Gossipy and fuzzy in actual forensic detail. I expect more from Dr. Wecht than commentary on TMZ’s coverage of the case. It felt like I was reading a book on reality tv, rather than a book written by one of the most experienced American forensic pathologists. Then we move to a non celebrity case, and his presentation is unclear and confusing. I was taught how to present a forensic anthropology case, and this isn’t it.

Couldn’t continue after the author, whose work I normally love, stopped discussing the case to claim colleagueship with Ann Rule and Jack Olsen. Then he unfavorably compared them for no reason, claiming all of Ann Rule’s victims were attractive and lit up a room, while Olsen’s writing was “nuanced”. Not only was this jab out of nowhere—he stops the case narrative to deliver it—but it’s not true. I’ve read most of Rule’s work, and found it to be most measured and fair, while Jack Olsen’s was uneven and repetitive sometimes; I have DNF’d one of his, but never, ever one of Rule’s engrossing books.

Even if I agreed with the author, this is highly inappropriate, throwing in his opinion about his area’s famous true crime authors mid-stream. He mentioned his first book, related to this one (again), lets the reader know both authors blurbed it for him, and then writes the above opinion for two pages, finishing with the unprofessional coup de grace:

“Not surprisingly, rivals Jack and Ann hated each other.”

And then swings right back into writing about Ida Stutzman’s murder. How disrespectful to the memories of all three people. Four, if you count the subject of the first book, Ida’s son, Danny. 

I wanted to finish this novel. The narrator, Amy Landon, has a soothing voice, and understood Beth’s emotional remove from others and what that might sound like. The author, Walter Tevis, has given us other important American stories turned into landmark films such as The Hustler, The Color of Money, and The Man Who Fell to Earth. 

But.

I truly believe you need to understand chess to follow this novel’s progression. Many of Beth’s plays, and tournaments’ rules and activities, are given without any explanation, which is frustrating. Plus, there is so much alcohol abuse, without it pressing forward the story. Both Beth and her mother drink beer like mother, often in physically impossible quantities and in a method of communication with each other and with other people. I am not sensitive to alcohol abuse or alcoholism per se, but even I became very uncomfortable with the frequency of it. I became so hyperaware of it that it took me out of the book.

I love FLDS memoirs, and I am fascinated by the LeBaron family. But this extremely drawn-book is weighed down by minute details of cleaning out second-hand appliances for resale, for example. Plus, the author narrates the book, and she has a very young voice, and it was disconcerting to feel as if a child was telling me this story of crime and abuse (and selling used appliances). I just had to stop.

Over halfway done, and there’s not enough information about the Tony and Susan Alamo cult, and too much explicit child abuse, and too much information about the author’s eleven-year-old’s erections. I wish that were hyperbole. Literal and repeated descriptions of his tucking it in and its popping out as he discovers girls on the compound…this is not what I signed up for.

Surprisingly tedious for such an interesting subject. Doesn’t seem to have a thesis; just goes from murder trial to murder trial in excessive detail.

Looks down on cryptozoology in the introduction as “not real”—then what’s the point of his book? Second DNF of his work.