Archive by Author

Mom caught on camera poisoning young son to death in hospital

John Glatt on Crime Watch

Crime Watch Daily investigates the blockbuster case of Lacey Spears, a Kentucky mother who set off on a desperate journey to find a cure for son’s unexplained illnesses.

Watch John Glatt on “Crime Watch Daily with Chris Hansen”

“She always wanted to be looking after children and when she left school, she went into child care, and when she started taking care of children, people would notice how much more time she would spend with the children than everyone else,” said author John Glatt, who wrote My Sweet Angel: The True Story of Lacey Spears, the Seemingly Perfect Mother Who Murdered Her Son in Cold Blood.

My Sweet Angel

The True Story of Lacey Spears, the Seemingly Perfect Mother Who Murdered Her Son in Cold Blood

John Glatt

St. Martin’s Press

 
My Sweet AngelNew York Times bestselling crime writer John Glatt tells the true story of Lacey Spears, the mommy blogger obsessed with medicine who poisoned her own son while he was in the hospital.

Lacey Spears made international headlines in January 2015 when she was charged with the “depraved mind” murder of her five-year-old son Garnett. Prosecutors alleged that the 27-year old mother had poisoned him with high concentrations of salt through his stomach tube.

To the outside world Lacey had seemed like the perfect mother, regularly posting dramatic updates on her son’s harrowing medical problems. But in reality, Lacey was a text book case of textbook case of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. From the time he was an infant, she deliberately made Garnett sick to elicit sympathy from medical professionals, as well as her hundreds of followers on Facebook and other social media. When a Westchester County jury found her guilty of killing Garnett in April 2015, she was sentenced to twenty years to life in prison.

Using Lacey’s own never-before-seen Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts, an exclusive prison interview with Lacey herself, as well as interviews with her family and the three police investigators who broke the case, My Sweet Angel gives the definitive account of this extraordinary case that shocked the world.

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Live at the Fillmore East and West (Audio Book)

Getting Backstage and Personal with Rock’s Greatest Legends

John Glatt

Lyons Press

 

Live at the Fillmore East and WestIn 1968, rock promoter Bill Graham launched the Fillmore East in New York City and the Fillmore West in San Francisco, changing music forever. For three years, every major rock band played the Fillmores, performing legendary shows: Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, Cream, the Allman Brothers, and many more. Author John Glatt tells the story of the Fillmores through the lives of Bill Graham, Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Carlos Santana, and an all-star supporting cast. Joplin opened the Fillmore East and delivered some of her greatest performances there and at its San Francisco twin. Carlos Santana grew up as a performer at the Fillmore West after being discovered by Graham on audition night. Always unpredictable, Grace Slick’s electrifying Jefferson Airplane was the de facto resident band at both Fillmores. Chronicling the East and West Coast cultures of the late ’60s and early ’70s—New York City with its speed, heroin, and the Velvet Underground versus San Francisco with the LSD-drenched Summer of Love—Glatt reveals how Graham the made it all possible . . . that is, until August 1969 when Woodstock changed everything and musicians suddenly realized their power.

But why did Bill Graham shutter both Fillmores within weeks of each other in 1971, during the height of their popularity? Live at the Fillmore East and West reveals how Graham’s claim that “The flowers wilted and the scene changed,” was not quite the whole story.

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Live at the Fillmore East & West

Getting Backstage and Personal with Rock’s Greatest Legends

John Glatt

Lyons Press

 

Live at the Fillmore East and WestIn 1968, rock promoter Bill Graham launched the Fillmore East in New York City and the Fillmore West in San Francisco, changing music forever. For three years, every major rock band played the Fillmores, performing legendary shows: Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, Cream, the Allman Brothers, and many more. Author John Glatt tells the story of the Fillmores through the lives of Bill Graham, Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Carlos Santana, and an all-star supporting cast. Joplin opened the Fillmore East and delivered some of her greatest performances there and at its San Francisco twin. Carlos Santana grew up as a performer at the Fillmore West after being discovered by Graham on audition night. Always unpredictable, Grace Slick’s electrifying Jefferson Airplane was the de facto resident band at both Fillmores. Chronicling the East and West Coast cultures of the late ’60s and early ’70s—New York City with its speed, heroin, and the Velvet Underground versus San Francisco with the LSD-drenched Summer of Love—Glatt reveals how Graham the made it all possible . . . that is, until August 1969 when Woodstock changed everything and musicians suddenly realized their power.

But why did Bill Graham shutter both Fillmores within weeks of each other in 1971, during the height of their popularity? Live at the Fillmore East and West reveals how Graham’s claim that “The flowers wilted and the scene changed,” was not quite the whole story.

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The Lost Girls

The True Story of the Cleveland Abductions and the Incredible Rescue of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus

John Glatt

St. Martin’s Press

 
The Lost GirlsNew York Times bestselling crime writer John Glatt tells the true story behind the kidnappings and long-overdue rescue of three women found in a Cleveland basement.

