What do you think?
Rate this book
Hinckley Murder: Franklin, Idaho 1881
Murder’s not all fun and games. Hinckley Franklin, Idaho 1881, is not a whodunit or a typical murder thriller. The human element navigating the many twists and turns in true events around his great-grandmother’s brother’s murder in 1881, intrigued the author, Kevin Sorensen. He crafted this historical novel to tell a human story of individuals, families and communities that are impacted in a myriad of ways and how the past affects the journey. The story involves hopes, crushed hopes, fears, pain, cruelty, deception, kindness, justice, mercy, punishment, hatred, love, turmoil and peace all played out through the binding ties in communities with their own unique social, religious and political tensions.
307 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 30, 2025
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 8, 2026
This is the story of the murder of a telegrapher in a small southern Idaho town. The book starts with alternating chapters of certain people in the book and how they all come to be in Franklin when the murder is committed. It's written in a narrative non-fiction style, but it really doesn't feel like either a novel or an account, and the alternating chapters become wearisome.
It's an interesting story, but it gets lost in format, and that takes the enjoyment from reading it. It's only 300 pages, but it took me a lot longer to get through it than it should have. The characters start way too far back, some of the histories starting before the character actually involved in the title story is born, leaving confusion over who certain people are and why they matter to the story. I don't need chapters on who the grandparents and aunts and uncles of certain players are if they have nothing to do with the account, past housing a relative on their way to America, never to be seen in the book again. I know everyone comes from somewhere, but some of the back history of some characters could have been written out in a paragraph rather than in multiple chapters.
It's an interesting story, but it gets lost in format, and that takes the enjoyment from reading it. It's only 300 pages, but it took me a lot longer to get through it than it should have. The characters start way too far back, some of the histories starting before the character actually involved in the title story is born, leaving confusion over who certain people are and why they matter to the story. I don't need chapters on who the grandparents and aunts and uncles of certain players are if they have nothing to do with the account, past housing a relative on their way to America, never to be seen in the book again. I know everyone comes from somewhere, but some of the back history of some characters could have been written out in a paragraph rather than in multiple chapters.
December 29, 2025
Interesting story but...
I enjoyed reading the story, but unfortunately the poor writing detracted from it. There were a lot of errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar that annoyed me, but that could be that fault of the editor. I mean, come on, page 271, San Fransisco? And I only point that out because it was the subtitle of the chapter and in bold print, so very hard to miss. But I also found the dialog to be very stilted. I would not recommend this book nor would I read anything else by this author.
I enjoyed reading the story, but unfortunately the poor writing detracted from it. There were a lot of errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar that annoyed me, but that could be that fault of the editor. I mean, come on, page 271, San Fransisco? And I only point that out because it was the subtitle of the chapter and in bold print, so very hard to miss. But I also found the dialog to be very stilted. I would not recommend this book nor would I read anything else by this author.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews