True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray

by James Renner

When an eleven-year-old James Renner fell in love with Amy Mihaljevic, the missing girl seen on posters all over his neighborhood, it was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with true crime. That obsession led Renner to a successful career as an investigative journalist. It also gave him post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2011, Renner began researching the strange disappearance of Maura Murray, a University of Massachusetts student who went missing after wrecking her car in rural New Hampshire in 2004. Over the course of his investigation, he uncovered numerous important and shocking new clues about what may have happened to Murray but also found himself in increasingly dangerous situations with little regard for his own well-being. As his quest to find Murray deepened, the case started taking a toll on his personal life, which began to spiral out of control. The result is an absorbing dual investigation of the complicated story of the All-American girl who went missing and Renner's own equally complicated true-crime addiction.

True Crime Addict is the story of Renner's spellbinding investigation, which has taken on a life of its own for armchair sleuths across the web. In the spirit of David Fincher's Zodiac, it's a fascinating look at a case that has eluded authorities and one man's obsessive quest for the answers.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Memoir, Crime, Audiobook, Mystery, Biography

304 pages, Hardcover

First published May 24, 2016

About the author

James Renner is an award-winning journalist and author of True Crime Addict, the definitive book on the Maura Murray disappearance. Renner is also a novelist, having written The Man from Primrose Lane and other works of scifi and fantasy. He currently hosts the podcast, The Philosophy of Crime.

In 2019, he founded The Porchlight Project a nonprofit that raises money for new DNA testing and genetic genealogy for Ohio cold cases. In May, 2020, James Zastawnik was arrested for the murder of Barbara Blatnik, thanks to the work of genealogists funded by the Porchlight Project.

Reviews

[Sara the Librarian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Edit 12/15/17 This just in from Deadline: http://deadline.com/2017/06/true-crim...

It would seem our dear Mr. Renner stands a very good chance of becoming the seductive anti-hero he's always longed to be. I may throw up.

When you first see James Renner a few things become clear right off the bat. He’s a tense guy. His forehead seems almost permanently wrinkled and his eyes fairly radiate with a gaze that’s halfway between a puppy that just peed on the carpet and a guy who knows the girl he just asked to the prom is going to say no. He seems like a guy who bites his lip a lot and has a tendency to ask if you’re mad at him in that annoying way that eventually makes you mad at him because he won’t stop asking.

Mind you I’ve never met the guy but since it doesn’t stop Renner I’m not sure why it should stop me. I’ve got plenty of photos of the guy and I’ve read tons of stories from other people on the internet who’ve had friends who talked to him or were like in the same zip code he was in one time. I mean hot damn that practically makes us related!

That's basically the entire basis of the colossal trash heap of a book True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray, Renner sitting at a computer making one insane leap of "logic" after another and judging everyone he encounters often solely on the basis of whether or not they’ll consent to be interviewed.

Sounds pretty bad even for me doesn’t it? But you guys remember my rules right? I’ll try my damndest to stick to the book and not vilify the author unless I seriously believe he or she is a dangerous person doing dangerous things that can or already are really hurting people.

Then all bets are off.

James Renner wants to be special. You can almost see the things he must dream about at night. He’s the first one the news outlets call when there’s a missing person’s case to consult on. He’s the first one the shocked and grieving family calls for counsel when their child vanishes like a puff of smoke. He’s the one who makes that fateful connection no one else could ever see and makes the collar. There are pictures of him with his fingers wrapped around some sleaze bag’s shirt collar as he shoves the guy up against a wall and the headlines read “Pulitzer Prize winning journalist nabs serial murdering pedophile single handedly!” and “Scotland Yard and FBI in bidding war to make Renner head of elite missing person’s task force!”

Or he’s moving through the shadows of some dim back alley. He is not the law. He is above the law. The rules do not apply to someone like him, someone who moves through the world, among everyday, normal people with a secret rage the likes of which the world has never known. If they did, well, let’s just say Renner wouldn’t blame them for crossing the street when they see him coming. He stalks the worst, most devious sinners and he brings them to justice. His brand of justice. And sure it’s grisly and stories have to be made up and things need to be brushed under the carpet when the people in charge see what he’s done to yet another deserving child rapist. But he gets the job done.

James Renner wants so very badly to be special.

But he just isn’t.

True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray, his latest book, is not “an absorbing dual investigation” into the disappearance of this poor girl and a look at the equally mysterious and incredibly deep mind of the reporter determined to solve her case.

It’s a lot of insane sounding drivel written by a very sad, abusive, semi functioning alcoholic drug addict who wants you to notice him.

To give the uninitiated some background Maura Murray was a college student at the University of Massachusetts who, in the winter of November 2003 got into a car accident in the wilds of New Hampshire and simply vanished into thin air.

She’s since become a bit of a siren’s song for true crime buffs. Arm chairs sleuths around the globe debate what may have happened to her on blogs and Reddit threads the same way they talk about D.B. Cooper and the Zodiac Killer. They come up with theories and float ideas and sometimes someone finds a weird email or makes a connection. It’s harmless because 95% of these people understand that while Maura might be a bit of an urban myth she’s also a very real young woman with a group of very real family and friends who miss her desperately.

And then James Renner enters stage left with all of the theatrical, over dramatic grandstanding he can muster. According to this self styled reporter who’s not actually reporting for anyone but himself he became obsessed (his word not mine) with Maura’s case while getting a lap dance from a stripper who tells him about the time someone murdered her sister.

Let's let that one sit a minute shall we?

That’s not a joke and nor is the first time Renner has felt what he'd probably call divine intervention and I would call the voices in his head directing him to "help" a missing girl. The very first line in the book jacket describes an 11 year old Renner “falling in love” with 10 year old Amy Mihaljevic when he saw her missing poster. Amy would eventually be found horribly murdered and her killer remains at large to this day though Renner totally knows who did it of course. It’s all in his book Amy: My Search for Her Killer: Secrets & Suspects in the Unsolved Murder of Amy Mihaljevic.

Please don't read that either.

So, where were we? He gets a lap dance from a magical muse disguised as a stripper and decides he’s going to find Maura. Obviously the first thing he should do is stand around outside her old dorm like the creepy stalker he is and following that "plan" through to its logical conclusion he should then get blithering drunk (like Maura may have been the night she vanished) and retrace her route in his car because he once read an article where a guy said there’s a 20% chance we’re living in a computer simulation and this “plan” will obviously cause a glitch in the Matrix wherein he will “see” what happened to Maura.

That is, I am not kidding, how his "investigation" begins.

Like he did with Amy he starts a blog about Maura and for awhile it becomes a magnet for tips, theories and discussion about Maura’s disappearance. People are impressed with him. He’s keeping Maura in the public eye. He’s helping. Like I'm serious here, he is legitimately helping, I'm acknowledging that.

And then it all starts to go horribly wrong.

Renner’s biggest problem is he can’t bear not to be a part of the story he’s supposed to be objectively reporting. He cannot bear the thought that he isn’t part of the narrative. He has to make Amy and Maura about him.

The roller coaster starts to fall when no one actually connected with Maura wants anything to do with him. This can’t possibly be because of his interview style (showing up unannounced at their homes and places of business and saying things like “maybe the police would like to know you wouldn’t talk to an investigator about Maura’s disappearance” or his remarked upon tendency to come off as an obsessive asshole when he’s questioning people). Clearly it’s because they all have something to hiiiidddde from this master of deductive reasoning and seer into the souls of the guilty.

We're treated to Renner's "reporting" on Fred, Maura’s father, who was clearly carrying on a secret incestuous relationship with his daughter. Her sister Kathleen is a drug addict and an alcoholic who won’t talk to him because of her brushes with the law. Her friends are all being warned off and threatened to stay away from Renner because obviously he’s getting too close to the answers. Oh and Maura? She's a "sociopath."

And so a pattern emerges. If you don’t want to talk to Renner you must have had something to do with Maura's disappearance or some other heinous (totally made up) crime which is clearly connected to Maura somehow. He defames so many of Maura’s friends and relations based on nothing but his own insane theories and third and fourth party accounts from people who didn’t even know Maura I don’t know how this book even gets by being classified as non-fiction let alone "true crime."

