I really enjoyed this book. As the teacher in charge of stocking the senior school library, I like to ensure that the books are diverse and the students are exposed to both excellent fiction and excellent modern non-fiction. I think that this is both a fascinating and well-written book that has much to recommend it and will keep the students interests. It is good to stretch their reading interests by providing them with books about subjects they might never have considered before and this definitely does the job well. It is also good to find books that I know the teaching staff might enjoy as well as the students and I definitely think that this applies in both cases. Absolutely recommend wholeheartedly; a fantastic read.

Mary Jane's Ghost by Ted Gregory is a true crime story written by a journalist. At first, the story is written well and hooks you right in. The story examines a cold case about a double murder in a small town. I really enjoyed this book at times. At other times, the author took great tangents and focused on journalism rather than on this story. Ultimately, the ending also left me unsatisfied. I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher. These opinions are entirely my own.

This is a very unusual book... It fits no genre and because of that may struggle to find its market which would be a shame. I've given it three stars but it could easily have been four, and would have been if I lived in the area or had more than a passing interest in the geography of small town America.

As a book about crime and obsession, however, it is a winner and it is unfortunate in a way that Ted Gregory couldn't focus more on the unsolved murders and less on the other stories he was working on as a journalist - although to be fair, some of them are intriguing. I like the writing style and there are certainly enough "characters" in the mix but overall I felt a bit disappointed at the end.

I was given this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

I am not sure how I feel about this book. The title seems to be a bit misleading. I was expecting a book about a murder but it seemed the book was more about the author. I expected a true crime book, but to me this is not that. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

The Subtitle is huge here and without it, I would have dinged this a star.

Mary Jane's Ghost is mostly the story of an unsolved double murder in a small Illinois town, but it's also a small part of the author/journalist and his thoughts as newspapers collapse, specifically, in this case, the Chicago Tribune.

Gregory whines and yet weathers all of the downsizing and changes, which is mighty lucky.

The same cannot be said for the Reed-Skridla murders of 1948 in Oregon, Ill. The case became an obsession of one of the town's residents, even though it was before his time and the reporter as well. For over a decade, Gregory followed the story, sneaking in trips to Oregon to get updates as he could.

The theories run from a simple robbery gone wrong to a jealous three-way lover's quarrel to a corrupt system and cop being involved in that quarrel. The problem is that it's been so long that it's nigh impossible to go back and redo what the cops of '48 bungled, purposely or just plain negligently, and most anyone that the finger could be pointed at is dead anyway. I mean when you have to hit up the neighbor kid that was 12 when it happened for information, you're not likely to get a lot of information here and they don't.

Yet for the townie, it became an obsession and almost as much for Gregory.

(I didn't and won't add this to my review. It was frustrating as heck to get through all that and have no closure, just as I'm sure it is for those involved)

This was a book I just could not get into. The murder alluded to in the title is really only in the background, and that is why I was interested in the book. It was well written, but I was just not interested.

I tried several times to get into this book, but it didn't have enough story to capture my interest.

The book purports to be about the double murder of Mary Jane Reed and Stanley Skridla in Oregon, Illinois in 1948 that has since gone unsolved.

While parsing out pieces of the story, the writer also bounces around the state of Illinois providing nuggets of Illinois history to the reader. From the Chicago River and pollution of the Illinois River to Asian Carp to statues of Abraham Lincoln to a mass murder/lynching in Southern Illinois, the author provides the reader with a byzantine history of Illinois along the way.

Since 1948, by either gross incompetence or by a cover-up by those investigating the double murder, the crime has gone unsolved, with rumors and gossip revealing numerous suspects and innuendoes of what may or may not have happened to the two young victims.

The author details the life of one man that has kept the inquiry continuing by his own dogged investigation that he has funded almost entirely by himself, which has included two exhumations.

To this reader, the overall theme of the book did not work well. The title is somewhat misleading and leaves a preconceived representation that is not met.

This book is probably best suited for those that would enjoy a memoir of a newspaper reporter, the stories the reporter chased and for a reader with a strong interest in Illinois history.

In 1948, Stanley Skridla and Mary Jane Reed were violently murdered in the tiny Illinois town or Oregon. The deaths made national news and inspired a county-wide manhunt, but no suspects were ever detained. In the late ’90s, Chicago Tribune reporter, Ted Gregory first heard of the lover’s lane murders from an obsessed local business man named Mike Arians. He quickly became obsessed as well.

