Book excerpt: Arthur A. Carey’s autobiographical Memoirs of a Murder Man was first released in 1930, and focuses on the author’s detective work in homicide cases. The book includes chapters on such infamous cases as the 1920 slaying of Joseph Bowne Elswell, an American bridge player, tutor, and writer during the 1900s and 1910s, and the Barrel Murder in 1903, when New York police found the body of U.S. Secret Service agent Benedetto Madonia stuffed in a barrel, similar to the New Orleans “barrel murders” of the previous decade. A gripping book!