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A Death in Canaan: A Classic Case of Good and Evil in a Small New England Town
A “riveting” true crime The trial of Connecticut teen Peter Reilly, accused of killing his mother, and the community that defended him (People). In the sleepy hamlet of Canaan, Connecticut, Barbara Gibbons stood out. She and her eighteen-year-old son, Peter Reilly, lived in a drab one-bedroom house on a desolate stretch of road. An intelligent, lively woman with a wicked sense of humor, Barbara also had dark moods and drank too much. She fought loudly with neighbors and her son, and appeared to have a messy, complicated love life. When Peter came home from the Teen Center one night to discover his mother lying naked on the bedroom floor with her throat slashed, the police made him their prime suspect. After eight hours of interrogation and a polygraph test, Peter confessed. Investigators were convinced they had an open-and-shut case, but the townspeople disagreed. They couldn’t believe that the naïve teenager was capable of such a gruesome crime, and blamed detectives for taking advantage of the boy’s trust. With the help of celebrities including Mike Nichols and William Styron, who contributes an eloquent and persuasive introduction to Joan Barthel’s account of the case, the community of Canaan rallied to Peter’s defense. A gripping murder mystery and an intimate portrait of the loyalties, resentments, and secrets lurking beneath the placid surface of quiet towns across America, A Death in Canaan is a masterpiece of “first-class journalism” (The New York Times).
436 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1976
164 people are currently reading
781 people want to read
About the author
Joan Barthel
15 books12 followersJoan Barthel is the award-winning author of five nonfiction books and a contributor to many national publications. Her cover story on Elizabeth Seton in the Times Magazine inspired her to bring the singular life of this first American-born saint into contemporary focus and ultimately led to her book American Saint.
With her first book, A Death in Canaan, Barthel uncovered the miscarriage of justice in the case of a Connecticut teenager accused of murdering his mother. Her work brought the case to the attention of celebrities such as Arthur Miller, William Styron, and Mike Nichols, who championed his cause. Barthel won the American Bar Association Gavel Award for A Death in Canaan, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and was made into a CBS-TV film that was nominated for an Emmy Award.
Following A Death in Canaan, Barthel wrote A Death in California, the story of a Beverly Hills socialite caught in the thrall of the man who had murdered her fiancé, which was a Book-of-the-Month Club Featured Alternate and became a four-hour miniseries on ABC-TV. Her next book, Love or Honor, told the story of a New York City undercover cop who infiltrated the Greek mafia and fell in love with the capo’s daughter. After Love or Honor, Barthel collaborated with Rosemary Clooney to write the legendary vocalist’s critically acclaimed autobiography, Girl Singer. With her daughter, Anne Barthel, she has written a screenplay, The Truth About Home, based on a two-part article she wrote in New Choices magazine
Barthel was a staff writer at the weekly Life magazine, contributing editor at New Times, and instructor in feature writing at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her many magazine pieces include cover stories in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, and Notre Dame Magazine. She has written book reviews for The New York Times Book Review and articles and profiles on a wide range of people and issues: Ingrid Bergman, Bob Hope, New York governor Mario Cuomo, Sidney Poitier, Dan Rather, Nancy Reagan, Beverly Sills, Gloria Steinem, Oprah Winfrey; women and guns, medical ethics, the foster-care system, homeless families.
A graduate of the Writer’s Institute at Saint Louis University, Barthel holds an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, New York. Her other honors include the Outstanding Article Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Distinguished Service Award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. She lives in St. Louis.
- from her website
With her first book, A Death in Canaan, Barthel uncovered the miscarriage of justice in the case of a Connecticut teenager accused of murdering his mother. Her work brought the case to the attention of celebrities such as Arthur Miller, William Styron, and Mike Nichols, who championed his cause. Barthel won the American Bar Association Gavel Award for A Death in Canaan, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and was made into a CBS-TV film that was nominated for an Emmy Award.
