Do you like reading about true crime stories? Then you should read Swift Justice by Harry Farrell. It is about a department store heir, Brooke Hart, who was abducted one day in 1933 from a parking lot near his father's store in San Jose, California. His family had received a threatening phone call from a stranger who demanded $40,000 for his release. The town was outraged, and as the search for Hart and his kidnappers escalated, the community erupted into uncontrollable violence. The two kidnappers eventually killed Brooke Hart, and they were also captured. After Hart's body was found, the mob stormed the city jail and held a lynching party. 

     Swift Justice is a very detailed book. It gives an introduction to how the two kidnappers had met. It then goes in a detailed account of Brooke's life and his father's business. All of the ransom notes were reprinted in Swift Justice. The book gives the reader a play by play of the kidnapping and the consequences that were faced by the kidnappers and the town. The game of ransom went back and forth between Hart's family and the two kidnappers before they were eventually caught. The trial they faced was quick as the town's anger rapidly turned into fury. The mob paid their retribution outside the jail by starting a riot. They lynched the two kidnappers and their corpses had hung from trees. 

     Harry Farrell was able to write the book in full detail on the Brooke Hart kidnapping because of many interviews he had conducted on the subject. He researched many newspaper accounts and police and FBI files. Swift Justice contains many photographs, maps, and reproduced newspaper articles. All of the ransom notes had also been reproduced. Harry Farrell also included the politics that were involved in the case. The Governor at the time had praised the lynching that was surprising to many readers. Swift Justice is a must read book for all those true crime reader fanatics because it won the 1993 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime.