Dallas and the Jack Ruby Trial

Book excerpt: The question of why Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald was the central issue of his trial by Judge Joe B. Brown, Sr. With compelling immediacy and exhaustive detail, the judge's memoir is a vital contribution to the quintessential murder mystery of the 20th century. Here for the first time, we get to know what really went on in Ruby's trial and in his mind. Judge Brown had access to previously unpublished facts involved in the "trial of the century", as it was called. His memoir has been combined with the Warren Commission interrogation of Ruby and with Ruby' polygraph conducted by the F.B.I., accompanied by enlightening psychological commentary. With a selection of previously unpublished photographs, this is a brilliant, illuminating new view of the event that has dominated the consciousness of the American public as no other ever has.