Renner doesn’t report. He makes up stories. Ridiculous, hurtful stories with not one spot of evidence to support them. He’d argue that of course. He’d argue that he has plenty of “proof” of the utter inanities he spouts as they occur to him. Proof like;

“Some guy on the internet told me.”

Seriously that’s his “proof.”Some random person on the internet tells him that the crash as it’s been recorded by the authorities couldn’t possibly have happened the way they say it happened and suddenly the only answer is that clearly Maura was being followed by a second car that spirited her away to a new life in Canada.

Totally infallible right?

Chapter after chapter is devoted to similarly logical “theories” intermixed with Renner’s own life which is going so far off the rails I’m surprised he’s not sitting in either prison or a mental ward right now.

We’re treated to lovely stories about his adventures abusing his four year old because they’re all out of ideas of how to correct his behavior problems and the hours he spends self medicating his perfectly normal depression and anxiety with drugs and alcohol. Then there’s the chapter where he assaults a police officer and goes to jail. Then he goes to visit his grandfather who sexually abused all the women in his family. He has what he calls frightening encounters with his various suspects where he more or less just like flies somewhere and tracks some poor person down just so he can “look them in the eye.”

I think all of this is supposed to be amazingly insightful and like a window into his soul or something. I was supposed to marvel at his amazingly fucked up life and ponder how no one has ever had a more dysfunctional family or a more tragic childhood.

It’s like he’s yelling “See how similar it is to Maura and Amy? See!? Don’t you see!?”

About halfway through this thingdisguised as a true crime book Maura’s family has had about enough of Fred being called an incestuous child molester and Maura herself being called a “sociopath” and an all around terrible person and makes a public statement on their Facebook page basically begging Renner to stop.

This hurts his feelings guys. It really, really does. Why don’t they understand he’s the only one who can save her!? Why!? What has he done that’s so terrible?

But you know? Up until the very last pages of this book I was gonna give him a pass. Yes, he’s a mediocre writer and an even worse investigator. By his own account he’s a terrible father and a worse husband who has no business judging anyone else’s drug, alcohol, or family problems. But up until those last few pages that’s all he was. Just another asshole who wants his 15 minutes of fame.

Then he did something that I don’t think any decent person can reasonably forgive. I’m going to quote it directly because I think anyone even considering reading this book should know what kind of man this guy really is. This comes from page 268 literally 2 pages from the epilogue. He’s remarking (yet again) about how the family won’t talk to him;

“But I am at a loss to explain their behavior. They do not want this book written. It is clear to me that they are no longer actively looking for Maura.”

Let that sit a minute.

Because these poor people who have lost their daughter, their sister, their friend, this person they loved, this person they have to spend every day of their lives wondering if she’s being tortured or raped or if she met some grisly end they’ll never know about, because they don’t want to talk to this parasite well that must mean they don’t want to find her. They don't care and they're not looking anymore. Because they won't talk to this utter douchebag of a person.

I hope to god none of them read this book. I hope to god some day they find some kind of peace with the terrible tragedy that is surely part of every second of every day of their lives. But as long as people like Renner exist I have little hope they’ll ever find anything like closure.

Renner compares himself to a lot of smarter, better people in this book. But I think the best comparison is one I know without a doubt he’d hate.

To me he most closely resembles poor old Willy Loman. Arthur Miller’s tragic salesman who remembers better days that probably never were when he was a big deal and people knew his name and the mayor shook his hand! He’s the guy who wakes up in the garage with a hose passed through the window of his car but can’t remember how he got there.

And just like Mr. Loman attention must be paid. Attention must be paid and he does not care what he has to do to get it.

*did a little editing on 3/19/18, no real changes to the content I swear.

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

i interview james renner here:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/t...

in the opening pages of this book, the recently fired, mildly disgraced investigative journalist james renner goes to a gentleman's club where he manages to derail a perfectly good lapdance into a quiet reflective conversation with his stripper, whose sister's killer was about to go to trial for her murder.

that is what a true crime addict looks like - someone for whom boobies are not always the most interesting thing in the room.

throughout the course of this book, james renner will investigate crime, get himself incarcerated, be verbally and physically abused, follow false leads, learn that he scored "very similar to" ted bundy on his psychopathy test, spend the night in a room full of teddy bears, find a chilling surprise in a dirty magazine, drink and drive to put himself in the shoes of a missing woman, get into cars with strangers, take the advice of a psychic, explore his own family's legacy of violence, be internet-stalked and threatened by a creepy dude making targeted videos straight out of a low-budget slasher film, witness his autistic son predict the future with chilling accuracy, discover a modern-day underground railroad, and casually, but earnestly, drop in some theoretical physics bombshell about how there's a fairly good chance that the entire universe as we experience it is just a computer simulation in which it's possible to trigger glitches in reality.

this is not your typical true crime story.

this is a true crime story by james renner, whose fiction has never felt the need to confine itself to any single genre or any reader's expectation so there's no reason to have anticipated anything different from his nonfiction. however, this approach is much more difficult to adapt into nonfiction, even narrative nonfiction, without the story seeming scattered or lumpy or purposeless.

this book, whose focus is on the mysterious 2004 disappearance of maura murray, is not lumpy.

the recent popularity of nonbook sensations like Serial, The Jinx, Making a Murderer, and The People v. O.J. Simpson have helped to elevate the true crime genre out of its literary gutter, long sneered-at as being the pap of supermarket checkout lines - those garish and jaggedy-fonted mass markets in which violent crimes, usually against women, are exploited for some ghoulish frisson with no merit but shock value.

because while, yes - that is a large part of the true crime market, there are nobler and more meaningful reasons to examine the realities of a world, computer simulation or not, in which violent things happen: to explore causation, study historical context, identify cultural or socioeconomic factors of crime, predict patterns, dissect psychology - to figure out why these things happen, if they can be avoided, and what all of it says about us as a species.

but this book isn't quite that, either. it's somewhere in the middle. it's neither sensationalistic nor academic in its treatment and it lives in this space where memoir and true crime and metaphysics spin into a story of absence and obsession and the impossibility of inherent truth while acknowledging the eeriness of coincidences, recurrences, or as renner borrows the term: fearful symmetry.

this is, instead, a story of a man, suddenly rudderless, obsessed with finding the why and how of a woman's disappearance, and what the search for these answers did to him: Without the rigid structure of newspaper reporting, I was becoming increasingly manic. The only thing keeping me sane, really, was the mystery of Maura Murray's disappearance.

renner has the dogged spirit of a journalist with a novelist's flair for the dramatic, which brings a perfect balance to this kind of writing. he's a storyteller, with a tone chatty enough to draw the reader in, but his professional background allows for a more authoritative perspective than many - he knows the tricks of the trades of both the media and the police, he has contacts that can lend their expertise to special skill sets like statement analysis, he's familiar with procedure, jargon and shorthand; what it means when something is not being said, he can identify the anomalies in this case and extrapolate from that. and there are a lot of anomalies in this case, niggling discrepancies, outright contradictions, red herrings.

he also, with his bundy-grade sociopathy, has the kind of tenacious mind that not only sees anomalies, but must understand them and what they signify. he's obsessive, he won't back down, he's a little self-destructive, and isn't shy about crossing the line from investigation to invasion when he comes up against the reluctance or flat-out animosity of friends and family members who absolutely do not want him writing this book. as his psychologist tells him, claiming that true crime writing may benefit him: "Your mind works like the people you chase after. Like a good detective. You're a sociopath, too."

and he just goes balls to the wall, not only picking apart the case, but bringing so much more to the table in his asides and tangents, locating the echoes and odd synchronicities in the bigger picture: the violent history of early new england, the genocide of the abenaki (who believe our universe is a dream and that words have souls), the BTK killer, ariel castro, as well as those found within his personal sphere: a violent grandfather, his own near-abduction as a child, the stalking of his sister, the emerging violent tendencies in his son and his attempts to manage his own rage with prescription drugs and alcohol.

