About the Author

Jeff Guinn is an award-winning former investigative journalist and the bestselling author of numerous books, including Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde; The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the OK Corral--And How It Changed the West; Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson; and The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple. Guinn lives in Fort Worth, Texas.

Reviews

"Manson is not simply a biography of a killer and a cultist. It's a history of American culture from the Great Depression to the close of the 20th century. It's the dirty boogie in four-four time, a fascinating study of greed, mind control, celebriphilia, sex, narcotics, racism, and the misuse of power. I lived in South Los Angeles when many of the events in this book took place. No one has told the story as accurately as Jeff Guinn. It's the story of Nixon and Johnson, Martin Luther King, Vietnam, the SDS, the Black Panthers, the acid culture, and a nation coming apart at the seams. From the first page to the last, I could hardly put it down. Hang on, reader. This is a rip-roaring ride you won't forget."--James Lee Burke

"[A] tour-de-force of a biography. . . . Vincent Bugliosi's book Helter Skelter led me to believe there was nothing more to learn. . . . I was wrong. . . . [Manson] stands as a definitive work: important for students of criminology, human behavior, popular culture, music, psychopathology and sociopathology, and compulsively readable."--Ann Rule "The New York Times Book Review "

"Brilliant. Written with deep insight and in seamless, fluid prose, Guinn's Manson expands the story of the cult leader into something far beyond the shocking story we're used to. The best book about Manson that I've read . . . and I think I've read them all."--Jeffrey Deaver

"Manson is a book impossible to put down, the details so palpable that the sense of being a part of each scene is almost overwhelming. . . . Guinn manages something much more than a true-crime book. Filled with the trampled hopes and broken dreams of those who gave their lives to a sociopath, Manson is an American tragedy."--Michael E. Young "Dallas Morning News "

"Author Jeff Guinn likes to dive into stories we think we know and give us much more. . . . Manson is a well-told, well-researched story that explains much about the murderer, his followers and his times."--Douglas Williams "San Diego Union-Tribune "

"Fascinating. . . . Manson isn't merely a hybrid biography/true crime book, though. It's also a sweeping cultural history. . . . [Guinn] making a name for himself as a doggedly thorough chronicler of famous American criminals. Manson, which uncovers new material culled from exclusive interviews, should draw an even larger readership. It certainly deserves it."--Doug Childers "Richmond Times-Dispatch "

"Guinn has managed against all odds to offer a fresh take and a worthy complement to the first-hand immediacy of [Vincent] Bugliosi's Helter Skelter. . . . Offers new insight to those who lived through that turbulent era, and provides essential context to those who didn't. What emerges is a grim but highly compelling portrait of a 'lifelong social predator' who was 'always the wrong man in the right place at the right time.'"--Daniel Stashower "The Washington Post "

"Sometimes a book is so good that the reviewer does not know where to begin. It doesn't happen often, but this is one of those times. . . . Jeff Guinn has produced not only the best biography of Charles Manson, but the best study of American true crime since Victoria Lincoln's A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight. . . . [A] consistently superb book. . . . Flawless."--Florence King "National Review "