Music

• Recording the Classics: Maestros, Music, and Technology (1996)
  In this collection of interviews with major orchestra conductors, James Badal explores the impact of recording technology on contemporary musical culture. Spanning more than a decade with masters such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Christoph von Dohnanyi, and Christopher Hogwood, these discussions offer valuable commentary on the digital revolution and subsequent compact disc explosion. One issue addressed in Recording the Classics is how recordings have significantly raised the general public's level of musical knowledge. Classical music discs provide both entertainment and education - the traditional, ideal vehicles for increasing the appreciation of great music among those who lack access to recital halls and opera houses. However, listening to music in private affords an essentially different experience than that of attending a live concert; both the public and the musicians are absent from the home listening environment.

True Crime

• In the Wake of the Butcher: Cleveland's Torso Murders (2001)
  During the Depression, the area known as Kingsbury Run on Cleveland's near East Side was filled with the unemployed and homeless who set up shantytowns. It was also the site where the gruesome remains of some of the Torso Killer's victims were found. "In the Wake of the Butcher" presents the history of these unsolved serial killings in exhaustive detail. Sifting through hundreds of original documents, police files (including the previously unseen files of the case's chief investigator Peter Merylo)and coroner's reports, and conducting interviews with surviving primary sources, Badal pieces together the chain of murders and the investigation that ultimately came up short. Illustrated with maps, rare crime scene and morgue photographs, and newspaper photos, "In the Wake of the Butcher" presents its compelling case and brings Cleveland's infamous Torso Murders back into the spotlight.

• Twilight Of Innocence: The Disappearance Of Beverly Potts (2005)
  In his investigative study of the unsolved disappearance of a ten-year-old girl from a working-class Cleveland neighborhood in 1951, author James Badal retells the story of the baffling case from all perspectives—family and friends, law enforcement, media, and the community still haunted by the disappearance of Beverly Potts.