Murder on Cell Block 9

by L.D. Webb

This is the riveting true tale of a small town boy who grew up lusting for power and respect. After Richard Holmes got mixed up in the drug world, everything in his life spun out of control. In September 1987, a drug raid at Richard's home led to the disappearance of a police informant. People throughout Idaho and across the nation were stunned and outraged as the facts in the case began to come out. Conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder were some of the charges Richard Holmes was facing when he was tormented and stabbed to death in an Idaho State Correctional facility. All the while, guards stood outside watching and listening as commanding officials told them to stand down.

322 pages, Paperback

First published August 3, 2011

Reviews

[Grace]

I read 'Murder on Cell Block 9' because I am interested in local true crime and because the author (and story subject) are related to my sisters. The story of Richard Holmes is intriguing and compelling. The effort to research and write anything at all is commendable. However, the author has done themselves a major disservice by not working with an editor - this is an assumption as there is no credit given to an editor in the book. The writing is amateur and the book is unfortunately riddled with grammatical errors. More importantly, an editor could have helped to tighten the scope of the story and help the author to maintain a solid piece of writing.

There are repeated shifts in perspective and this book includes first, second, and third person point of view. As a true crime narrative, I would expect the book to maintain a consistent third person point of view. An example of a switch to second person point of view ("For those of you who may not know it, back in the eighties thongs were not underwear, but were actually the shoes you now like to call flip flops" Ch. 7, pg 52). An example of a switch to first person point of view ("I could speculate as to what happened to the missing drugs, but have decided to leave that up to you. I will say that according to one person I spoke with...In my own observations at various legal proceedings judges usually leave the court room before anyone else...I will leave any speculation on that subject up to you" Ch. 18, pg 131). In my opinion, it would be a best case scenario to exclude these perspective shifts or at least include them as a footnote to not distract from the main story of the book.

As a final thought, there is too much speculating on how different people felt throughout the situation, rather than focusing on the narrative facts. I think this book ended up on the fence between being a personal recounting on Richard Holmes' life from a family member and being a true crime narrative. I think if this were to be re-written solely from the POV of a family member/first person and focused more on the goal of discouraging substance involvement, then this book would have been interesting. Regardless, if my sisters ask for book recommendations I will still encourage them to read this book so they have more insight on a relative of theirs and some of our local history.