Following A Death in Canaan, Barthel wrote A Death in California, the story of a Beverly Hills socialite caught in the thrall of the man who had murdered her fiancé, which was a Book-of-the-Month Club Featured Alternate and became a four-hour miniseries on ABC-TV. Her next book, Love or Honor, told the story of a New York City undercover cop who infiltrated the Greek mafia and fell in love with the capo’s daughter. After Love or Honor, Barthel collaborated with Rosemary Clooney to write the legendary vocalist’s critically acclaimed autobiography, Girl Singer. With her daughter, Anne Barthel, she has written a screenplay, The Truth About Home, based on a two-part article she wrote in New Choices magazine
Barthel was a staff writer at the weekly Life magazine, contributing editor at New Times, and instructor in feature writing at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her many magazine pieces include cover stories in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, and Notre Dame Magazine. She has written book reviews for The New York Times Book Review and articles and profiles on a wide range of people and issues: Ingrid Bergman, Bob Hope, New York governor Mario Cuomo, Sidney Poitier, Dan Rather, Nancy Reagan, Beverly Sills, Gloria Steinem, Oprah Winfrey; women and guns, medical ethics, the foster-care system, homeless families.
A graduate of the Writer’s Institute at Saint Louis University, Barthel holds an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, New York. Her other honors include the Outstanding Article Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Distinguished Service Award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. She lives in St. Louis.
- from her website
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May 12, 2019
A Death in Canaan: A Classic Case of Good and Evil in a Small New England Town by Joan Barthel is a 2016 Open Road Integrated Media publication. (This book was originally published in 1976)
I read this book way back in the late 1980’s and was stunned by the bizarre turn of events that resulted in the arrest of Peter Reilly in connection with his mother’s brutal murder.
Now, cases like Peter’s are more publicized, with controversial coerced confessions becoming a shocking epidemic.
In 1973 in a small community located in Litchfield County, Connecticut, Barbara Gibbons was brutally murdered in her home. Her son, Peter Reilly, returned home after attending a meeting with some friends and discovered her body.
Peter, who did not display the amount of emotion investigators felt was appropriate under the circumstances, was interrogated for hours, without an attorney present. They also administered, a lie detector test, which in his shocked and exhausted state of mind he failed. Before all was said and done, the police elicited a confession from Peter.
Right from the very beginning, Peter’s friends and the entire community, rallied around him, supporting him, raising money for his defense and championing his cause. This book chronicles Peter’s journey, the way the case eventually garnered headlines, the celebrities who became involved, the trial, conviction, and eventual exoneration and the way the case shaped the lives of all those involved.
The book is written in an old-fashioned journalistic style in some ways, and doesn’t read like a ‘true crime novel’ format we’ve become so accustomed to, but there are many personal touches, which emphasizes the strain everyone was under and the tensions that arose as the case began to take on a life of its own. Yet the determination to stick with Peter is never in question, despite all the adversity.
While Barbara’s murder has never been solved, and the crime scene described in this book is positively grisly, one’s immediate response isn’t ‘Poor Barbara”. Instead, it’s ‘Poor Peter”.
Even now, reading this book from a much more jaded perspective, several times throughout the book, I caught myself thinking, “Poor Peter”.
Meanwhile, Barbara, her murder, and the need to find the real killer, as is usually the case in these situations, gets lost in the hoopla. The crime and the victim often become secondary in the fight to prevent a grave miscarriage of justice.
Since first reading this book, I have watched this same scenario play out time and time again. For Peter, who was convicted of Manslaughter, his luck was unbelievable, and he managed to come out of it without serving hard time in prison.
Others since have not been so lucky. The same tactics used on Peter were also applied in several other controversial cases, most notably: 17-year old Jessie Misskelley, one of the “West Memphis Three”, who had an IQ of 72, Johnny Lee Wilson who had an IQ of 76, Earl Washington, who had an IQ of 69.
And more recently, the confession of Brendan Dassey, (Making of a Murderer), who also has abnormally low IQ.
Peter Reilly’s IQ was not discussed, but it is quite obvious he was incredibly impressionable, simple-minded, naïve, sheltered, and susceptible. His emotional maturity was more akin to a fourteen year old kid than an eighteen -year old on the cusp of adulthood. He truly didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of his situation at times.
The transcripts of the interrogation are included in the book and one can see for themselves how confused Peter was the and abhorrent tactics applied during the questioning.
One wonders how many cases weren't championed by celebrities, didn’t have documentaries made about them, or garnered national attention. How many other Peter Reilly’s are out there spending their lives behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit?
This crime occurred in 1973 and for all these years, nothing has changed, in regards, to police interrogations. Coercions, apparently, are still a viable option when given a chance. How someone sleeps at night knowing full well they’ve sent an innocent person to prison, knowing full well that the perpetrator is still out there, maybe even committing more crimes, and that the victims will never receive the justice they deserve, is beyond me.