I knew him for what he was: a crazy man only pretending to be dangerous. And he had no idea who I really was: a dangerous man working really hard not to be crazy.

it's a messy case, but fascinating. during the course of his investigation, he will hear a wide and varied range of theories and suspects from his sources, each plausible to a degree, and maura murray's squeaky-clean and sympathetic façade will chip away to reveal the laura plamer-caliber mass of secrets underneath.

moral of the story - don't go missing, because that's the end of your privacy.

by the end you have a pretty convincing picture of what went down, but as he says right from the beginning: The first thing you learn as a reporter is that nothing you read in the newspaper is true…Every article you've ever read is a little untrue. I guarantee it.

or, more universally:

There's no real closure. This is an existential world, my friend.

i know i have grumbled before about authors of nonfiction who insert themselves too much into the story (*koff* The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City*koff*), but in this case, it feels more natural. a privileged white girl interviewing homeless people living underground, who have established a complicated society with its own rules and hierarchies and history - it's clear which of the two perspectives is the more interesting.

but here, with a case in which so much is unclear, the story of the frustrations of the investigative process and the strain of a distraction becoming an obsession; of what the helplessness of not-knowing does to a man, a marriage, a family, a mind - that story must hold as much appeal to a reader as the story of a woman who disappeared.

the only reason i gave this four instead of five stars is because full disclosure: i got to hang out with james renner before i read this, and when he was describing to book to me, the angle that most interested me was this idea of tracing a line from his grandfather's violent crimes, his own experience of abuse, the propensity for violence within himself, modulated with medication, the manifestations of violent tendencies in his son, the discomfort of studying violent men while worrying about his son becoming a violent man, and the fears of having another child: I didn't know what I was more afraid of: that it would be another boy, or that it would be a girl brought into a world full of dangerous men. i wish there had been more of that, because i think this immersion into the study of violence can have a desensitizing effect until it becomes personalized, and i could have read so much more about his own experiences navigating this psychological minefield.*

and i could have read an entire book about his son's spooky talents.

okay, there are two reasons for the four stars - also because i don't want my integrity questioned. these are my true and honest opinions of this book, and even though james renner did buy me a plate of berries, i cannot be bought by a plate of berries.



let's call it a 4.5 - they were very good berries.

* this is not a true spoiler; it just doesn't really fit up there, but i wanted to include it as an example illustrating what i'm talking about in terms of parallels and the personal :

The Cymbalta keeps me calm. I'm a calm guy. I am. But there's a freedom in blind rage once you give yourself over to it that is as welcoming as any drug. On the other side of rage is a certain calm. The eye of the hurricane. I found that place, at age eight, when I was beaten by my stepmother. Her beatings taught me where to find it. I had forgotten how good it felt to give myself over to that pure hatred, that realm of vengeance where you don't care about consequence or morality. Beat me. Beat me. See if I care. You're not getting tears from me. Not today. Today all you get is this smile.

which ties in later to an episode with his son, who has already declared "pain is funny,"

Time-outs didn't work anymore. There was nothing left. So we went back to spanking.

I should have known how he'd react; it's what I did, after all. When I spanked Casey, he found that calm place I had discovered. That calmness on the other side of rage. I would spank him and then he'd smile. He'd fucking smile at me and say, "That didn't hurt," like he was a young Giles Corey.

THIS is what i'm drawn to the most, in this book - it reads like fiction, but it's not and it gives me chills.

come to my blog!

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”’How’d I do?’ I asked.

‘Your results were very similar to those of Ted Bundy, the serial killer.’

That’s one of those statements you just can’t unhear.

‘Don’t get too upset,’ said Roberta. ‘You may have the psychopathy of a dangerous man, but so do many cops. In fact, a lot of CEOs would have scored the same as you, or worse. Donald Trump is probably a sociopath. But it’s what makes him successful.’”

Ok, you have just been compared to Ted Bundy and Donald Trump within the space of a few seconds, but it is ok because your therapist has just reassured you that you are smart enough to control those compulsions.

Welcome to James Renner’s world.

To a normal person, this would be an unnerving revelation, but for a guy like James Renner this type of diagnosis is terrifying.

He knows things.

He knows things about his Grandfather Keith, predilections that were unchecked for decades, leaving a multitude of victims in his wake. Renner gets calls from the preschool regarding the out-of-control behavior of his son. The fear, of course, is that he has been a genetic conduit from his grandfather to his son.

That will screw with your head.

I make odd connections in my life all the time. Every time I read a book or watch a movie, I have increased the number of possibilities to experience a moment of serendipity or one of those peculiar tingling situations when I feel the dominos of the universe shuffling around for another play. Renner started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a few days ago. He stops in a strip club for a diversion, to change the buzz in his head.

”She stood and, gyrating to the music, turned around. The bottom half of her back was covered by a beautiful, inky-black dragon.

‘Do you like it?’

I am no longer surprised by the weird coincidences that occur in my life. After writing about crime for some years, I came to believe that there was a kind of blueprint to the universe, a certain order to the shape of things. ‘Fearful symmetry’, I’ve called it.”

Renner becomes obsessed with missing information, with missing people, with crimes that refuse to be solved. For someone with his psychopathic tendencies, is he really just living vicariously through the actions of other psychopaths? To me the old adage “use a thief to catch a thief” is really relevant here. Who better to catch a psychopath than another psychopath?

The devil is in the details.

Maura Murray just disappears. It was as if the Earth just swallowed her up. She is a good girl, but there are cracks in the veneer of all that goodness. She is promiscuous. She drinks too much. She has been caught stealing. She is rebelling against the set arc of her life. She is a world class runner, and one thing runners do well....is run.

Did she run or did someone kill her? As Renner investigates, he keeps hitting walls. The family has closed around the father, and he is showing up like a bad penny whenever Renner tries to get someone from the family to talk. Maura’s father doesn’t trust his intentions, and half the time the writer isn’t sure he trusts his own intentions either.

What made this book really interesting to me was the fact that Renner is inviting me to go along for the ride. He shows how he painstakingly works his way through piles of information from which he gleans slender leads and a bunch of dead ends. We talk to people who provide new lines of inquiry, and when a door is slammed in Renner’s face, it is slammed in mine as well. I can understand how Renner becomes obsessed with these cases. The police have taken it as far as they can take it, but if a guy like Renner keeps digging, he might just find that nugget that breaks the whole case wide open.

The missing woman and his life start to blur together. The problems with the case bleed into his personal life. His personal life colors the aspects of the case. It is impossible for him not to think about the issues with his grandfather without thinking about the problems with his son. Maura was very close with her father, and their relationship is a flag in his brain whipping in the wind. What does her father know?

He can almost see her. He can almost fit the eyes and hooks together. The truth is there, just barely out of reach. He sees improvement in his son. He reaches a resolution with his feelings about his grandfather. Sometimes writing a book is better than therapy.

Compelling and honest, this is one not to miss.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

[Deanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was offered the chance to read this memoir, I was pretty excited. I read a few of the previous reviews and it seemed like something I would enjoy reading.

There are times when I will go on a true crime binge. Books, documentaries, TV shows etc. It guts me when cases are not resolved and the families and friends of these missing people are left waiting for news of their loved ones.

I enjoyed reading this memoir, although at times it was very emotional. You could really feel how much James Renner wanted to find out what happened to Maura Murray. He became obsessed with it. His interest in missing people and true crime didn't start with Maura Murray's case. When James was only eleven a local girl named Amy Mihaljevic went missing. Seeing her posters plastered all over his neighborhood got to James and from there his obsession only grew. He also wrote a book about the Amy Mihaljevic case.

In this book, James is investigating the case of Maura Murray. Maura was a UMass student who went missing in 2004 after wrecking her car in New Hampshire. To be honest I had not heard of this case myself but while reading this book did some google searches etc. and learned a lot about it. I can see how someone who is already interested in these cases could become immersed in it and want to know what happened. Unsolved cases are always toughest on everyone involved.

I visited the writers blog and while there is a lot of information from the blog in the book, it was still a very interesting read. There are a frenzy of theories about what happened to Maura everywhere on the internet. There also seems to be a lot of difference in opinion when it comes to Renner's intentions, especially online.

A lot of the book is about James Renner himself. It is understandable that after so many years of immersing himself in all the aspects of crime and especially missing person cases it would definitely start to take its toll. This was quite a personal journey for James Renner. We can see how deeply it affects him both professionally and personally. The word "addict" as used in the title is apt in this case for sure. From what I read, I felt that he was honest and open about all parts of his life and that made the read even more enjoyable. He wasn't trying to look perfect, he showed his true self..flaws and all. The reader learns a lot about Renner's family too. His young son's struggles as well as his own.

In the end I thought this was a really interesting and engrossing read and I look forward to reading more by James Renner.

Thank you to Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press and James Renner for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Kemper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free copy from the publisher for review.

A reporter who had been fired for his refusal to kill a story about a politician’s sex scandal goes into a strip club and during a lap dance he strikes up a conversation that helps reignite his passion for writing true crime stories. So he decides to look into the disappearance of a college student that sends him down a self-destructive path as he copes with some ugly family history as well as fears about his own nature.

This sounds like the setup for a pretty good fiction thriller with a flawed protagonist becoming obsessed with a mystery to avoid dealing with his own problems, but it’s one of those cases where the facts are probably stranger than any fiction a crime writer could dream up.

On February 9, 2004, nursing student Maura Murray vanished under puzzling circumstances after suddenly leaving the University of Massachusetts Amherst and driving over two hours north. She was last seen following a minor car accident on a rural road but refused help from a passing school bus driver who went to his nearby home and called the police. Even though only minutes passed from the time that Maura spoke to the bus driver until the first police officer arrived there was no sign of her.

In 2009 James Renner had just settled a lawsuit related to his wrongful termination as a newspaper reporter when he decided to dig into the disappearance of Maura. He’d find the family surprisingly uncooperative because usually the loved ones of missing people are anxious for publicity to keep the case in the public mind. With limited information and a belief that journalism today requires total transparency Renner decided to take an open approach to his research of posting information and updates on a blog, and this attracted a group of internet armchair detectives anxious to help who would provide information and tips related to the case. It also took a dark turn when someone began posting creepy YouTube clips that seem to be hinting towards knowledge of what happened to Maura as well as eventually making Renner’s family the subject of unsettling videos.

This is one of those books that I find myself of two minds about. As a non-fiction tale of a writer getting unhealthily obsessed with a missing woman as a way of coping with and/or avoiding his own issues it’s an extremely interesting page turner. It’s also got an intriguing mystery at the heart of it because the more Renner digs into Maura Murray’s life the more evident it becomes that this was a young woman with problems, and there’s a lot of things to question and speculate about including the odd behavior of her father and her history of petty crime.

However, I always find myself extremely wary when the public gets interested in unsolved cases. It’s really easy for cable news, schlock documentaries, and click-bait websites to exploit these. Even when a story is done well with a painstakingly researched and unbiased look at a case like the Serial podcast’s first season it makes me uneasy because it seems to inspire the interwebs to unleash the worst kind of speculative nonsense without regard to facts or the realization that most crime is depressingly mundane and that it’s almost never the result of a flashy serial killer or a conspiracy of some kind.

(I’m not immune to this either. I spent more time than I like to admit poring over the cell phone logs and tower maps posted on the Serial website coming up with my own theory. So I totally understand the allure of a true crime mystery. I just don’t trust the average interwebs user’s ability to solve one. That includes me.)

People are prone to indulging our inherent biases when we try to figure out what happened during some mysterious event, and we are remarkably stubborn about not letting facts get in the way of what we want to believe. We also like to turn anything unexplained into a larger story that follows our own internal sense of logic and will incorporate any random scrap of knowledge that seems to support a pet theory. All of these things tend to combine to turn any case that catches the public eye into a clusterfuck of any wild theories the human mind can concoct, and it seems like the result is often a murky swamp of rumors, half-truths, misunderstandings, and outright lies that make it nigh on impossible to separate fact from fiction. If you send a bunch of hounds into the woods baying after a fox it’s impossible to track the fox later because its paw prints will have been obliterated by the dogs.

I’m not saying that Renner exploited Maura’s disappearance or was irresponsible in his reporting here. He’s got a variety of reasons for becoming obsessed with the case, and as he points out he probably would have made more money by simply writing another novel. For the most part he does do what seems to be a reliable job of research, discounting crackpot notions, and sticking to the facts. However, he also isn’t above thinking that coincidences are the universe's way of telling you something, visiting a psychic, tossing in the idea that the world as we know it is really just a computer simulation, and describing a couple of weird incidents that make his son sound like a character in a Stephen King novel.

At the end of the day Renner has got his own theory about what happened to Maura. His idea isn’t outlandish and there is evidence to support it, but I do question if he didn’t fall into the rabbit hole of looking for a reason Maura disappeared when the answer might be a lot more meaningless and random than what he believes. I suspect that if ever do learn of Maura’s fate that the answer will turn out to be surprisingly simple.

While this digging into an on-going mystery hit on some personal pet peeves of mine with the true crime genre, I still found Renner’s story and writing compelling overall. He also seems like a decent guy who was struggling with a lot, and the book made me hope that things got better for him after he wrote it. Maura Murray’s story almost certainly doesn’t have a happy ending, but there’s still hope for James Renner.

[Katie Colson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a true story? Yikes. In that case, why did the author have to infuse this with so much white main character energy?

The author’s wife asks him why he feels so compelled to write a book about this girl's disappearance/possible murder and he replies with "Cause I know I'm smarter than however did this to her." Ummmmmm.....no. No. NO. Excuse me????

[Delee · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is a review that has been a long time coming- and AGAIN, I have to apologize for it being late- since I was given this book free in exchange for a review.

Thank you James Renner and thank you to karen (no caps)- for providing it to me. This is a solid 3 star book!...but I did have a couple of reasons why I didn't add those extra stars that I will touch on later...but first let me sum up what this book is about....



February 9, 2004- Maura Murray disappeared off the face of the earth.

Maura- a nursing student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst- left campus- packing her car, emailing her professors and work supervisor that she was taking a week off due to a family emergency.

There was no family emergency.

What there was, was a bunch of puzzles left behind to solve. On the surface a good student, a zest for life- with everything going for her- looks...smarts, a happy close knit family, a loving supportive fiance....a brilliant future ahead of her. The stuff people don't just leave behind...

...but the investigation of her disappearance- on a dark semi-isolated road uncovered- a drinking problem, possible family secrets, a pending court case, and maybe a not-so-perfect life.

Was she taken??? Or did she disappear by choice? This is something we will never know- unless she is found someday...dead...or alive.



So what did I have problems with?

I am not a fan of internet -couch potato- sleuths... and Mr. Renner is not one of those. He goes out of his bubble to try to track down the story- but he does seem to have a respect for those who don't- that I have to disagree with. I think they do more harm than good- and their judgments make me cringe most times. Without all the facts you cannot- judge the situation...period.

The other area I disagree with him on is even bigger...and concerns Maura Murray's family dynamics.



James Renner cannot fathom a world in which a family would not welcome his "help"...and I have to completely smash his views on this...

My family would not want you involved if I ever disappeared. I can guarantee it.

It doesn't mean they don't love me. It means they would not want their life spewed over the unforgivable internet. It doesn't mean they are odd...it doesn't mean that they are suspicious or responsible for my death somehow or that they helped me disappear. It means they are private. That I am private. It means that there are things I wouldn't want everyone to know (I have not always lived the perfect life)...it means that there are things that THEY wouldn't want everyone to know about them (they have also lived a life not so perfect). Just because you don't mind the world knowing all of your baggage and your flaws- it doesn't mean that everyone lives in that same head space.