The Lost Girls tells the truly amazing story of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who were kidnapped, imprisoned, and repeatedly raped and beaten in a Cleveland house for over a decade by Ariel Castro, and their amazing escape in May 2013, which made headlines all over the world. The book has an exclusive interview and photographs of Ariel Castro’s secret fiancé, who spent many romantic nights in his house of horror, without realizing he had bound and chained captives just a few feet away. There are also revealing interviews with several Castro family members, musician friends and several neighbors who witnessed the dramatic rescue.

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Review: Live at the Fillmore East & West

Getting Backstage and Personal with Rock’s Greatest Legends

Published: December, 2014

 

Live at the Fillmore East and West

Glatt expands his first book, Rage and Roll: Bill Graham and the Selling of Rock, with this grand history of the Fillmore concert halls of San Francisco and New York City. Using to great effect his original interviews and a wide-ranging selection of previously published material, Glatt presents a definitive analysis of the rock music industry from Fillmore founder Bill Graham’s birth in 1931 to the theaters’ closing 40 years later. As a reference tool, music buffs and casual fans alike will find this volume indispensable. Glatt has spent the better part of 20 years assembling a truly staggering amount of information on a period of music that is often oversimplified as a haze of drugs and sex. Influential though those elements may have been, Glatt focuses instead on a triumphantly thorough chronicle of the business decisions and industry trends that affected the music of a generation, like Janis Joplin’s decision to split with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Though Glatt can’t always manage to organize his prose dramatically, he has nevertheless compiled an exhaustive compendium of fascinating data. Photos. (Dec.)

Publisher’s Weekly

NY Times Review: Miami Vice

John Glatt’s ‘Prince of Paradise,’

By MARILYN STASIO

Published: May 31, 2013

 

NY TImes Review: Miami Vice Summer is no time to be virtuous. So before you pack those classic tomes you’re determined to read on vacation, let me tempt you with a few guilty pleasures.

The murder case John Glatt recounts in lurid detail in THE PRINCE OF PARADISE (St. Martin’s, $26.99) is too bizarre for a work of fiction. In fact, it’s a true crime story, originating at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach and harking back to the fabled era when stars like Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra entertained the crowds at the front of the house while mobsters ran the show behind the scenes. Ben Novack Jr., the little prince of the title and one of the murder victims in this sordid story, was the son of the colorful entrepreneur who built the hotel and reigned over his fabulously vulgar empire for almost 25 years.

Pampered but neglected, the child everyone called Benji had famous guests like Jerry Lewis and Ann-Margret for playmates, but no one for a friend. No wonder the kid grew up to be a thoroughly obnoxious man. “Every neighbor hated him,” according to someone who knew him well. “They hated him everywhere.” Novack’s second wife, a former stripper, hated him enough to have him murdered — and his mother for good measure. But while Glatt does a professional job of covering the lonely life and violent death of this unhappy prince, his style is much livelier when he’s writing about Novack’s father, the king of glitz.

John Glatt’s ‘Prince of Paradise,’ and More – NY Times

Oxygen: Live Out Loud interview

John Glatt talks about Ben Novack’s upbringing at the Fontainebleau.

 

WLRN Interview

True Story: a Hotel Heir, His Seductive Wife, and a Ruthless Murder at Miami Beach’s Fontaineblueu

 

WLRN Interview: The Prince of Paradise04/16/13 – Tuesday’s Topical Currents looks at the saga of the famed Miami Beach Fontainebleau Hotel, and the events which ended the lives of its “matriarch” and her son.  Ben Novack, Junior, wasraised in sumptuous Fontainebleau suites.  When the family lost the hotel, he took a second wife:  Narcy.  She was an exotic dancer who performed in Hialeah.  Years later, Narcy Novack executed a plot to kill her widowed mother-in-law and husband to gain their estates.  We’ll speak with journalist John Glatt, author of PRINCE OF PARADISE.  Tuesday 1pm on WLRN-HD1, rebroadcast at 7pm on WLRN-HD2 and audio on-demand after the live program.

CLICK HERE FOR THE INTERVIEW: WLRN Interview: True Story: a Hotel Heir, His Seductive Wife, and a Ruthless Murder at Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau

News 12

Novack murder case chronicled in new book, ‘The Prince of Paradise’

 

Play Video (off-site)

WESTCHESTER – A book chronicling the Narcy Novack murder case is due out this week.

“The Prince of Paradise”by John Glatt details the murder of hotel heir Ben Novack Jr. and exposes parts of Narcy’s hire-to-murder scheme that, according to Glatt, have never before been revealed.

Also featured in the book is a recap of an exclusive interview by News 12 with Narcy Novack while she was behind bars.

VIDEO: Novack murder case chronicled in new book, ‘The Prince of Paradise’