I've gone on a 9/11 reading binge a few times. I'm surprised I hadn't read 102 Minutes before now.
I found it riveting, as well as horrifying. So much I've gone on a 9/11 reading binge a few times. I'm surprised I hadn't read 102 Minutes before now.
I found it riveting, as well as horrifying. So much work went in to reconstructing what happened inside the twin towers the morning of 9/11. The information on the choices that were made to have more rentable space at the World Trade Center, rather than the safest buildings possible, was infuriating. Small decisions and timing decided who lived and who died on 9/11.
With all the miscommunication happening, it's amazing as many people got out before the towers fell as did. I had no idea there was so much rancor between the police and the fire department in New York. I wonder how common that is in cities.
I feel sorriest for the people who were hanging out the windows where the fire was behind them and there was no escape but down. How horrible that had to be.
I shudder to think how we'd react to a similar attack today. I doubt we've learned much. ...more
Chasing Evil details the journey of FBI Agent Bob Hilland from sceptic to believer. Investigating a cold case, he decides to take a chance and ask famChasing Evil details the journey of FBI Agent Bob Hilland from sceptic to believer. Investigating a cold case, he decides to take a chance and ask famous psychic John Edward for assistance. Thus begins a lifelong collaboration to solve crimes and find justices for victims.
This book will find its audience, that’s for sure. I know many readers who will absolutely devour Chasing Evil. The author covers a lot of ground – not just the John Smith murders but 9/11 and working to find remains at Ground Zero, Michael Vicks and the dog fighting ring, other murders and murderers, lots of polygraph tests, the mob, Afghanistan and Guyana, and his failing marriage. He drops little breadcrumb references to important events so the reader can keep track of where we are in time, and through it all John Edward provides critical information given to him by his otherworldly spirit guides.
That said, call me Dana Scully because I just could not take this book seriously. I mean, I enjoyed reading it and had no trouble staying engaged, but I’m just too skeptical over all the psychic stuff. I was eyerolling pretty hard at times, and I did not find the author to be a reliable narrator. He is, however, an entertaining one.
I was disappointed that an intelligent, educated person like Hilland repeated the misconception that the “Y2K bug didn’t bring down worldwide infrastructure and crash our computers as the alarmists warned, so that was good.” (ch. 15 of the advance reader copy) I feel quite sure Hilland understands that the alarm was valid and that billions of dollars and thousands of hours were spent to address the problem so that computers and infrastructure didn’t crash. It was a cheap shot to include it here. I was also surprised that Hilland refers to the Jonestown cult members drinking cyanide-laced “Kool-Aid.” (ch. 22 of the ARC) He (or his editor) should have corrected this to Flavor Aid. If you are trying to write a work of nonfiction, it should contain factual information.
This book is written like the author has already decided in his head who will play him in the movie. My guess is that Chasing Evil will be a true crime best seller and the movie will be a box office blockbuster.
Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advance reader copy....more
I'm glad I read this, but I'm glad I read Challenger by Adam Higginbotham first. I am not a rocket scientist but Allan McDonald is,Rounded up from 3.5
I'm glad I read this, but I'm glad I read Challenger by Adam Higginbotham first. I am not a rocket scientist but Allan McDonald is, and some part of this were very scientific and hard for me to follow. The section from the meeting the night before through the disaster and the aftermath was very interesting. The narrative leading up to the next shuttle launch was a bit dull for this reader.
It's appalling that no one was truly held responsible for the Challenger disaster. It's pretty clear that it wouldn't have happened if Larry Mulloy had just listened to people who knew what they were talking about. Also Allan McDonald (and Roger Boisjoly) were punished for being truthful. Ah, corporate America. He was right to dislike the label of whistleblower. That's not what he was - he simply told the truth about what happened the night before the launch. ...more
I was a senior in high school when the John Wayne Gacy story broke. The Chicago suburb I lived in was about 12 miles from Des Plaines, where the horroI was a senior in high school when the John Wayne Gacy story broke. The Chicago suburb I lived in was about 12 miles from Des Plaines, where the horror was unfolding. My classmates and I talked about it every day as the body count rose. The story is an important part of my high school memories and my development into an adult.
So, I read new books about John Wayne Gacy. Even though I don’t expect to learn anything new, I expect the books to shed light on Gacy and his victims. The author of Postmortem is the daughter of one of the critical witnesses in Gacy’s trial. Kim Byers was a coworker of the last victim, Robert Piest. She had borrowed Piest’s jacket because she was cold and placed a receipt from a photo order in the pocket of the jacket. That receipt was later found in Gacy’s home, proving that Piest had been there.