Bravo!!!.... for letting the world into your secret (sometimes crazy) dark corners..but don't judge those....or become suspicious of those who don't want that same scrutiny. It doesn't mean they are uncaring. It just means what it means....and that is- They don't want the world let into their drama. I know in this day and age that seems foreign...but really it is kind of normal.



One day, hopefully we will have all the answers- because Maura and her family deserve to have closure- and I for one think they alllllllllllllll deserve it...regardless of the fact of whether they cooperated with internet sleuths or people writing books.

...but even though I disagree with Mr. Renner on those two very BIG things. This was a book I can recommend wholeheartedly- regardless of our differences.

[Kelly (and the Book Boar) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

This is a hard one to review. If you want to read something that makes sense, do not pass go and just move directly to Dan’s page since he knows how to use his words. As for me and my experience with True Crime Addict, it goes a lil’ summin’ like this . . .



The backstory for the above gif is that back in 2014 I took my friend Trudi’s advice and picked up The Man From Primrose Lane at the library. Then this happened . . .



Fast forward to the Fall of 2015 where I received a private message from James Renner himself asking if I would like to receive an advanced copy of his new release The Great Forgetting. My reaction to said message?????



Renner went two for two with books that blew my cranky ass away. But we allllllllll know the hat trick of readability is an elusive achievement. Especially when the tables are turned and the author decides to leave fiction and go back to his roots of writing about true crime. Good news is, I enjoy an occasional true crime story. Even better news is, Renner is the bomb diggity when it comes to putting pen to paper. True Crime was as much Renner’s life story as it was about the missing young woman Maura Murray. I’m going to spoil things a bit and say it’s a good thing he wove the reasoning behind his addiction to unsolved cases into this one because this remains a cold case so there is no solving the mystery to be had upon turning the final page.

I’m not sure this would work for everyone if you’re not already a Renner fan. That being said, he’s one of very few authors I recommend wholeheartedly, so give one of his other books a chance and you’ll probably end up like me and want to know what makes him tick. Like Dan said, I too will read anything this author writes. Better keep up my A-game so I don’t get passed up for the next ARC . . .



Obviously an advanced copy of this book was provided to me by the author, but it didn’t influence my opinion at all. The only thing that did bother me this whole experience was having someone who I blocked ages ago use a mutual friend to private message me and see if I wanted her to send me a copy of this book. Uhhhhhhhh, yeah person who I don't even want to associate with on the interwebs, let me give you my address. That’s not creepy at all . . .

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is such a good read!

True Crime Addict blends several of my favorite things: gonzo journalism, a real-life mystery, and it's all mixed up with some personal drama. The whole story is bonkers, and I gobbled it up in two days.

James Renner is a writer and reporter who became obsessed with the disappearance of Maura Murray. Maura was a 21-year-old nursing student who went missing in February 2004 after crashing her car in New Hampshire. What actually happened that night? What was she doing there? Where was she headed? Who was helping her? What was the deal with her boyfriend? Why did her father act so weird?

Renner sets out to try and answer those questions. He tracks down witnesses and old friends of Maura, he tries to talk to her family (some of them refused), and he tries to recreate the events of the night she disappeared. He comes up with several theories of what happened, but if you're new to the case, I won't spoil anything here.

Meanwhile, Renner is dealing with his own personal mess, including losing his newspaper job because he mouthed off to his publisher for refusing to print a political story, losing his temper and getting arrested when he felt his family was being stalked, dealing with his child's special needs and abilities, etc., etc. It's fascinating stuff.

There's a lot more in this book, but I'll let you discover it. True Crime Addict was so engrossing that once I finished it, I wished I could have read it again for the first time. Highly recommended!

Favorite Quotes
"The first thing you learn as a reporter is that nothing you read in the newspaper is true."

"We forget how dangerous nature can be. We want to forget, I think. We don't want to be reminded that nature is more deadly than man. Man can be cruel, but nature is indifferent. It is the unrivaled psychopath."

"Some families are magnets for tragedy. It's been my experience the those who have suffered the most are usually the first ones to suffer again."

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

True crime writer James Renner researches the disappearance of Maura Murray as his personal life goes up in flames.

I got ARCs of this from Netgalley and from Random House.

On the heels of reading The Man from Primrose Lane, I just had to read more James Renner. When two opportunities to read this fell into my lap, I had to take advantage.

Maura Murray went missing after wrecking her car one snowy night. She was never seen again. True crime writer James Renner picked up the scent and dug into Maura's past while embarking on an unintentional journey of self-discover, finding himself in jail, dealing with substance abuse issues, and discovering he may, in fact, be as damaged as the guys he's chasing.

True Crime Addict is written in a style very much resembling the crime fiction I've come to know and love, making for one gripping read. I read most of the book in one sitting, neglecting both household chores and my girlfriend until I was finished. The ending irked me a little until I remembered I wasn't reading fiction. I was cool with it after that.

The case were very serpentine, as real life usually is. Again, I forgot I wasn't reading fiction for most of the book. As I said, the style was very engaging, the opposite of the other true crime book I've read, The Monster of Florence.

I really want to gush over all the details of the book but it's best if you go into it unspoiled. It was one phenomenal read. James Renner is my new George Pelecanos in that I will now track down and devour his books one by one until there is a James Renner-shaped void in my life. Five out of five stars.

[Lorrie McCullers · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this book so much that I won't even bother with a full review. But I will leave you this: if an author in a non-fiction book refers to a strip club as a"tittie bar" AND spells it "tittie", that person has no business writing a book. EVER.

[Trudi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to know author James Renner through his wacky, engrossing, bewitchingly unique novels - The Man from Primrose Lane and The Great Forgetting. And while he has a noteworthy talent spinning wild and crazy tales of speculative fiction, Renner is also a dedicated true crime writer. In fact, the journalism and true crime writing came first. And now he's returned to these stomping grounds in a big way with his new release True Crime Addict.

What sets this true crime book apart from most is not only the exceptionally sharp, punchy, lucid writing, but that Renner very much writes himself into the story as an observer, participant and one could even argue collateral damage to the unsolved Maura Murray missing person case. We realize almost from the opening paragraphs, that this is going to be a very personal journey for Renner, where he not only loses himself down the addicting, obsessive rabbit hole of trying to solve the mystery of a young woman's inexplicable disappearance into seemingly thin air, he also lays bare his own personal demons, that include his young son's struggle with uncontrollable violent outbursts (and quite possibly prescient abilities). This book really is one man's unflinching look into the abyss, and what stares back at him.

Renner is not the only person to have fallen down the rabbit hole of the Maura Murray case (a quick Google search will prove that), but given his personality and dark obsessive tendencies that he comes by quite honestly, Renner is arguably the one who's fallen the hardest and most completely. The publication of this book is the culmination (and hopefully for him) an emotional catharsis of a very long journey that Renner has recorded in detail on his Maura Murray blog that he launched in June 2011.

This book really could not have come at a better time. We seem to be in the midst of a true crime renaissance with recent cultural watershed phenomena like Making a Murderer, The Jinx and the first season of Sarah Koenig's podcast Serial which I became obsessed with when it ran in the fall of 2014. And you might as well throw The People vs OJ on that pile too, because it was also fantastic and drew a huge viewing audience.

I want to thank karen for putting a copy of this book in my hands and it is with great enthusiasm I write this review in the hopes it brings even more much deserved attention to what Renner has accomplished here.

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars - Video Review:https://youtu.be/dASVtw_UcEg

This was pitched to me as a book to read for people who loved the Serial podcast. I was completely intrigued and immediately ordered a copy from my library. Needless to say, I was not disappointed! This book had a very similar feel to Serial with a journalist trying to solve an intriguing cold case, with the help of amateur online sleuths.

I was fascinated by the snippets about the journal himself, who honestly describes himself as reckless individual with an addictive personality. He is prone to self destructive behaviour, often putting himself into potentially dangerous (and stupid) situations. His addiction to studying cold cases both keeps him centered and pushes him over the edge. In many ways, this book is his memoir, analyzing the complex and troubled mind of James Renner.

