Forensic History: Crimes, Frauds, & Scandals narrated by Elizabeth A. Murray

Another in the Great Courses series. I'm grateful that I didn't start with this course because I may not have continued. Professor Murray covers a whole slew of cases, from Jack the Ripper to several cyber-crimes and identity thefts. I found most of the stories interesting, especially the really high-profile cases that I had heard about before. Some of the minor cases were interesting as well, but some were just a bit tedious. They were so small, most of the taking place around her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio (which she will tell you is her hometown in each and every course). If this was a course at a Cleveland area community college or university, that would make perfect sense, but this is a course that's being peddled for fairly big bucks to people all over the place. I would expect a more international array of cases. Even worse is her presentation. She has a really monotonous, drony voice. You can tell she's just reading from notes or something and not actually standing in front of a live audience. She stumbles and mumbles through, which, you know, she's only human, but if they were going to record someone just sitting there reading notes, they could have paid some drama nerd from the university to give it a bit more personality. People listen to these things while driving, for Pete's sake; how about we don't intentionally put them into a coma?

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