as well as for lovers of Los Angeles noir. The Darkest Glare is vintage true crime at its finest.

As a bonus, The Darkest Glare includes an original true crime short also by Chip Jacobs, “Paul & Chuck”. “Paul & Chuck” is the truly terrifying and weird story of crusading Los Angeles attorney Paul Morantz who in the late 1970s went to battle against one of the most dangerous and violent cults America has ever seen: Synanon. It’s story that’s guaranteed to make your skin crawl!

Meet the Author

Chip Jacobs is an author and journalist. His fiction debut, Arroyo, about two parallel lives gravitating around Pasadena, California's Colorado Street Bridge, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller. His other books include the biography Strange As It Seems: the Impossible Life of Gordon Zahler, and the bestselling Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution, and its sequel about China, The People’s Republic of Chemicals, the latter two with William J. Kelly.

His reporting has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Daily News, The New York Times, LA Weekly, CNN, and the Pasadena Weekly, among others. Jacobs, a graduate of the University of Southern California, is the recipient of numerous writing awards.

He is at work on his follow up novel, and several non-fiction projects. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Are you a fan of true crime stories? Had you ever heard of this killing spree?

One More Lie

I’m delighted to tell you about a new book that comes out today by a new-to-me author. Internationally bestselling author Amy Lloyd’s newest novel is ONE MORE LIE (Hanover Square Press Trade Paperback Original; May 28).

This is a harrowing tale that begins with 10-year-old Charlotte and Sean—her best friend from the wrong side of the tracks—are found guilty of a violent crime so heinous that they are tried as adults.   

          Charlotte wants to start fresh. She wants to forget her past, forget prison, and, most of all, forget Sean. But old habits die hard. Despite the ankle monitor she must wear as part of her parole agreement and frequent visits to her therapist, she soon finds herself sliding back towards the type of behavior that sent her to prison in the first place. The further down that path she goes, however, the closer she gets to the crime that put her in prison all those years ago. And that’s the one memory she can’t face. Until, one day, Sean tracks her down.

         

As the story builds, the author teases and hints with glimpses of Charlotte’s troubled past, culminating in a shocking conclusion that will leave readers chilled to the bone. For fans of Sometimes I Lie and Behind Her Eyes, Amy flexes her muscles with a crime fiction novel of unyielding suspense, creeping paranoia, and dark temptation that peers into the horrors that lurk in the human mind.

For those who aren’t familiar with Amy, here’s an introduction from her.

Author Amy Lloyd

I am the author of two novels: the first is The Innocent Wife, which became a top 10 bestseller and a Richard and Judy Book Club pick in 2018. The second is my new novel One More Lie, which is available in hardback.

Both my books are inspired by true crime. By crimes themselves but also, and perhaps more importantly, by our reactions to crime. In The Innocent Wife I wanted to explore our interest in true crime itself, such as our obsession with podcasts like Serial and blockbuster Netflix series like Making a Murderer. My second novel, One More Lie, is about a woman named Charlotte who has just been released from a secure institution for a crime she committed when she was a child. These cases seem to fascinate and horrify society in a way no other crime does. What is it about the idea of a child being capable of something so awful that stirs up such levels of emotion? And can a child really understand the gravity of such an act as murder?

Writing this book was an attempt to understand how something like this could happen and what it might be like to live with the burden of being infamous, branded as evil and not knowing whether you are a bad person or simply a person who did a bad thing.

It isn't based on a particular example of a true crime and all the characters and situations are entirely fictional but people will naturally draw comparisons with some of the infamous cases involving children who hurt or killed other children because these stories remain so vivid in our memories. Instead, I wanted to evoke the atmosphere those crimes created and the stain they left on our collective consciousness.

While writing the book, I tried hard to empathize with my characters who have done things which aren't easy to empathize with. I hoped that readers would be able to do the same and so I wrote them as vividly as I could imagine, in all their good and their bad. I wanted them to be human, believable and flawed.

I hope that One More Lie will offer a different perspective on a subject which has been much explored and that people will enjoy it the way they enjoyed The Innocent Wife.

For more on Amy and her writing, follow her on Twitter @AmyLloydWrites
and connect on Facebook.

Thanks for stopping by today. With my background in newspaper reporting, I can’t help but be drawn to true crime stories. Do you find yourself drawn to stories of true crime or about true crime?