
Sunday, April 12, 2015
FUN TO BE MURDERED ON THE BEACH

Friday, April 10, 2015
BOOK TOUR STOPS & APPEARANCES FOR LES
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Wednesday, April 8, 2015
FIRST TAKE: WATER TO THE ANGELS

Tuesday, February 1, 2011
NEW VIDEO TRAILER FOR BRINGING ADAM HOME
http://www.youtube.cf/watch?v=nfjRi_iLlGk
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
BIG THUMBS UP FROM PW

publishers weekly--11/29/2010
*(starred review)
Bringing Adam Home: The Abduction That Changed America
Les Standiford with Det. Sgt. Joe Matthews, Ecco, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-198390-0
On July 27, 1981, six-year-old Adam Walsh disappeared from a Sears store in Hollywood, Fla., and his partial remains were found in a canal two weeks later. Novelist and nonfiction author Standiford (Last Train to Paradise) charts with devastating precision the decades-long search for the killer and the evolution of Revé and John Walsh (John is executive producer and host of America's Most Wanted) from grieving parents into powerful advocates for missing children. In 1983, Jacksonville police arrested drifter Otis Toole for arson and murder, and he began talking about a little boy he'd killed in south Florida. Myriad confessions (and retractions) followed, containing details only the killer would know, but evidence disappeared, potential witnesses were never interviewed, and Toole was never charged. Convicted on other charges, he died in prison in 1996. Twenty-five years after Adam's abduction, the Walshes asked Matthews, a renowned polygraph investigator and retired detective, to conduct an independent investigation; Matthews concluded that Toole was the killer. Standiford's account is riveting, heartbreaking, and supports John Walsh's statement: "it's not about closure; it's about justice." 8 pages of color photos. (Mar.)

The current issue of Continuum, the magazine of the University of Utah, contains a nicely written piece by Chicago journalist Dave Wieczorek about yours truly and the writing of Bringing Adam Home. In the piece, I talk about the awful irony: just as I was finishing a book about a family who had lost a son, my wife Kimberly and I suffered our own tragedy. This is a club no one wants to join, my friends. But it also explains why I feel Bringing Adam Home is the most worthwhile book I have written. Kudos to Dave for his fine work. Here is the link to the piece, "Lost Innocence."
http://continuum.utah.edu/2010/12/lost-innocence/
Sunday, January 9, 2011
FOX NEWS BREAKS THE STORY ON BRINGING ADAM HOME

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (WSVN) -- A new chapter has been written in the murder case of Adam Walsh, as an author has published never-before-seen evidence.
The victim's father, John Walsh, host of "America's Most Wanted," said this should prove, once and for all, who killed his son. "For 27 years we've been asking who could take a 6-year-old boy and murder him and decapitate him," Walsh said. "The not-knowing has been a torture. That journey's over."
The link to the entire video clip of the piece by Senior Investigative Reporter Derek Heywood follows: http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21003205480535/
The WSVN story was prompted by articles that ran earlier in the week in the South Florida Sun Sentinel and the Miami Herald, focussing on the luminol photographs developed by Det. Joe Matthews that support the case against Ottis (Ought-iss) Toole, identified as the killer by Hollywood (FL) Police in 2008, after they viewed the results of Matthew's independent investigation which he carried out pro bono on behalf of the Walsh family.
When print reporters contacted me for comment, I told them that while the blood-evidence photographs are indeed dramatic, they are really just one part of an irrefutable tapestry of evidence set forth by Detective Matthews. I added that Matthews' work is nothing short of amazing--and inspiring--in a weary time such as ours, but that part didn't make the papers. The WSVN piece captures the story and its significance in a nutshell, however, and I urge you to have a look.
What is most remarkable about the photos is that they sat as in a moldering file in Tallahassee, undeveloped and neglected for more than 25 years. Though their existence was noted and catalogued in the evidence records, none of the hundreds of law enforcement officials involved in investigating the crime over the years had ever bothered to examine these photographs--incredible but true. Of course it is maddening that such lapses occurred; and it is sad indeed that the Walshes had to wait so long for the degree of closure they finally received; but in the end, we can be heartened that such selfless and dedicated individuals as Joe Matthews are still with us.