I am glad I read this book again, although it made me mad all over again. I think what really sticks out here, for me, though, is the way the community responded, and how quickly they reacted. If not for their unwavering support for Peter, he would have spent sixteen years of his life in prison.
Made for TV movie link:
https://youtu.be/V3_KTYjmmb8
4 stars
*This book is now in digital format, published by Open Road Media. I had trouble finding a copy at my library, however, the book is included in your subscription if you are a member of Scribd.
I read this book way back in the late 1980’s and was stunned by the bizarre turn of events that resulted in the arrest of Peter Reilly in connection with his mother’s brutal murder.
Now, cases like Peter’s are more publicized, with controversial coerced confessions becoming a shocking epidemic.
In 1973 in a small community located in Litchfield County, Connecticut, Barbara Gibbons was brutally murdered in her home. Her son, Peter Reilly, returned home after attending a meeting with some friends and discovered her body.
Peter, who did not display the amount of emotion investigators felt was appropriate under the circumstances, was interrogated for hours, without an attorney present. They also administered, a lie detector test, which in his shocked and exhausted state of mind he failed. Before all was said and done, the police elicited a confession from Peter.
Right from the very beginning, Peter’s friends and the entire community, rallied around him, supporting him, raising money for his defense and championing his cause. This book chronicles Peter’s journey, the way the case eventually garnered headlines, the celebrities who became involved, the trial, conviction, and eventual exoneration and the way the case shaped the lives of all those involved.
The book is written in an old-fashioned journalistic style in some ways, and doesn’t read like a ‘true crime novel’ format we’ve become so accustomed to, but there are many personal touches, which emphasizes the strain everyone was under and the tensions that arose as the case began to take on a life of its own. Yet the determination to stick with Peter is never in question, despite all the adversity.
While Barbara’s murder has never been solved, and the crime scene described in this book is positively grisly, one’s immediate response isn’t ‘Poor Barbara”. Instead, it’s ‘Poor Peter”.
Even now, reading this book from a much more jaded perspective, several times throughout the book, I caught myself thinking, “Poor Peter”.
Meanwhile, Barbara, her murder, and the need to find the real killer, as is usually the case in these situations, gets lost in the hoopla. The crime and the victim often become secondary in the fight to prevent a grave miscarriage of justice.
Since first reading this book, I have watched this same scenario play out time and time again. For Peter, who was convicted of Manslaughter, his luck was unbelievable, and he managed to come out of it without serving hard time in prison.
Others since have not been so lucky. The same tactics used on Peter were also applied in several other controversial cases, most notably: 17-year old Jessie Misskelley, one of the “West Memphis Three”, who had an IQ of 72, Johnny Lee Wilson who had an IQ of 76, Earl Washington, who had an IQ of 69.
And more recently, the confession of Brendan Dassey, (Making of a Murderer), who also has abnormally low IQ.
Peter Reilly’s IQ was not discussed, but it is quite obvious he was incredibly impressionable, simple-minded, naïve, sheltered, and susceptible. His emotional maturity was more akin to a fourteen year old kid than an eighteen -year old on the cusp of adulthood. He truly didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of his situation at times.
The transcripts of the interrogation are included in the book and one can see for themselves how confused Peter was the and abhorrent tactics applied during the questioning.
One wonders how many cases weren't championed by celebrities, didn’t have documentaries made about them, or garnered national attention. How many other Peter Reilly’s are out there spending their lives behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit?
This crime occurred in 1973 and for all these years, nothing has changed, in regards, to police interrogations. Coercions, apparently, are still a viable option when given a chance. How someone sleeps at night knowing full well they’ve sent an innocent person to prison, knowing full well that the perpetrator is still out there, maybe even committing more crimes, and that the victims will never receive the justice they deserve, is beyond me.
I am glad I read this book again, although it made me mad all over again. I think what really sticks out here, for me, though, is the way the community responded, and how quickly they reacted. If not for their unwavering support for Peter, he would have spent sixteen years of his life in prison.
Made for TV movie link:
https://youtu.be/V3_KTYjmmb8
4 stars
*This book is now in digital format, published by Open Road Media. I had trouble finding a copy at my library, however, the book is included in your subscription if you are a member of Scribd.
December 18, 2016
Unfortunately, this book just wasn't very good.