The cold case at the center of the story, the disappear of Maura Murray, was an excellent choice. The basic details of the mystery were incredibly intriguing and immediately pulled me into the narrative. We quickly learn that Murray was not a perfect person, which creates many potential avenues to explain her disappearance. Conflicting testimonies, red herrings, internet weirdos, and uncooperative witnesses creates an addicting and absorbing narrative. This is the kind of book that demands a re-read because there are so many details scattered throughout the pages that I know I missed clues during my initial read.

I highly recommend this book to anyone, like myself, who is fascinated by true crime and mysterious disappearances.

[Kelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy close to home! I went to UMASS Amherst. I cringed to repeatedly hear throughout this story the names of several towns neighboring mine (at one point I was in the town he mentioned as he mispronounced it). I remember this case well. Many aspects of this book make me never want to let my children out of my sight but being the daughter of a homicide investigator also does that to a person.

I listened to this audio read by the author. It was excellent. The author presented all the evidence he had gathered presumably in the order he collected it or that it came to him, and it was fascinating to see how many leads found him or evolved from something seemingly insignificant. There was an honesty here as the author not only revealed how his obsession with the case affected him but also allowed the reader into some of his own private personal history. With an affable tone and a down-to-earth openness, this puzzling horror story becomes something else in Renner's capable hands...addictive. This is very puzzling story with many oddities and contradictions, which makes it easy to forget that this is real. I pray that Maura did orchestrate her own disappearance, as any other explanation is devastating. 4.5 stars.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Renner has an obsession. Probably unhealthy, definitely weird. Even he admits that it has caused more anxiety and strife than satisfaction in his life. And yet he can’t stop.

His obsession is investigating, researching, and writing about real-life crimes. His particular area of expertise is the disappearance of young girls.

It started, for him, when he was eleven years old, when, as he claims, he fell in love with the 10-year-old Amy Mihaljevic who, in 1989, disappeared from her small town of Bay Village, Ohio. Her body was later found in a field in Ashland County.

Renner credits the Mihaljevic murder---a story which received national attention---with his fascination with and, as he calls it, “addiction” to true crime, and it’s what inspired his career as a journalist. Indeed, it became the title of his riveting 2016 memoir, “True Crime Addict”, a book that has already been optioned to be made into a TV show.

There are two stories within Renner’s book. One is the true story of the mysterious disappearance of Maura Murray, a 22-year-old nursing student from the University of Massachusetts Amherst who, in 2004, was last seen on a country road in New Hampshire at the scene of a car accident. No trace was found of her, and to this day her case is still unsolved. Many people, including her family, believe that she was abducted and murdered. Others, including Renner, believe that there is evidence to suggest that Murray is still alive, that she has assumed a new identity, and is living somewhere in Canada.



The other story is perhaps more disturbing. It is the story of an angsty 40-year-old journalist who has sociopathic tendencies, a compulsion to investigate the darkest parts of the human condition, a violent streak that manifests at the most inopportune times, and a troubled son who may have psychic abilities.



Both stories are absolute page-turners, and Renner’s gift as a storyteller and journalist is in making his addiction our addiction. Whether or not one likes the true crime genre, it is almost impossible to not be fascinated by the cold case involving Murray. It is also almost impossible to not be somewhat moved by Renner’s internal conflict: the knowledge that his obsessive quest for truth with these cold cases is both wreaking havoc in his personal life but is also what makes him a phenomenal reporter.

“True Crime Addict” is one of the best memoirs I have read in a long time, and I look forward to reading more by Renner.

[Amanda NEVER MANDY · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is so much I did not like about this book. I did not like that I wasted my time eagerly anticipating it. I did not like that I squandered a portion of a gift card on it. I did not like that the author decided to write and publish the book even after he realized he didn’t have the information he needed to make it a decent read. That last one is where most of my dislike is.

The mysterious disappearance of Maura Murray fascinated me from day one. How can a person disappear that fast and what led her to be driving through that area to begin with? I thought this book would shed some light on this mystery. I thought this book would provide me with more information other than what is already known by anyone that has taken a glance at the case. I obviously thought wrong.

When I think a book is bad I step out of the story and try to determine where the author was coming from, what were they trying to attempt to do and what possibly could their motivation have been. It’s my way of trying to excuse what they have offered up for public consumption.

My thoughts on this one:

This book is written by an author that had an idea but couldn’t get the necessary material gathered to execute it properly. Most of the family and friends of the missing refused to speak with the author. Instead of throwing in the towel, he decided to make it a blend of the information he could find out (rehashed information everyone knows already) and filler about his own life. It would make sense if a person had already sunk a lot of their own money and time into a project and didn’t want to see it go to waste. I have not read anything else written by this author so I have decided to make this assumption out of kindness. I mean I would hate to think that he makes everything he writes about himself. What kind of fan following would you have with that?

I refuse to summarize the things he brought up about himself. I found it to be annoying and written in a way that made him sound like a tool. To be honest, I was not a fan of his writing style at all. It was like listening to a drunk guy tell exaggerated stories from his past full of bragging and bullshit. I also did not like the petty way he dealt with the wall of silence he received from the family and friends. Implying their silence meant they weren’t good people and that they might have something to hide is disgusting.

Grow up.

One star to a book that did nothing for a missing person case.

[Dena Cooper · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is going to get rant-y, so settle in. TCA is a book based on a blog by the same author about the disappearance of Maura Murray. I don't want to focus my review on her missing persons case as I really feel that topic has been beaten like a dead metaphor. Instead, this review is dedicated to how exaggerated and over-the-top James Renner is as a person and a writer, starting with the fact that he felt the need to insert his personal life into the story of a missing girl. Make no mistake, this book is not about Maura Murray, it's about James Renner and his idea that he's a special kind of guy.

His first crime was that he gave virtually no new information or insight into the case based on what he'd already written in his blog. You can find a much more stream-lined (free) version of this book on his blog sans the weird personal admissions he felt belonged in TCA. In his blog, he ramps up considerable hype for the book, sighting that there will be some big revelation in the epilogue which was actually more shit I had already read online. Seriously, there's nothing new in the book which is kind of a huge no-no if you're going to create a blog to further hype people up to then buy the book based on the blog that's also a book...you get it.

The feminist in me (she's a huge bitch) couldn't stand the opening chapter with Renner going to a strip club and talking to the stripper about the disappearance of her sister only to realize when she disrobed that she had a dragon tattoo...well, guess what?? He was reading Girl with a Dragon Tattoo....SOOOOOOO coincidence? Hell no! Renner lives in some other universe where everything is a super convenient clue about something else and you can't get too weirded out because it happens ALL. THE. TIME. In fact, his son is autistic and he also reads minds. Hell, he even offered to go with Renner up to the White Mountains to help him find Maura. Oh, and by the way, he's four. I mean, come on dude. What am I supposed to think of that? It doesn't exactly scream "credible source".

Another hit to his credibility is that he likes to make huge leaps of logic that he considers perfectly reasonable. For example, anyone in his special world with a lack of empathy is automatically a psychopath, including himself. His wife tells him a riddle that if you answer too quickly you're considered a psychopath and he does!! So he must be one right?? James Renner, you are a disgrace to modern mental health. In fact, he takes 60mg of Cymbalta for his crazy mind and one day decides he should wean himself off because he's feeling great (so obviously you should stop taking your meds - duh) and he's having serious withdrawal. He's getting brain ZAPS that he describes as a 9 volt battery electrocuting his brain. I have to take a second to laugh because I also happen to take 60mg of Cymbalta and have been without pills for one reason or another through the years and have experienced these zaps. They are NOTHING...come on dude. You make it so hard to take you seriously.

Overall, this guy has some issues. He's very narcissistic but for no real reason. He honestly seems to have a misunderstanding about the social constructs of American society and how people tend to interact with each other. There are many cases in the book when he confronts people at their homes and is very taken aback and annoyed when they are reluctant to talk to him, often sighting that they must be hiding something. He desperately wants to involve himself in Maura's case and become a character in her story. There are even cold case shows where he is giving information about Maura on national television that her family have explicitly tried to keep out of the public eye. It's hard to understand what he has to gain by this kind of behavior.