Did this book keep my attention? Yes. However, the author, Courtney Lund O’Neil, irritated me from page 1 of her Author’s Note. “This is a work of researched creative nonfiction, and therefore common techniques of the genre have been employed. Names and identifying markers have been changed to protect identities of some people in the book. Composite characters may appear as a means of protecting identities while holding tight to emotional truths. Timelines have been condensed and altered in places of the text for narrative effect. Descriptions are as accurate as possible but, in some cases, rely on a reimagination to fit time and place.” In other words, I’m telling this story and I will alter things as I see fit. Ugh. I hope at least that everyone who reads this book reads the Author’s Note.
This book is very … fanciful. The author’s mom and Robert Piest worked at Nisson Pharmacy. “Angel Town is the private children’s school that replaced Nisson Pharmacy….Angel Town. An ironic name.” (p. 8) Um, yeah, sure, you can find meaning in just about anything you want to.
It’s also very very self-indulgent. I might have been more forgiving if Kim Byers wrote this book, but it’s her daughter, and she seems to be claiming her mother’s experience as her own, her mother’s loss of a friend as her own, her mother’s trauma of testifying as her own. (The author does talk about inherited trauma, and I can even believe she was affected by her mother’s traumatic teenaged experience but not to the extent she tries to make the case. Like fearing being alone with older men, or being afraid of being taken in the night. Most women, maybe all women, have similar fears.)
The author recounts her mother’s decision to put the photo receipt in the pocket of Rob’s parka instead of throwing it away. “In her right hand, she went to discard the receipt, but then paused and slipped it into Rob’s parka pocket instead. Nervously, she thought maybe Rob would find it and ask to see her photos. She wanted her cute friend to see her all dressed up at the Homecoming dance. But she also placed the receipt in her pocket because she had an instinct that this is what she was meant to do. A small, faraway crevasse of herself that she did not have daily access to had opened. Something, someone telling her to save the receipt.” (p. 21) Give me a break. I mean, really – give me a break.
I’m not going to quote every passage that made me eyeroll, but there were a lot. There’s a lot of romanticizing of the time period and the crimes. The last three chapters add nothing to the book. The books seems to have grown out of some sort of misplaced obsession.
In chapter six, the author talks about Jonestown and how people committed suicide by drinking “Kool-Aid.” They didn’t drink Kool-Aid. They drank Flavor Aid. This is very well known. It’s okay to make this mistake when talking with friends at a bar. It’s not okay to make this mistake in a nonfiction work of True Crime.
I can’t recommend this unless you enjoy wallowing in someone else’s obsession and perceived borrowed trauma.
(I mean, look at the cover! A silhouette of a woman and a woman in the distance. Gacy’s murder victims were all boys and men.) ...more
I'm sorry to say I found this memoir pretty boring. There is enough new here about Ted Kaczynski for a decent essay, but not an entire book. There is I'm sorry to say I found this memoir pretty boring. There is enough new here about Ted Kaczynski for a decent essay, but not an entire book. There is a lot of information about the author after her childhood, which I didn't find particularly interesting, and what felt like endless repetition of some version of "I needed to know more." I can understand her fascination with Kaczinski, since she knew him when she was a child and he was sending bombs to people and trying to blow up airplanes, but what she writes about her relationship with him wasn't fascinating to me. The author also jumps around in time a lot, which I sometimes found hard to follow.
The worst new thing I found out about Kaczinski is that on top of sending inexact bombs that didn't even kill the right targets, he poisoned and shot many pets over the years. This book might appeal more to readers who enjoy memoirs by ordinary people than people wanting insight into the Unabomber. The author was working through grief over the loss of her young sister and her father when she started this book. I hope she found some solace.
The most riveting part by far was the last quarter or so of the book, which details Kaczinski's crimes, arrest, and trial. Readers who already know a lot of about the Unabomber probably won't find anything new in that section.
I read an advance reader copy of Madman in the Woods from Netgalley.
Merged review:
I'm sorry to say I found this memoir pretty boring. There is enough new here about Ted Kaczynski for a decent essay, but not an entire book. There is a lot of information about the author after her childhood, which I didn't find particularly interesting, and what felt like endless repetition of some version of "I needed to know more." I can understand her fascination with Kaczinski, since she knew him when she was a child and he was sending bombs to people and trying to blow up airplanes, but what she writes about her relationship with him wasn't fascinating to me. The author also jumps around in time a lot, which I sometimes found hard to follow.