I've been trying to figure out why; it's not just that Barthel doesn't have any sense of how true crime works as a genre--she's not really writing true crime. The problem maybe is that she doesn't know what she's writing, so that what comes across is "This thing happened and I was there and me and my really important friends Did Something About It." It's not a memoir, because it's not about her, even though she keeps putting bits of her personal life in it for no clear reason. It's not really about Peter Reilly, who remains a cipher at the center of the book (and there are some questions about him that Barthel doesn't even seem aware she might want to try to answer); you might say it's about Barbara Gibbons, the murdered woman, but she is perforce an absence, only reconstructed from the people who knew her. And it can't be about the solving of Barbara Gibbons' murder, because that murder remains unsolved to this day.
It takes a writer who is not an artist but an obsessive and intensely self-aware artisan to write a book about an unsolved murder and make it work. Barthel complains about all the unknowns and ambiguities in the case, but she makes no effort (at least, no effort that she discusses) to find the answers. She comes across as a dilettante, a sightseer at someone else's tragedy. I have no idea if this is a fair assessment or not, which is what I mean by needing a self-aware artisan at the helm of a book like this. Barthel doesn't show any awareness of the self she's presenting through her narrative, and fortunately or unfortunately, the narrator in true crime--or, more generally, in nonfiction books about ambiguous or uncertain events (cf the book I just reviewed, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster)--is vitally important. The reader has to trust the author, not necessarily to know the truth, but to be able to distinguish between that they do know and they don't know, and part of that, if the narrator is also a character in the book's events, is self-awareness. Which Barthel just doesn't demonstrate.
There's also no throughline--as I said, she doesn't really seem to know what story she's telling or why she's telling it. The thing is hopelessly open-ended, which in itself isn't necessarily a problem, but Barthel neither has a story to put within that open-endedness, nor the skill needed to make the open-endedness her story.
At this remove, I have no idea why this book was nominated for a Pulitzer--except that Barthel's original article did uncover a really spectacular miscarriage of justice.
I've been trying to figure out why; it's not just that Barthel doesn't have any sense of how true crime works as a genre--she's not really writing true crime. The problem maybe is that she doesn't know what she's writing, so that what comes across is "This thing happened and I was there and me and my really important friends Did Something About It." It's not a memoir, because it's not about her, even though she keeps putting bits of her personal life in it for no clear reason. It's not really about Peter Reilly, who remains a cipher at the center of the book (and there are some questions about him that Barthel doesn't even seem aware she might want to try to answer); you might say it's about Barbara Gibbons, the murdered woman, but she is perforce an absence, only reconstructed from the people who knew her. And it can't be about the solving of Barbara Gibbons' murder, because that murder remains unsolved to this day.
It takes a writer who is not an artist but an obsessive and intensely self-aware artisan to write a book about an unsolved murder and make it work. Barthel complains about all the unknowns and ambiguities in the case, but she makes no effort (at least, no effort that she discusses) to find the answers. She comes across as a dilettante, a sightseer at someone else's tragedy. I have no idea if this is a fair assessment or not, which is what I mean by needing a self-aware artisan at the helm of a book like this. Barthel doesn't show any awareness of the self she's presenting through her narrative, and fortunately or unfortunately, the narrator in true crime--or, more generally, in nonfiction books about ambiguous or uncertain events (cf the book I just reviewed, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster)--is vitally important. The reader has to trust the author, not necessarily to know the truth, but to be able to distinguish between that they do know and they don't know, and part of that, if the narrator is also a character in the book's events, is self-awareness. Which Barthel just doesn't demonstrate.
There's also no throughline--as I said, she doesn't really seem to know what story she's telling or why she's telling it. The thing is hopelessly open-ended, which in itself isn't necessarily a problem, but Barthel neither has a story to put within that open-endedness, nor the skill needed to make the open-endedness her story.
At this remove, I have no idea why this book was nominated for a Pulitzer--except that Barthel's original article did uncover a really spectacular miscarriage of justice.
September 19, 2011
Easy to read book. My aunts, uncles and cousins are central characters in the book (the Madows). I always knew the story since I was a little girl but never read the book. Finally did and it was worth it.
January 31, 2017
August 18 2016: Began reading, excited to have found an new true crime book. Skipped the intro because I do not know and do not want to know what has happened but alas the first line of the book was "When Barbara died" so lost my excitement but will give it another try. Maybe I need to know that this barbara died on page 1 and there is a reason why the author is not telling the story in chronological order nor building any suspense. We will see.