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

”Closure is for doors.”

James Renner is a fascinating guy. He was told by his psychologist that his results to the MMPI test were “very similar to those of Ted Bundy, the serial killer” but that he also tests as very smart so he should be able to channel his darkness into socially acceptable work. He has a tendency to get fixated on things—sometimes those things are missing women. He flings himself into the investigations under the banner of “it takes a psychopath to catch a psychopath.”

He believes in sharing his thought processes and all the data that he collects as he pursues the question of what happened to Maura Murray. It’s a compelling and fascinating story and quite a number of people who regularly followed his blog become associate investigators with him, and he comes to refer to them as his Irregulars, giving a nod to Sherlock Holmes.

Of course, this public sharing also attracts its share of nut bars, one of whom has the nerve to publically threaten Renner’s son. He manages to find a place of calm, but reports his feelings: “I knew him for what he was: a crazy man only pretending to be dangerous. And he had no idea who I really was: a dangerous man working really hard not to be crazy.”

There are so many things that just defy belief—things that Renner refers to as fearful symmetry. Coincidences, strange synchronicities, things that verge on the paranormal. Renner doesn’t limit himself to just Maura’s case. He also throws in details from other cases that he has investigated, including his own family history, which has horrors of its own.

It’s a wonder that Renner is as well-balanced, albeit medicated, as he is. His intelligence does seem to be mostly keeping him out of trouble (though his temper does get the better of him more than once). He writes one hell of a story that sucked up two evenings and made me resent the necessity to do laundry or feed myself. I’ll be searching out more of his work asap.

Often, I think that I would like to have coffee with certain authors. This time around, however, I think I am just as glad not to know Mr. Renner personally. No offense, if you run across this review Mr. Renner, but I already have enough darkness in my life.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Subtitled, “How I lost myself in the mysterious disappearance of Maura Murray,” this is the story of investigative journalist James Renner’s enquiry into a missing person and of the book which surfaced from that investigation. It is, though, much more than that. Like the author, I am also fascinated by true crime stories – I read books about true crime and listen to podcasts, and, like the author, I am aware that many look on this activity with dubious glances. It is not acceptable to admit to having a fascination with true crime and the author addresses this personal obsession he has and how it makes him view himself. I have not read anything by James Renner before, but I will certainly read his previous books as I found this an engrossing and enjoyable read and Renner a good narrator who interested you both in the mystery of Maura Murray and his own life.

Maura Murray was a student in 2004, when she was crashed her car into a snowdrift. A man driving home stopped to help, but she declined a lift. He continued home and reported the accident – but, by the time, the police had arrived shortly afterwards, she had vanished. Maura was said to be clever, athletic and soon to be engaged. However, she had acted out of character shortly before her disappearance and, shortly after beginning to look at the mystery, Renner received word that Maura’s family had been warned not to speak to him – despite the fact that most families of missing relatives are desperate for any publicity. Was Maura abducted, or was there another reason for her disappearance?

I found this an extremely well written account; not only of the investigation, but also of Renner’s life as a writer. I feel he has a real talent for writing about true crime in a very original way and think she will appeal to anyone with an interest in true crime books. Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

[Fitz · Rating 1 out of 5]

James Renner is a bad writer, but don't take my word for it, just read this prose:

"She had a skinny face and old-soul eyes that could draw in a man from across the room."

"There's an old truism that goes, 'Nobody wants to know how the sausage is made.' You hear it a lot in J-school, in circlejerk classes like Media of Mass Communication."

There's a lot of writing like that, plus casual f-bombs. I think it's all supposed to give the writing an air of gritty realism, but it just makes him sound like a fourteen year old boy who is trying way too hard. At one point he actually tells us that he's a "dangerous man," but when he has to go to county lockup, suddenly he's not so dangerous anymore, which is odd because, as a crime writer, he's studied men who are very, very dangerous indeed, so shouldn't he know the difference? He also tells us, more than once, that he's a psychopath. Except he also loves his children. See the problem there? Genuine psychopaths would more likely be jealous of their children and dislike the demands they make on their time and lives. James Renner sounds like every middle-school badass wannabe who just doesn't get it.

But it gets worse.

Structurally, the book is a mess. In just 278 pages, not including the acknowledgements, Renner manages to squeeze in 62 chapters, all with titles, plus a prologue and an epilogue. Some of these chapters are less then two pages long. Consequently, there is absolutely no narrative flow. Instead, we get choppy, somewhat random, observations about things that may or may not have something to do with the case.

As the book goes on, in fact, Renner has less and less to say about the subject of the book. Rather, the reader finds out about his son's behavioral problems, the author's rapist grandfather, his own attempted abduction, his sister's possible stalker, his answered prayers, on and on. Renner even really cheaply drags in Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, which only reminds his audience that there are far more interesting stories out there than the one he's not telling.

Renner calls himself a gonzo journalist, but no one would mistake him for Hunter S. Thompson. Indeed, one wonders if he even understands the term, because gonzo journalism means that the writer inserts himself into the story. Renner doesn't do that. He just inserts random events from his life into a book, which is a much, much different thing than becoming part of the story.

Honestly, I don't know how this book was published.

As for the central mystery, there is no resolution, and while Renner goes on and on about how much he travelled, there's far more insinuation and allegation than investigation here.

The Maura Murray disappearance is a strange story, and I might like to read about it someday, but Renner doesn't tell it, and he doesn't even do that well. Avoid at all costs.

[Leslye❇ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fans of the podcast "Serial" will love this book!

"Sometimes, the best you can do is knock on the monster's door and tell him you know what he did. And then write about it."- James Renner

By far one of the best true crime stories I've ever read. I couldn't put the book down, which is pretty much my requirement for a five-star rating!

This book is a mashup of true crime and memoir. It was also one of the first unsolved mysteries of the social media age, and Renner had an army of internet sleuths to help with the investigation. You may have heard of Maura Murray. Her case has been profiled on "20/20" and the ID Network. She's the UMass nursing student who went missing after crashing her car into a snowbank in New Hampshire. A man driving by offered to help, but she declined. He continued home and called police to report the accident. Police arrived shortly afterwards, but Maura had vanished. Maura was said to be beautiful, extremely intelligent, athletic and engaged to a West Point cadet. However, she had acted out of character shortly before her disappearance and secrets soon begin to unravel. Another puzzle is why Maura's family (especially her father) is warning relatives and friends not to speak to Mr. Renner. Why? Most families of missing relatives are desperate for any publicity to keep the case alive. So was Maura abducted, or was there another reason for her disappearance?

This was a very unusual memoir. The author explains how he got drawn into the case and the toll it took on his life, dealing with many of his own demons. I loved the parallel story here. It takes the reader on a wild, dark and sometimes amusing ride into Renner's mind and personal life.

There are many questions as to what actually happened to Maura Murray- kidnapping, murder, suicide or voluntary escape from her life? The case was intriguing, and I've made up my mind about what happened. It may not be the truth, but based on Renner's investigation, it seems the most likely thing. Whether I'm right or wrong, this mystery is fascinating. An excellent true crime book, but it's so much more than that. Any fan of the genre is sure to love it. A quick read, and compelling story. Highly recommend!

[Leslie Dowling · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, the story itself is interesting and firmly in my wheelhouse. But on the other hand, I really could not stand the author. The book is written in the first person and has several personal anticdotes and commentary which frankly turned me off.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Appreciated as always!

Absorbing, disturbing and absolutely unputdownable - this was one of the best 'true crime' novels I've ever read.

I should state as an aside that I'm a bit of a 'missing persons' buff. A macabre interest, I'm sure - but the subject has always fascinated me. Saddened me, of course, but fascinated me too. The notion of a person vanishing without a trace is just too intriguing and horrifying. It goes against our basic human instincts and responses - we want to always know where the people we love are. To imagine going to the grave not knowing - it's beyond heartrending.

In True Crime Addict, journalist and novelist James Renner examines his obsession with serial killers, unexplained disappearances, and the baffling case of Maura Murray, who vanished from a snowy, lonely New Hampshire road in 2004. Tellingly, The Charley Project reports that "police do not suspect foul play was involved with her disappearance."