The worst new thing I found out about Kaczinski is that on top of sending inexact bombs that didn't even kill the right targets, he poisoned and shot many pets over the years. This book might appeal more to readers who enjoy memoirs by ordinary people than people wanting insight into the Unabomber. The author was working through grief over the loss of her young sister and her father when she started this book. I hope she found some solace.
The most riveting part by far was the last quarter or so of the book, which details Kaczinski's crimes, arrest, and trial. Readers who already know a lot of about the Unabomber probably won't find anything new in that section.
I read an advance reader copy of Madman in the Woods from Netgalley....more
Grim reading but also fascinating. I lived in Chicago when Laurie Dann went on her rampage. Fortunately she did not have access to an assault rifle.
TGrim reading but also fascinating. I lived in Chicago when Laurie Dann went on her rampage. Fortunately she did not have access to an assault rifle.
The rampage did not have to happen. Laurie Dann was so obviously seriously mentally ill for so long. Her parents should have had her hospitalized. There's not really an excuse for their negligence. Yes, she was an adult, but they clearly just didn't want to deal with her and her behavior.
This book was published in 1990 and it is weird to read about a school shooting written before school shootings became so depressingly common.
"Laurie's enormous ineptitude had dogged her to the end. If she had been successful in all she wanted to do on May 20, she would have fatally poisoned at least fifty people, shot to death at least a dozen schoolchildren, incinerated three members of the Rushe family in their home and burned down two schools with 440 children inside." (p. 298)...more
Kim Mager was a detective with the Ashland (Ohio) Police Division in the fall of 2016. One mid-September morning, a desperate 911 call came in. A womaKim Mager was a detective with the Ashland (Ohio) Police Division in the fall of 2016. One mid-September morning, a desperate 911 call came in. A woman said she’d been abducted, held captive, raped and beaten. She didn’t know the address of the place she was being held, but she knew the name of the man who taken her and how to describe where they were. Thus began the downfall of serial killer Shawn Grate.
Mager was one of the only women on the small Ashland police force and had been with the department for 23 years. Mager says the Ashland community loves their police force and their community policing, and she prides herself on being familiar with many of the residents. As the only female detective, she got the call to interview the woman who’d called 911. The frightened Jane Doe asked Mager to stay with her as she told her story of meeting and befriending Grate, and how a meeting turned from conversation to assault.
A Hunger to Kill focuses on the detective and her thoughts as she interviewed and investigated Shawn Grate. At one point Mager talks about her alarm when she realized a breakdown in department communication had left her alone with Grate, with no backup. She was able to call out to an agent from another agency but was shaken at feeling vulnerable. She was able to form a bond with Grate without ever coming to empathize with him instead of the women he killed. She got him to talk about victims that weren’t on the radar of the police. The book is an interesting glimpse into the work life of a small town detective dealing with a big crime. It is less sensationalistic than most True Crime I’ve read, and the serial killer is not well known. Mager and writer Lisa Pulitzer do a good job depicting the investigation.
I read an advance reader copy of A Hunger to Kill from Netgalley. ...more
A young woman was senselessly murdered by her roommate, and an acquaintance spent six years researching a book about her. When I saw the advance readeA young woman was senselessly murdered by her roommate, and an acquaintance spent six years researching a book about her. When I saw the advance reader copy was available, I was intrigued enough to read it.
As someone who didn’t know Carolyn Bush, I can’t say this book by her “friend” does her any favors. Carolyn comes across as unbearably unlikable (for example, descriptions of her as punching people as hard as she could for fun, “she’s so intense” (p. 311), I’ve never liked anyone who is physically abusive to “friends” and thinks it’s funny) and incredibly pretentious. I mean, a lot of us are pretentious in our twenties, especially if we fancy ourselves writers, but although I think the author means the reader to find Carolyn as unique and incandescent, that’s not actually how she paints her.
If feels weird to be criticizing a book about a murdered young woman, but I’m criticizing the author, not the victim. I hope the author found the exercise cathartic. I honestly can’t guess what the author is trying to achieve with this book. The book’s subtitle is “My Friend, Her Murder, and an Obsession with the Unthinkable,” and the author is definitely obsessed.