Update January 31 2017. Okay I tried and read quite a lot but I am sick of the transcripts plus learning a bit more it is not a book for me.
By the way I noticed this book was written many decades ago. Here I was thinking it was a new book.
Update January 31 2017. Okay I tried and read quite a lot but I am sick of the transcripts plus learning a bit more it is not a book for me.
By the way I noticed this book was written many decades ago. Here I was thinking it was a new book.
January 24, 2016
This should have been a gripping case, but honestly it didn't really hold my attention. It was all I could do to finish it.
Want to read
June 3, 2010I remember watching a tv movie called "A Death in Canaan" when I was a kid -- it had a young actor playing the lead who I always thought was Timothy Hutton, about a boy charged with killing his mother. This book is the basis for the tv movie.
June 24, 2014
The heart of this book is 100 pages of transcript of conversations between an 18 year and cops trying to coerce him into admitting he murdered his mother. And with every question and answer the injustice gets deeper and deeper leaving you shaking the booking yelling, “Lawyer Up you dumb schmuck!” And yet he doesn’t because he knows the cops don’t want him too and he wants to please the cops (and he's a moron). The first person he talks to who really has his best interest at heart is a fellow prisoner.
I can’t fathom how these cops actually felt they had the right guy. It seemed like they didn’t want to find the actual murderer, they just wanted to get someone to admit to it. The physical evidence screamed this kid didn’t do it. I don’t understand how a jury convicted him. This is “The Emperor’s New Clothes” except set in a Connecticut Court Room. Bottom line, always ask for a lawyer.
I can’t fathom how these cops actually felt they had the right guy. It seemed like they didn’t want to find the actual murderer, they just wanted to get someone to admit to it. The physical evidence screamed this kid didn’t do it. I don’t understand how a jury convicted him. This is “The Emperor’s New Clothes” except set in a Connecticut Court Room. Bottom line, always ask for a lawyer.
April 29, 2010
Fantastic story! I had no idea.
In short, a teenage boy is accused of murdering his own mother and this retells the story before during and a little after the whole crime, trial, etc. A good chunk of this book is reading through the interrogation of the teenage boy, Peter, which can be a little tiring, but it gives great insight into what he must have been going though.
There are a couple other books on the same topic that I have not yet been able to read, but I hope to so I might see how they compare to this one. All in all - a great true crime book and hopefully you'll end up feeling compassion for the boy too.
In short, a teenage boy is accused of murdering his own mother and this retells the story before during and a little after the whole crime, trial, etc. A good chunk of this book is reading through the interrogation of the teenage boy, Peter, which can be a little tiring, but it gives great insight into what he must have been going though.
There are a couple other books on the same topic that I have not yet been able to read, but I hope to so I might see how they compare to this one. All in all - a great true crime book and hopefully you'll end up feeling compassion for the boy too.
September 25, 2024
A teen accused of murdering his wayward mum in their parked trailer in New England seems to be railroaded by the Authorities to prison. A heroine descends on the scene like a noir investigator in a movie. She believes in his innocence and saves his life. Joan Barthel, a journalist, is the author of this true-crimer.
September 6, 2016
I really enjoyed Barthel's 1981 book A DEATH IN CALIFORNIA, but this one never managed to engage me. It also seemed to end before the story was over, but I was more than ready to wrap it up anyway.
July 15, 2017
I was never able to finish this book. Very slow.
October 28, 2019
I live in Connecticut, not far from where the murder of Barbara Gibbon's took place. Many people encouraged me to read this book, so I was expecting something better. The story of Peter Reilly is, in itself, fascinating. However, simply reading the disturbing interrogation records and knowing the end result of this case is more than enough to get a sense of the injustice that occurred, and that all happened by page 150 or so. After that, the author describes the courtroom scenes in boring detail, reiterating what we already know happened, and explaining the legal issues in a way that assumes that the reader has not already figured them out. For example, she writes that Reilly's attorney "was trying a criminal case, but within that framework she was raising constitutional issues." Well, ALL criminal cases involve constitutional issues- that's the heart of criminal law. The introduction by William Styron was heavily slanted and unnecessarily vitriolic. Yes, the law is imperfect and the system requires constant diligence in the face of corruption and ignorance. To be sure, grave injustices occur, but Styron depicts a chaotic system teeming with bad actors as the norm across America.