In his new book, Mary Jane’s Ghost, Gregory details his decade-and-a-half-long research into the case and the eccentric Oregon residents trapped in its orbit, unearthing small-town conspiracy theories and whispers of paranormal activity. As a general assignment reporter, Gregory is too often pulled away from his passion project to investigate flying fish in the Illinois River, the resurrection of a hideous statue of Abraham Lincoln, downstate towns confronting shameful pasts, and at-risk teens communing with dementia-afflicted seniors.

More than your average true crime volume, Mary Jane’s Ghost is an inside look into the life of a modern newspaper reporter. Gregory exposes the stories of the Tribune’s struggles to remain relevant during the rise of social media and internet-base journalism. The book meanders across Illinois, but like Gregory himself, it always finds a way to return to Oregon, where Mary Jane’s ghost might still walk.

Murder, obsession, a cover-up - just the kind of book that I used to love to read 30 years ago. I'm thinking Joseph Wambaugh, Vincent Bugliosi. I couldn't wait to get started on this one. Unfortunately, Gregory failed to deliver the kind of gripping story I was expecting.

That may be partly my own fault and false expectations. I wanted more about the lives of Mary Jane Reed and Stanley Skridla; it would have made the solving of their murders as imperative to me as it was to Mike Arians and Ted Gregory. But the book is titled Mary Jane's Ghost for a reason and the reason is not, entirely, a supernatural one (although Arians spends decades convinced that Mary Jane's ghost does haunt the restaurant he owns). Rather, the book is about the way that Mary Jane's murder haunts these men, particularly Arians who spent more than $100,000 trying to solve the murders, agitates officials for decades, and gains a reputation as being a little bit crazy amongst the townspeople.

If Gregory had stuck to that story, even, I think it would have been one that kept my attention. But by the time he came into the picture, and so many years after the murders, there were few people to interview and not a lot of evidence to examine. Perhaps there just wasn't enough to write a whole book about. So Gregory puts himself, and the stories he was writing for the Chicago Tribune during the more than a decade that he was involved with Arians, into the book. It begins to feel like a book about Ted Gregory and the stories he wrote for more than a decade, that happened to include, over and over again, the murders of Reed and Skridla and Arians quest to solve them.

It's not that Gregory doesn't have an interesting story; he does. He was, after all, at one of the countries most respected newspapers at the time of the Great Recession and at the time that print media relinquished its reign at the source of hard-hitting news. It's a story worth telling; it just wasn't the story I was expecting.

Still, at just over 200 pages, it's an interesting read. Readers will learn more than than they will ever want to know about what goes on when you exhume a body that's been in the ground for decades (hint: you'll be glad this is a book and not a documentary). And the other stories that Gregory takes about are all interesting to read about. I just wish there were more about Reed, perhaps pictures, so that I might have understood better how Arians became so obsessed by a girl who died years before he came to Oregon, Illinois.

These are the comments I wrote while reading this book:

I am currently reading this book about a double murder that happened in Oregon, Illinois in 1948.

I just finished a chapter that dealt with a 70 something foot statue of Abraham Lincoln and the pitfalls it has been through over the years. Seriously? This has NOTHING to do with this murder. If I wanted to read about Oregon, Illinois, etc., I would have chosen a book like that. Not one that is supposed to be true crime about a double murder that happened in 1948 and has never been solved.

This isn’t the first time this book has gone off on another tangent as very early it went into the history of the Chicago Tribune.

I feel as though I am going to reach the end of this book and it still won’t be solved.

I will give this book one more chance.

This is my review:

Apparently, the story of Mary Jane's Ghost was not enough to fill a book, so the author included other articles he was working on in between the main story of the book.

I was not impressed. I skipped pages, a LOT of pages.

There is nothing in the title nor the blurb that tells the reader that there will be pages and pages of other stories included.

I gave the author an extra star because it seems as though he wasted as much time driving back and forth from Chicago to Oregon, Illinois as I did reading this book.

Thanks to University of Iowa Press and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

This is a very interesting account of a double murder that happened in Oregon, Illinois in June of 1948. In 2003, Ted Gregory, a journalist working for the “Chicago Tribune” receives a letter from Mike Arians, who is requesting help in solving the murder/mystery of Mary Jane Reed and Stanley Skridla that occurred on the south side of Oregon along Lover’s lane. The information in the letter does tweak Mr. Gregory’s interest as well. He has no idea at the time that he too will be seeking justice for these two young people for almost twenty years. Mr. Arians has an almost unhealthy obsession with the young beautiful Mary Jane Reed. He was a small boy when this crime occurred and even though it was always a black spot in the town of Oregon it was just never really talked about out in the open. There were plenty of speculations and some strange happenings regarding Mary Jane even years after her death. At the beginning of the book after reading some of Mr. Arian's accounts I’m thinking okay, here we go “Woo-Wooville” as I kept reading certain facts just SCREAM out a cover-up. The local law enforcement at the time and in years just didn’t want to touch this case.
Mr. Gregory also covers little known historical facts regarding the state of Illinois during his while writing this book that kept it more interesting. The one I like the best that had me giggling which at the time was a genuine problem in the area and surrounding states were the invasive Chinese Carp. These fish could fly and not only were they a danger of destroying the lake and rivers delicate ecosystems, they were guilty of knocking out a few unsuspecting fishermen as well. It was such a problem that the White House had a “Carp Czar” whose main job was to try to manage these creatures. Plus, it was interesting to hear the journalist point of view of working for a famous newspaper while the printed version was dying a slow death.
There were many reasons I found this book to be interesting not only the original case but the way the book flowed. It wasn’t all just about the case, most of it was of course but as I stated earlier he had sprinkled historical facts and other witty anecdotes regarding himself.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the providing me with a copy of this e-galley in exchange for my honest review

Young couple Mary Jane Reed and Stanley Skridla are violently murdered in 1948, in the small town of Oregon, IL. This is Chicago Tribune reporter Ted Gregory's account of how he came upon this story and why it was being revisited fifty years later. The title and cover are slightly misleading as this is not solely a true crime book but more-so the journey of Gregory's career throughout the time he was reporting on not only this cold case, but some of the other stories he covered along the way. I remained captivated throughout; I do believe this is in large part to the fact that in addition to being born & raised near (and currently residing in) Chicago, I visited Oregon, IL many times in the span of a decade. I would recommend this book especially to readers from the midwest.

Scattershot book about a real 1948 double murder.

Supposedly about a double murder in 1948 in a small town in Illinois, this book diverges from its topic about 2/3 of the time. The author is obviously trying to make the fourteen newspaper articles that he wrote in the Chicago Tribune on the murders into a full size book. The side issues are usually other newspaper stories the author wrote that share geographic similarities but little else with the main topic. They include the history of various statues in nearby small towns and the results of accidentally allowing Asian Carp to infest various rivers that feed the Great Lakes. The statues side issue occupied at least 50 pages of this short book and may be interesting to someone from Illinois but it didn’t relate to the murder plot at all. The Asian Carp issue was actually interesting but again was not connected to the main plot.

The murder plot is fascinating. One person, a former mayor of the small town of Oregon Illinois, is obsessed about who killed Mary Jane Reed and Stanley Skridla. Stanley and Mary Jane were sitting in his car on a lover’s lane following a cruise of the local nightclubs. Stanley was shot multiple times in the chest and abdomen while standing outside his car. However, Mary Jane was not found until several days later after a countywide search. She was located by a trucker in a roadside ditch about two miles away shot once in the head. Contemporaneous investigators never discover the killer’s identity. Can the former mayor solve the crime seventy years later? He is willing to spend the money, a reported $100,000, to try over seventeen years. Could the murderer have been a local deputy sheriff reportedly thrown over by Mary Jane? Could the murder just be a case of a robbery gone horribly wrong? There are many theories discussed in this book but the ending is rather disappointing.

If Mary Jane’s Ghost was a 80 page novella, it would rate 4 stars. As it is, the amount of skim reading that must be used to get to each portion of the murder plot makes it a 2 star read.

Thanks to the publisher, University of Iowa Press, and netgalley for an advanced review copy in exchange for my honest review. Mary Jane’s Ghost will be published on October 1, 2017.

This is author and journalist Ted Gregory's book about a murder case unsolved for over 50 years of a couple that were mysteriously killed while parked out on a known lover's lane back in the summer of 1948 in small-town Illinois. Was there a cop involved? Was there a coverup? Were all those possibly involved long dead anyway? Was it too late for answers? I like how he incorporates other stories he worked on and things going on around the country while he was writing, which kind of interjects a bit of the bigger picture as a reminder. A good true crime book that many fans will enjoy. I was given an ARC by NetGalley and the publisher for review.