Throughout the book, astrology is presented as fact, which it’s not. “On November 19, 1990, Carolyn Hilton Bush was born. The moon was a waxing crescent on its path to conjunct with Saturn. A Scorpio, Carolyn’s ruling planet was Pluto, but she was born in the third decan of the sign, so she was also blessed with the moon’s influence. Pluto gave her power and determination. The moon made her sensitive, nurturing, and compassionate. As a Scorpio, Carolyn was resilient and perceptive, daring and brave, creative and enterprising. She planned and strategized. She hated pretension.” (p. 113 of the advance reader copy) Nonsense like this made it hard for me to take the author seriously.
This book desperately, desperately needed an editor. There were so many times when I thought, what in the world does this have to do with the murder of Carolyn Bush? Parts are almost stream of consciousness, and the author seems to think that every single thing she came across while researching the book HAD to go in the book. Trust me, it didn’t. Sometimes I wondered what I was reading. The text is also repetitive, and jumps dizzyingly around in time.
The book also serves as a nonstop criticism of Bard College and its president. It might have been better to bundle all the criticisms together, making a case for the criticism, instead of sprinkling stories, some of which had nothing to do with Carolyn Bush, throughout the narrative. The murderer, Render Stetson-Shanahan, honestly comes across almost as an afterthought.
For me as a reader, the book fails as “a gripping work of true crime” and as a character study of Carolyn Hilton Bush. I suppose it works best at capturing a group of artists and writers in a specific place over a specific period of time. For the people who know and loved Carolyn Bush, I hope this book is illuminating and helpful. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who did not know Carolyn Bush.
I knew nothing about Carolyn Bush or Bard College before reading this book. I read an advance reader copy of Carrie Carolyn Coco. ...more
This is the third book I've read on Alec Murdaugh and the best. It reads like a book written by a reporter who does not insert themselves into the stoThis is the third book I've read on Alec Murdaugh and the best. It reads like a book written by a reporter who does not insert themselves into the story. It seems to have been well-researched, edited, and proofread. It was easy to read, and easy to follow the story threads.
So many victims over so many years.
I read an advance reader copy of The Devil at His Elbow from Netgalley. ...more
I don't read many memoirs, but my sister, who doesn't read much period, recommended this book, so I read it. You should read it too. Everyone should rI don't read many memoirs, but my sister, who doesn't read much period, recommended this book, so I read it. You should read it too. Everyone should read it.
Chanel Miller is a good writer who had a terrible thing happen to her, and her words about life as someone who charged someone elsewith sexual assault are powerful. It is truly terrible what we put people through. This book made me feel enraged, and sad, and I cried way more than I usually cry while reading any book.
One of the passages that stayed with me: "I'd told my boss I was at a doctor's appointment, but it ended up feeling more like a job interview. They were deciding whether I'd make a good victim: is her character upstanding, does she seem durable, will the jury find her likable, will she stay with us moving forward. I walked out feeling like, You've got the job! I did not want this job. I wanted my old life. But let him walk away? I could not let it happen." (p. 57)
After her victim statement was published anonymously and read online by 15 million people, she received many letters. One of them was from Vice President Joe Biden. "I see you," he wrote. "What did it mean that the vice president of the United States of America had stopped every important thing he was doing, to write I see you," Miller asks. She had grown up on the margins, she writes. "Yet people kept pulling me up and up, until I heard from the highest house in the nation."
She thanks author Jon Krakauer for his encouragement in her acknowledgments, which I found interesting because I kept comparing Know My Name to Into Thin Air. When something awful happens and we get a book, it's usually (a) a terrible book because the person writing it isn't a good writer or (b) ghostwritten by someone who wasn't there and doesn't have the passion of someone who was there. In these two books, the raw pain and passion come through from two people who are very good with words.
Although dry and repetitive in parts, this was a better book for me on the Murdaugh crimes than the other one I read. Tangled Vines is focuse3.5 stars
Although dry and repetitive in parts, this was a better book for me on the Murdaugh crimes than the other one I read. Tangled Vines is focused on the crimes and the family, not the author. Truly horrifying what a terrible person Alex Murdaugh is, and Paul would have grown up to be the same way. Having everything you want all the time is not necessarily a good thing.
There are an appalling number of typos in this book. There were multiple sentences I couldn’t puzzle out because either wrong words were used or words were missing. Bring back proofreaders! ...more
Something about 9/11 this year made me want to learn more about United Flight 93.
I'm glad I read this book. It seems well researched and is very respeSomething about 9/11 this year made me want to learn more about United Flight 93.
I'm glad I read this book. It seems well researched and is very respectful of the passengers and crew and the families and friends they left behind. There's a bit of padding, probably to reach a certain page count, but the chapters about the flight and what might happened onboard are very interesting without being sensational. ...more
A parent and their children go into a body of water in a vehicle; the parent survives but the children don’t. This unfortunately is a story we’ve hearA parent and their children go into a body of water in a vehicle; the parent survives but the children don’t. This unfortunately is a story we’ve heard before. Robert Farquharson claims he had a coughing fit and passed out. Once in the water, he was able to exit the car and swim to the surface, but his three sons were not. This book about his trial was published in 2014 in Australia; now a new edition has been published in the United States.
I can well imagine what a sensation this was in Australia. I remember the media fascination with Susan Smith in the 1990s after she left her sons to drown. I remember the Jaclyn Dowaliby case in the Chicago area in the 1980s. (That case didn’t involve drowning, but a child reported abducted from her home and found murdered a few days later, and a trial of the mother.)
This House of Grief feels like it was written much longer ago than 2014. It is a call back to classic works of true crime like In Cold Blood. It has a literary feel to it that most modern true crime that I’ve read does not. The author acts as a cool and objective narrator. She has no connection to the case other than reporting on it. She feels emotion – pity, grief – but not passion over whatever happened. Robert Farquharson himself remains a remote figure; I felt I got to know and understand his ex-wife’s parents better than I did Farquharson or his ex-wife.
On page 6, Garner writes, “When I said I wanted to write about the trial, people looked at me in silence, with an expression I could not read.” She is very thoughtful and philosophical as she observes and comments on the trial and all the people involved. The subtitle of the book is “The Story of a Murder Trial,” and the author does write her book as a story (a story with an ending that will not satisfy all her readers).
If you like classic works of true crime, I recommend This House of Grief. If you like graphic descriptions, every criminal detail, and proper closure in your true crime, this may not be the book for you. I read an advance reader copy of This House of Grief. ...more
I read an essay about the brother of one of the Pan Am 103 victims and that prompted me to learn more. This was the only book I could find in3.5 stars
I read an essay about the brother of one of the Pan Am 103 victims and that prompted me to learn more. This was the only book I could find in our library system.
It was published in 1992 so it feels immediate but also dated. I learned a lot I didn't know and I'm glad I read it. My biggest issue is that there were 270 people killed and most of them are mentioned only once, in the list of people killed. I kind of feel like it would have been ideal to have either a photo of everyone or more of a description in the list.
I'm also sorry to say that I feel like another terrorist act like this could happen tomorrow. ...more
While the quality of the writing in the 12 essays in this book is probably the same for all 12, my interest level varied a great deal. I foun3.5 stars
While the quality of the writing in the 12 essays in this book is probably the same for all 12, my interest level varied a great deal. I found some of them very interesting and some of them quite boring.
The most interesting to me were the essays The Avenger (about the brother of one of the victims on Pan Am flight 103; I knew the mother of one of the other victims); A Loaded Gun (about mass shooter Amy Bishop); and The Worst of the Worst (about Judy Clarke, who defends notorious killers). Wine, Dutch mafia, financial scandal, El Chapo, Donald Trump, tax evasion, arms dealing, African mining, and Anthony Bourdain not so much.
I haven’t read that much true crime. I’ve read a lot about John Wayne Gacy because I was in high school in the Chicago area when his horrors were discI haven’t read that much true crime. I’ve read a lot about John Wayne Gacy because I was in high school in the Chicago area when his horrors were discovered, but I didn’t know much about Ted Bundy going into this memoir. I held the popular beliefs that he was charming and intelligent in addition to being a serial killer. Kathy Kleiner Rubin was one of the young women he attacked when she was sleeping in her sorority bedroom, and she has a lot to say about how Bundy is viewed in popular culture.
The author makes the case that what we believe about Bundy is wrong. He was not charming; most women he approached found him creepy. Most of his victims were not lured into his car by a sad tale that he spun but were attacked in their beds or from behind by Bundy. He was not intelligent or learned; he was a poor student who had no aptitude for the law or anything except killing.
I had no idea how many suspected victims Bundy had. I knew he was brutal but didn’t know his preferred technique was to bash his victims in the head first, before violating them. The author is only a few years older than me, and I found her passionate defense of Bundy’s victims very moving. The memoir very much gave me “there but for the grace of god go I” vibes.
