Schone, Mark 1960-

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SCHONE, Mark 1960-

PERSONAL: Born 1960.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author's Mail, William Morrow & Company Publishing, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019-4702. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER: Freelance journalist. Senior contributing writer for Spin.

AWARDS, HONORS: Edgar Allan Poe award, Mystery Writers of America, 2002, for Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in America.

WRITINGS:

(With Kent Walker) Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in America, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2001.

Contributes articles to various music magazines, including Spin, Rolling Stone, and Wired.

SIDELIGHTS: Mark Schone is a journalist whose work frequently appears in music-oriented journals. Although well known in the music industry, it wasn't until his collaboration with Kent Walker on the book Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in America, that Schone's name reached a wider reading audience.

Kent Walker is the son of Sante Kimes, a woman who, along with Kent's younger brother Kenny, was convicted of murdering an eighty-two-year-old millionaire socialite and disposing of the victim's body. Both were sentenced to more than one hundred years in prison. But the murder is only one grisly episode in what was revealed to be a lifetime of con games and crime sprees. Kent Walker hired Schone to help him tell his family's story.

Walker's father left Sante Kimes and her young son Kent when he became fed up with Sante's life of crime, which included arson, theft, and forgery, and various other deceits. After Sante remarried and had another son, Kenny, she decided to teach both boys what she knew about committing various crimes. Once she felt they were skilled to the point where they could succeed, she used them in her crime sprees. They would act as distractions while she shoplifted everything from lipstick to groceries to fur coats. She went so far one time as to punch one of her sons in the mouth, drawing blood, and then insisted to the police that it was the store manager who assaulted her son. The manager was arrested, and Sante Kimes kept the stolen loot.

Kent Walker claims to have known what he was doing was wrong, but said in an interview with Las Vegas Review-Journal, "Ninety percent of the time, I don't think there was anyone in the world who loved her kids any more than she did. The other ten percent of the time was the problem. She was the absolute devil."

He eventually decided that a life of crime wasn't for him, and he broke away from his family. In an article on MSNBC.com by Keith Morrison, Walker is quoted as saying, "The Sante Kimes of today is not the same Sante Kimes I grew up with. I personally feel she's lost her mind."

Brad Hooper of Booklist wrote, "A movie attempting to tell Sante Kimes' story would be criticized for being overblown and implausible. And yet, this story is neither; instead, it is one of the most engrossing true-crime accounts to be published in recent memory." Entertainment Weekly reviewer Karen Valby gave the book a C+, saying, "The clumsily written family rap sheet feels like a rush job that would have greatly benefitted from a more judicious edit. . . . Walker, who repeatedly cops to his own greedy nature, would make his mercenary mom proud."

Publishers Weekly contributor reviewed Son of a Grifter and judged it to be "Well researched and touching, though, it testifies to how one son can evolve into a killer and the other live to tell the tale. As a chronicle of Sante Kimes' life, it's unlikely to be surpassed by any other."

The book won 2002's Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, April 15, 2001, Brad Hooper, review of Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in America, p. 1508.

Money, July 1, 2001, Amy Feldman, review of Son of a Grifter, p. 121.

New York Times, April 26, 2001, Janet Maslin, "Mother Knows Worst: Apron Strings That Bind and Strangle," p. B8.

New York Times Book Review, May 20, 2001, David Plotz, "Take a Son to Work: When Mother Is a Liar, a Cheat, an Arsonist, a Thief and a Murderer, Life is Full of Surprises," p. 43.

Publishers Weekly, April 16, 2001, review of Son of a Grifter, p. 56.

Washington Post, April 25, 2001, John Greenya, "Mommy Scariest," p. C04.