The first & third sections weren't very good. The story is interesting. 

The writing in the first was less than stellar. At one point the book reads something like "The man had been shot in the head. The deputy said 'He was dead.'" That is all the deputy said - there was no reason for his quote. There were a lot of unnecessary "religious" words that only seemed to be there to make things flowery. 

The 2cnd section changed things up quite a bit. It was much more straight forward. It was also a more compelling section. I didn't need the entire life story of White but all in all I enjoyed it. 

The 3rd section is where the author inserted himself into the story. I know he researched things - I don't care about how he organized his research or where he had to travel to.