Kathy Kleiner Rubin is very resilient and a true survivor. She has one son, Michael, and he didn’t find out until he was 37 years old that the attack she suffered in college was at the hands of the notorious Ted Bundy. When he found out, he called her in shock. Toward the end of her book, she writes, “Michael was a big part of my happiness in life. During that phone call, as he kept repeating ‘you were so normal’ he brought up the pool parties I hosted for his birthday and other things I did to make his life as ordinary as possible. To me, this was one of my great accomplishments in life. Bundy was on a sick and twisted journey and he dragged his victims down the path. After I survived the attack, I dug in my heels so that he could pull me no further.”
There is some information about the author and her husband surviving Katrina which felt like filler, but aside from that the narrative flowed. The author has a lot of encouraging words for others who are fighting battles. Her words and memories are very inspirational. Appendix A is a list of the women and girls who lost their lives to Bundy, which is very reverential and which I read with great care. As the author points out, none of them are to blame for being murdered by a monster. Appendix C has a helpful list of ways to replace his narrative with remembrances of his victims.
If you like memoirs of people who have overcome great obstacles, or if you’d like to know more about Ted Bundy’s victims, I recommend A Light in the Dark. I read an advance reader copy of A Light in the Dark. ...more
I am not a podcast listener and so have not heard any of the Murdaugh Murders Podcast (MMP), an extremely popular podcast that has often been ranked #I am not a podcast listener and so have not heard any of the Murdaugh Murders Podcast (MMP), an extremely popular podcast that has often been ranked #1 ranked on Apple Podcasts. I requested an advance reader copy of Blood on Their Hands expecting it to be true crime nonfiction about Alex Murdaugh. It’s not. It’s a memoir by a journalist who wants us all to know how hard she has worked to be successful and how many people got in her way.
Mandy Matney is a good writer with a major chip on her shoulder. She wants to be a good journalist fighting the good journalist fight and shining a light on crime and corruption. She has faced sexism in the workplace – welcome to being a working woman, Mandy – and feels she has been betrayed by a number of colleagues she trusted. As I read this book, I couldn’t stop thinking about Sally Field and her “I can't deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me!” speech when she won an Oscar.
I don’t question that Matney has put in the work to become a respected journalist, but to me, a reader unfamiliar with her and her work, she comes off as whiny and bitter in this book. Alex Murdaugh, his family, and the aura of invincibility around them needed to be investigated, and it seems like Matney and colleagues did good work. But, for example, Matney acknowledges that Will Folks gave her a job when she needed one, and the support and leads (and paycheck) she needed to investigate Murdaugh, but she also writes near the end of the book, “Looking back now, I can see that the relationship was a bad fit from the start. Will threw me a lifeline when I was desperate for a way out of The Packet, but I think I gave him too much credit for ‘saving’ me. I excused the rumors about his unsavory reputation because of how much I wanted to believe he was a good guy. I ignored the times his judgment felt off because I was eager to grow with the company. But our early talks about my earning equity at FITS never panned out, and as MMP took off, I began to realize Will saw me more as a competitor than as a teammate. I see now that I never needed a man or an institution to lend my work credibility – I just needed more confidence in my abilities. I’ll always be grateful to FITS for being a stepping stone at a crucial time in my career, but I wish I could go back and tell my former self to get out as soon as things started to curdle.” (p. 251 of the ARC). Way to throw someone under the bus who by her own admission gave her a lot of information and contributed to her ability to write the podcast stories about the Murdaugh family. Matney didn’t do herself any favors with me as a reader with this section. She could have said it was time to move on and left it at that.
Please note that your reaction may vary. Readers who love Matney and her podcasts may love this book. If you are a fan of Murdaugh Murders Podcast, give it a shot. If you are not, this might not be the Murdaugh book for you. I read an advance reader copy of Blood on Their Hands. It is scheduled to be published on November 14....more
I had trouble walking away from Homegrown but forced myself to occasionally because it is anxiety producing. Chilling. Heartbreaking. I know Toobin haI had trouble walking away from Homegrown but forced myself to occasionally because it is anxiety producing. Chilling. Heartbreaking. I know Toobin had a fall from grace last year, but he’s a good writer, and Homegrown kept my interest from start to finish. The book seems exhaustively researched. I learned information about the Oklahoma City bombing that I never knew or have forgotten. Toobin does a good job of drawing a straight line from Timothy McVeigh to the protestors of January 6, 2021. This is a frightening book that resonates with life in the U.S. today. Really, it’s surprising we haven’t seen more domestic terror attacks like the one in Oklahoma City.
I highly recommend Homegrown if you are interested in white supremacist groups and in the legacy of the Oklahoma City bombing.
I read an advance reader copy of Homegrown from Netgalley. ...more