REVIEW: The Pied Piper

The Pied Piper
Author: Harold Schechter

Before listening to The Pied Piper, I had never heard of Charlie Schmid. In 1960s Tuscon, AZ, Schmid gathered a group of followers around him. Schmid had a fascination with killing people. He murdered three young women just to do it. He got away with it for awhile....until his friends turned on him.

This story is supremely creepy. I don't see how Charles Schmid had any sort of magnetic personality. His behavior and appearance seems incredibly odd. He loved Elvis...so he dyed his hair black, used mascara and applied pancake makeup to his face. He walked around with a strange sneer on his face, thinking it made him look like Elvis. That would not attract me to follow someone into aberrant behavior....it would repel me. But then again, I guess I can't understand why people followed Charles Manson either.

Bizarre story. I listened to the audio book version of The Pied Piper. The audio is just over an hour long and is narrated by Steven Weber. Weber reads at an even pace and is easily understandable. I have partial hearing loss but was easily able to hear and understand the entire story.

The Pied Piper is one of six true crime stories in the Bloodlands Collection from Audible/Amazon Originals. Schechter has written several true crime novels about famous killers including Ed Gein and H.H. Holmes. The Bloodlands Collection gathers together little known stories of crimes from the last 100 years. I've listened to 3 of the stories so far....enjoyable and informative. This one is by far the creepiest. Schmid makes for a disturbing tale of murder and weird behavior.

The photograph is of Schmid at his preliminary hearing in 1965. Doesn't he look creepy?? Yikes!