Neither do I.

What will you believe? After reading True Crime Addict, you may feel differently than I did after finishing it, but I doubt it. I believe that ** SPOILERS ahead ....



....



Maura Murray chose to leave her life behind. Perhaps using a program that help abused women escape from their abusers. With her legal issues and what in my opinion seemed to be a strained relationship with her father, I think Maura decided to cut her losses and start anew. Not to mention the bizarre way her family reacted to Renner's requests for interviews - closing ranks, etc, well, to me, it's clear that something is odd here. There have been repeated sightings of her in Quebec and I think that's likely where she is - hopefully happy and hopefully at peace with her decisions.

There may be a darker reason - and I think Renner suspects it as well, but I'm not going to speculate here, as it would be just that - speculation. Sure, all signs point toward it, but I would hope that if that is the case - that Maura has gotten help and that she is surrounded by people who love her.

Now off to buy Renner's other books. His writing is crisp, intelligent, often funny and always engaging. I started reading this book this morning and just finished. Couldn't and didn't want to put it down.

[Krista · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley. I'd asked for it because I was excited to know more about the Maura Murray case.

Sadly, this book did not live up to my hopes. The content of the book is mostly a rehash of the facts of the Murray case, with little truly new added in. The writing is so-so, with each chapter dramatically ending on a cliffhanger. The book tells us more about the author than the Maura Murray case (or true crime as a genre)--we find out the author is hanging on throughout the book as a self-medicating person deeply in denial. We find out the author has grandiose beliefs about himself. (He's arrested, sees scores of media at the courthouse, and his first thought appears to be that they're there for his arrest. It's the day of the Castro arrest.) He has very little understanding of how other people might feel, reading their reactions in light of conspiracy theories. (For example, he simply doesn't understand why people might be offended that random Internet strangers show up at the door of their unlisted homes, asking detailed questions about events years before.) And finally, he's salacious for no reason, spreading gossip about Maura Murray being "promiscuous" when a more responsible view would be to ask if she had an unusually active sexual life (for her age and peers) and to see if that was part and parcel of an active self-destructive trend.

["Avonna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was not what I was expecting; it was so much more! It is the personal story of an investigative true crime reporter, James Renner, and the cold case disappearance of a UMass student, Maura Murray, from a rural New Hampshire road. Both stories intertwine with each being intriguing, sometimes disturbing, and completely compelling as we follow the search for Maura and Mr. Renner’s descent into a dangerous true crime addition.

James Renner has had a lifelong obsession with true crime beginning with his following of the Amy Mihaljevic case when he was just eleven years old. He turned that obsession into a career as an investigative journalist and true crime writer. Mr. Renner is open about his problems with PTSD due to his delving into the dark side of crime and as he investigates the 2004 disappearance of Maura Murray it also effects his judgement, personal well-being and family. Maura’s story isn’t all it seems and the questions become an addiction to Mr. Renner, his online followers and me, as the reader.

This is a must read for the true crime lover. It is also a candid look into the mind of one of the addicted that try to solve these mysteries. Maura’s story is still unsolved and gives all who read this story a chance to come to their own conclusions based on the information given.

Thanks very much to St. Martin’s Press and Net Galley for allowing me to read this ebook in exchange for an honest review. It was my pleasure.

[Mariah Roze · Rating 4 out of 5]

"When an eleven-year-old James Renner fell in love with Amy Mihaljevic, the missing girl seen on posters all over his neighborhood, it was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with true crime. That obsession led Renner to a successful career as an investigative journalist. It also gave him post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2011, Renner began researching the strange disappearance of Maura Murray, a University of Massachusetts student who went missing after wrecking her car in rural New Hampshire in 2004. Over the course of his investigation, he uncovered numerous important and shocking new clues about what may have happened to Murray but also found himself in increasingly dangerous situations with little regard for his own well-being. As his quest to find Murray deepened, the case started taking a toll on his personal life, which began to spiral out of control. The result is an absorbing dual investigation of the complicated story of the All-American girl who went missing and Renner's own equally complicated true-crime addiction."

This book was extremely good!

[Tooter · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2011, the mysterious disappearance of Maura Murray caught the eye of freelance investigative journalist James Renner. But this wasn’t exactly new territory for Renner. Years before, he had dug into the disappearance of Amy Mihaljevic, a case that left Renner with PTSD. Why would he want to subject himself to this scenario again, you ask? As the title says, it’s an addiction. Renner has an undying thirst for the truth and True Crime Addict takes the reader inside the author’s quest to quench it.

I received a copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.

I thought this was a hell of a great read. While it did start a little on the slow side, it didn’t take long for Renner to push the pedal to the metal. Extremely short chapters (we’re talking three-to-four pages in length) help to speed up the book making you feel like you’re flying through the story. This is likely why I gulped down huge chunks of it in single sittings (“only one more chapter, then I’ll go to bed. OK, that was pretty short, only one more.. etc”).

Along with his frustrations in trying to break open the Murray case, Renner weaves in bits of his own history (one particular part of his past is not the easiest read), detailing both his childhood, career and current struggles with his son’s violent and strange tendencies. I thought this was an excellent choice. Not that I see anything wrong with an entire book delving into the case itself, I just felt that adding in these pieces of information kept things fresh and interesting – especially when you consider where the story ultimately ends up.

With True Crime Addict as well as his previous book about the disappearance of Amy Mihaljevic (Amy: My Search for Her Killer), Renner has proven to be an accomplished non-fiction writer. I’ve been hearing great things about his fiction work and if those novels are as gripping as True Crime Addict, I have no doubt I’ll enjoy them.

[AlcoholBooksCinema · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s this theory that our universe is nothing but a computer simulation. The idea is that we all exist inside a mostly pointless video game programmed by some higher life-form. You might be surprised to learn that this is a very old idea. In his Meditations on First Philosophy, in 1641, René Descartes proposed that the observable world might be a great trick orchestrated by an “evil demon.” And Descartes’s argument was inspired by Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” written nearly twenty-five hundred years ago. Today, the notion of a giant computer simulation is very much in vogue in the world of theoretical physics. And here’s the scary part: It looks like it really might be true.

There were moments I felt I was reading crime fiction because the narrative was remarkably engaging through all the chapters disclosing James Renner's investigations and interviews like a hard-fought detective crime-mystery.

'I Saw Your Think' chapter startled me. The way this book is written with a chapter devoted to each person related to Maura Murray or an incident that occurred in author's life reveals the author's obsession towards the disappearance of Maura Murray. Each character related to Maura Murray appeared like a piece of a puzzle particularly the headstrong, adamant father who seems to keep the ugliest secret of all.

Every time I finish reading a book by James Renner, I tell myself, this author needs more readers, in fact, a lot of them. Many readers are missing out an excellent storyteller.

I never heard of Maura Murray prior to this book. I am not from the USA. James Renner was the only reason I bought this book. I want James Renner to never stop writing books. I am going to buy every book he writes, and I don't think he can ever write a book that I will not like.

[ꕥ Ange_Lives_To_Read ꕥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I joined the "Tuesday True Crime" club at my local library, and the disappearance of Maura Murray is this month's case. While we weren't required to read this, I wanted to be as informed as possible for my first discussion. The book was interesting and easy to read, but it was kind of a strange approach - the author was writing a book about writing a book about his obsession with true crime in general, and about this case in particular.

Towards the latter goal, the author just kept hounding people who were in any way, no matter how tangentially, connected to Maura Murray and her disappearance. He put speculative things on the internet, sometimes causing trouble for people who really had nothing to do with it. He pissed off Maura's family. I don't know. It all made for interesting reading, but I was always thinking to myself, what gives him the right to do this, just because he has decided he wants to write this book.

Something else about it made me a bit uncomfortable. Renner kept talking about all the seriously f'd up things that happened in HIS life and family, and that he has several times suspected he personally might be a psychopath. What's the saying, when someone tells you who they are, believe them.