true crime Archives

To Kill and Kill Again

The Man Who Said He Did It . . . Did It Author: John Coston The “Missoula Mauler” was a serial sex killer of opportunity. During the day, he supposedly moved about his small, Montana town unnoticed: your average next-door guy. But when opportunity presented itself, he became a sadist with a penchant for ropes, rape, and murder. He targeted everyone from the girl next door, to a lost child, to a minister’s unfortunate wife, only meeting his end when his fascination with one potential victim went terribly wrong. I admit, I’d never heard of this particular serial killer before, but [...]

Frances Carden2025-04-21T13:59:58-07:00April 21st, 2025|Tags: book review, John Coston, Missoula Mauler, read, reading, To Kill and Kill Again, true crime, Wayne Nance|

Bright Young Women

A Fictionalized Story of the Ted Bundy Murders Author: Jessica Knoll Bright Young Women is an ambitious attempt to tell a segmented story of trauma, misogyny, exploitation, resilience, and women fighting against a biased and broken system. While the true crime story it’s based on (the Ted Bundy murders) is interesting, Bright Young Women fails to capture the tragedy of those involved. Instead, it comes off as a caricature of what happened, an outline of complexity that fails to capture a deeper, bloodier story. It strives to do something honorable, to highlight the victims instead of the insidious, egotistical perpetrator, but [...]

Frances Carden2025-01-27T10:39:19-07:00January 27th, 2025|Tags: book review, botm, fiction, read, reading, true crime|

Pale-Faced Lie, The

True Crime Meets Coming of Age Author: David Crow David Crow grew up learning to torture his mother and take constant revenge so that his father, Thurston Crow, would love him. These were the only times he received praise from his ex-con father, the only time he was made to feel part of the family, feel like he was worth something. Growing up in a Navajo Indian Reservation, raised by a violent father and a mentally ill mother, David and his siblings lived in a wild, fluctuating space of psychotic violence interspersed with occasional rays of friendliness from passing people. In [...]

Frances Carden2023-11-26T16:25:29-07:00November 26th, 2023|Tags: book review, memoir, read, reading, true crime|