Quick Take
- Narration: Steven Weber’s narration has a controlled, journalistic cool that suits the true-crime register; he does not sensationalize or sentimentalize, which is exactly right for Schechter’s approach.
- Themes: The social psychology of a charismatic killer, teenage vulnerability and complicity, the relationship between true crime and American cultural memory
- Mood: Unsettling and efficient, with the compression of a well-constructed long-form magazine piece
- Verdict: A brief, well-crafted entry in Schechter’s Bloodlands series that introduces a genuinely disturbing case with the precision of a skilled crime historian, though its brevity will leave some listeners wanting considerably more.
I listened to The Pied Piper on a Tuesday morning while making breakfast, which I immediately recognized as a mistake. Harold Schechter has a gift for making crimes feel textured and real rather than safely distant, and the story of Charles Schmid, known as the Pied Piper of Tucson, is not one that sits comfortably alongside scrambled eggs. By the time Schechter got to the detail about the thirty people who knew where the missing girls were and said nothing to the authorities, I had set down my fork and was just standing at the counter listening.
The Pied Piper is the sixth installment in Schechter’s Bloodlands series, a collection of short, audiobook-native true crime narratives published through Amazon Original Stories. Each piece resurrects a nearly forgotten American murder case from what Schechter calls our nation’s murderous past, and presents it in the compressed, propulsive form of the best long-form crime journalism. At just over an hour, this one covers the 1964 Tucson murders committed by Charles Schmid, a young man whose physical oddities, he wore makeup, stuffed his boots with tin cans to appear taller, and affected an Elvis pout, somehow made him more rather than less magnetic to the teenage girls around him. The strangeness of his appeal is the book’s central puzzle.
Schmid as a Cultural Mirror
The most interesting dimension of Schechter’s treatment is his insistence on reading Schmid not simply as an aberrant monster but as a figure who reveals something about the cultural moment he inhabited. The opening of the free-love era, the twilight of postwar innocence, the particular power that a bad-boy persona exercised over young women in a Tucson where options were limited and rebellion was appealing: Schechter connects Schmid to Charles Manson, who would emerge a few years later with the same capacity for magnetic manipulation at an even larger scale. The comparison is not overreached; both men exercised a kind of charisma that operated in a specific cultural vacuum, and understanding one helps illuminate the other.
Schmid was, in Schechter’s phrase, the inspiration for a classic story by Joyce Carol Oates, the 1966 short story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? The connection to Oates gives the case a literary resonance that Schechter uses effectively. He does not dwell on it, but for listeners who know the Oates story, the connection deepens the unsettling quality of what Schmid actually did compared to what Oates transformed him into. The gap between the fictional treatment and the historical reality is itself revealing about how American culture processes violence.
The Thirty Who Knew and Said Nothing
The most genuinely disturbing element of the Schmid case is not the murders themselves but the social network that sustained his secret. Reviewer Admiralu noted the extraordinary detail that thirty people knew some of the missing girls were dead and said nothing to the authorities. Schechter does not ignore this; he uses it as a lens for understanding how Schmid’s hold operated, not just on his immediate confederates but on a wider community of teenagers who were either afraid of him, loyal to him, or so thoroughly inside the social logic he created that the normal obligation to report a murder simply did not register as an available option.
This is where a longer treatment of the case would be most valuable. At just over an hour, The Pied Piper can sketch the social psychology without fully excavating it. Reviewer Nicole noted wishing the book were longer, and reviewer Anderson noted some narrative confusion at points, both responses that point to the compression the format enforces. Schechter is a skilled enough writer to make the essential case in the time available, but the subject has layers that one hour cannot fully reach, and the question of how an ordinary community contains and conceals something this extreme deserves more space than the format allows.
Steven Weber and the True Crime Tone
Steven Weber’s narration strikes the tone that true crime writing at its best requires: controlled, factual, and undemonstrative. He does not linger on the disturbing details for effect, and he does not pull back from them either. The delivery has a journalistic quality that suits Schechter’s approach, which is consistently interested in evidence and cultural context rather than in producing a visceral reaction. For a piece this short, the narration is crucial for maintaining momentum without inflating the material beyond what the evidence actually supports, and Weber manages that balance well throughout the hour.
The Bloodlands series format means that The Pied Piper is best understood as a chapter in a larger project rather than a standalone work. Listeners who want a comprehensive account of the Schmid case will need to seek out other resources; what Schechter provides is a sharply focused introduction with serious historical framing, and the decision to include the Manson comparison and the Oates connection elevates it above the purely episodic. Listen if you are already a reader of true crime and want an efficiently researched introduction to a largely forgotten case. Skip if you need more than an hour of content, or if you are sensitive to the specifics of violence against young women, as the case involves the murder of three teenage girls and the details are presented with documentary precision rather than protective vagueness.
One Hour with a Killer No One Stopped
Steven Weber’s narration strikes the tone that true crime writing at its best requires: controlled, factual, and undemonstrative. He does not linger on the disturbing details for effect, and he does not pull back from them either. The delivery has a journalistic quality that suits Schechter’s approach, which is consistently interested in evidence and cultural context rather than in producing a visceral reaction. For a piece this short, the narration is crucial for maintaining momentum without inflating the material beyond what the evidence supports, and Weber manages that balance well throughout the hour.
The Bloodlands series format means that The Pied Piper is best understood as a chapter in a larger project rather than a standalone work. Listeners who want a comprehensive account of the Schmid case will need to seek out other resources; what Schechter provides is a sharply focused introduction with serious historical framing, and the decision to include the Manson comparison and the Joyce Carol Oates connection elevates it above the purely episodic. Listen if you are already a reader of true crime and want an efficiently researched introduction to a largely forgotten case. Skip if you need more than an hour of content, or if you are sensitive to the specifics of violence against young women, as the case involves the murder of three teenage girls presented with documentary precision rather than protective vagueness.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to have listened to the earlier Bloodlands installments before The Pied Piper?
No. Each entry in the Bloodlands series is a standalone piece covering a different historical case. The Pied Piper is the sixth in the series but functions independently, with no prior installments required.
At just over one hour, is this long enough to give the Schmid case a fair treatment?
Schechter covers the essential facts, the social psychology, and the cultural context efficiently, but the compression is real. Several reviewers wish it were longer. As an introduction to a largely forgotten case, the hour works; as a comprehensive account, it is a starting point rather than a destination.
What connection does Charles Schmid have to Joyce Carol Oates, and does the book explore it?
Schmid was the inspiration for the predatory figure in Oates’s 1966 short story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Schechter mentions the connection without dwelling on it. Listeners familiar with the Oates story will find it adds a layer of resonance to the case.
Is Steven Weber’s narration a good fit for Schechter’s true crime writing style?
Yes. Weber’s delivery is controlled and journalistic, which matches Schechter’s approach of treating the cases as historical evidence rather than as opportunities for dramatic effect. The narration does not sensationalize, which is the right choice for this material.
