Harry Farrell retired from the San Jose Mercury News on the last working day of 1986, after 44 years of service in the role of reporter, editor, and columnist.

He has lived in San Jose all his life.
In 1933, at the age of nine, he was very much aware of the emotional perturbations rippling through the city as a result of young Brooke Hart's kidnapping and murder, and the subsequent public lynching of the malefactors. Almost sixty years later, his account of the events garnished him the prestigious Edgar Allen Poe award for best true-crime book of the year (1992). It is a riveting account of greed and ignorance coalescing into evil.

Walter Cronkite wrote of Swift Justice, "Splendid reporting that will shake up our concepts of ourselves."

This book is required reading for all San Joseans with even a passing interest in San Jose and its history. Harry also wrote Shallow Grave in Trinity County, and San Jose and Other Famous Places - a very underbelly book indeed. These books will easily withstand the test of time. They are available at San Jose history museums and Leonard McKays Memoribilia of San Jose.

Historian though he may be, Harry does not live in the past - he was on his way to the San Jose/Cleveland Ballet on the day I interviewed him. He pointed out that in Cleveland the ballet group is called the Cleveland/San Jose Ballet. I may be speaking out of church here, but Harry also mentioned he is personally acquainted with three of the ballerinas. There is no quit in Harry.