Mary Jane's Ghost is an exceptional, fast-paced look at how a seasoned, Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper reporter investigates a decades-old unsolved murder. Mary Jane Reed was murdered along with her boyfriend, Stanley Skridla, in Oregon, Illinois in 1948. Mysteries abound in this well-written book, beginning with who killed the couple, to where the girl was actually murdered, to why the crime was never solved, and to why, even now, the case continues to place a strong hold on those who come across it. There's a hint of the paranormal in this fine book as well, and a solid look at how good newspapering is conducted. Highly recommended! I received an ARC of this book from the publisher and a free download from NetGalley.

In 1948 young lovers Mary Jane Reed and Stanley Skridla were murdered in Oregon, Illinois. Even though the shocking incident made headlines from coast to coast the crime was never solved. Rumors circulated in the little river town of Oregon, Illinois for fifty years... there were subsequent investigations that reopened the case over the years to no avail. Then Michael Arian showed up on the scene and an obsession was born. Convinced that the ghost of Mary Jane Reed was haunting his roadhouse he began his own investigation in the case eventually attracting the notice of The Chicago Tribune and reporter Ted Gregory.

Mary Jane's Ghost is about more than the original murder, it is about one man's obsession with solving the case of a murdered woman he never met. It is about the rapid decline of the newspaper industry, which was happening during this period of time, and one reporter's struggle to stay on the story (for thirteen years!) despite pressure to constantly produce content that would keep loyal readers from abandoning print media. There's alot going on in this book.
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It's interesting to read about both the original case and Mr. Arian's later obsession with the case in general and Mary Jane Reed in particular. The original investigation into the case was either grossly incompentent or wilfully corrupt. Possibly even a combination of the two.

Mixed in with these two "main storylines" are various other stories that writer Ted Gregory chased down over the same period of time that he was covering Arian and his obsession. The book ends up being something of a sampler for Mr. Gregory's human interest type stories: The tribulations and eventual restoration of a huge statue of Abraham Lincoln so ugly it is nicknamed Heinous Abe, The Herrin Massacre of 1922 which resulted in the deaths of nearly two dozen non-union "strikebreaker" workers, the environental havoc caused by the invasive Asian Carp species of fish, and, of course, the rapid decline of print media and downsizing of the newspaper industry.

The book is written in an easy to follow conversational style and is quite interesting. The author gets a little sidetracked and longwinded from time to to time when he is relating details of some of the other stories he covered but for the most part it keeps a steady pace.

FAIR WARNING: The next paragraph contains a spoiler-ish statement. Do not read it if you don't want to know about how the story ends. It's really only mildly spoiler-ish but still... you've been warned

*SPOILER:* Michael Arian spent more than sixteen years and at least $120,000 trying to solve Mary Jane's murder. It remains unsolved to this day. Although there are several plausible - and more than a few highly unlikey - scenarios offered as to what happened there really is no definitive answer when all is said and done. Don't go in expecting a resolution.

***Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this title.

The title of this book is misleading at best. While the unsolved murder of a teenager in the 1940s frames the book, the author fills half the pages with tangents that have literally nothing to do with the crime or much of anything else. He rambles about carp fishing, Abraham Lincoln statutes, the state of newspapers, re-naming bodies of water, and other things that I found so annoying I almost stopped reading. I sincerely wish that he had stuck with a streamlined version of the murder investigation itself. Even that part became more of a character study of the people involved, but at least that would have been relevant to the way the book is presented. It honestly should be re-branded as a memoir about a reporter who reports on a lot of things and one of them is this unsolved old murder. [I received an advanced copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for writing a review on Goodreads.]

The title of the book is misleading. The focus is only peripherally on the slaying of Mary Jane in Oregon, Illinois. The true focus of the book is the life of a general assignment newspaper reporter. Ted Gregory writes a compelling account of his life as a reporter, his love for his home state of Illinois is obvious, and the variety of assignments he discusses is fascinating. The cold case of the eponymous Mary Jane is one of many stories he reports on - it just happen to be a story he revisits several times and is particularly interested in.
This book is best enjoyed as a meditation on the varied life of a reporter, not as a true crime book. Mr. Gregory says it best, "The search for the truth, the courage to face and accept it as our own, the value in trying to gain deeper understanding - that's the noble journey."

I really did not enjoy this book. It focused more on the reporters ramblings about Chicago and Illinois and the crime actually played a very small rold.

Not something I would read again or recommend.