February 8, 2018
A well written account of the injustice that is the justice system.
January 23, 2017
This is a book that I read for a book club. I would not have chosen it on my own, as the events of that time period are still etched in my mind. For those of you who were not in CT in the early 70s, this is a good read. It recounts the death of Barbara Gibbons, for which her son Peter Reilly was charged with murder. It appears that the police suspected Peter as the perpetrator of the crime that evening of the crime, and brought him in to the station quickly. They then moved him to Hartford where they coerced a young, poor 18 year old into confessing that he killed his mother. The transcripts of the interrogation are part of this book.
The book continues to catalog the events, the trial, the support of the community, and the final moments of freeing Peter. The horrible treatment of young Reilly would never be tolerated by any wealthy family in Litchfield County where the crime took place. The book does bring into focus the police who wish to charge a criminal with a heinous crime quickly, to allay fears in the countryside. While Peter is a white man, he is a poor man, and this seems to be part of his crime. It is hoped that the state and city police of CT have a better way of dealing with suspects, rich or poor, black or red or white or blue.
The book continues to catalog the events, the trial, the support of the community, and the final moments of freeing Peter. The horrible treatment of young Reilly would never be tolerated by any wealthy family in Litchfield County where the crime took place. The book does bring into focus the police who wish to charge a criminal with a heinous crime quickly, to allay fears in the countryside. While Peter is a white man, he is a poor man, and this seems to be part of his crime. It is hoped that the state and city police of CT have a better way of dealing with suspects, rich or poor, black or red or white or blue.
March 14, 2016
Hard to read and see the bias of law enforcement, especially after watching the television series The Making of a Murderer. A young naive boy......in both stories......was badgered, coaxed, smooth talked and generally manipulated by police officers all more interested in closing a case than doing the right thing. The community saved this kid and that is the up side of this true story. But I come away with the firm belief.....DO NOT SAY "ANYTHING" TO THE POLICE IF ACCUSED OF EVEN THE SIMPLEST TRANSGRESSION. SILENCE IS GOLDEN !
March 19, 2016
If you want a true crime book that is deep on details but low on narrative and offers an unparalleled look at a despicably bungled investigation, this is a great choice. While I always love to read primary source material, the bulk of the first third of this book is simply a reprint of the interrogation, with little to no commentary from Barthel.
I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FROM NETGALLEY IN EXCHANGE FOR MY HONEST REVIEW.
I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FROM NETGALLEY IN EXCHANGE FOR MY HONEST REVIEW.
January 18, 2017
A bit repetitive, but I think it's necessary to understand the amount of brainwashing Peter went through to serve up his confession. It was heartbreaking to read the coercion and how easily it can happen to someone who is goodhearted and wants to do the right thing by everyone.
December 2, 2017
This was a very good read, full of wow and OMG. Some detectives/police should be ashamed of themselves.
a great true crime thriller.
Joan Barthel does great research and provided another great book.
a great true crime thriller.
Joan Barthel does great research and provided another great book.
January 5, 2017
Totally compelling.
July 13, 2017
Wow!
I couldn't put it down. The questioning sessions were unbelievable. A real page turner. A great author. Would read her writings again
I couldn't put it down. The questioning sessions were unbelievable. A real page turner. A great author. Would read her writings again
August 14, 2019
Been aware of this book my whole life since I grew up in Falls Village but was reminded of it when the NYTimes mentioned it in their "50 states of true crime" feature, so finally read it.
Maybe Barthel laid it on a little thick with lines like "by 1973 the trains had stopping running and travelers to NYC had to wait for the bus at Collins Diner". But I feasted on the details of 1970's Falls Village & North Canaan - Mario's barbershop, the drive-in movie theatre, the Falls Village swimming pond before it was paved over into the pool at the rec center, Alexander's Inn, etc.
This sentence seems a little questionable though: "Along with the very silly things, Barbara did some very serious things, as a woman adrift is apt to do. For a while, she had a black man living with her. Some teen-agers, peeking in the window one day, saw Barbara and the man naked, and the mother of one of Peter's classmates, who lived down the road, had to warn her son about going to Peter's."
Maybe Barthel laid it on a little thick with lines like "by 1973 the trains had stopping running and travelers to NYC had to wait for the bus at Collins Diner". But I feasted on the details of 1970's Falls Village & North Canaan - Mario's barbershop, the drive-in movie theatre, the Falls Village swimming pond before it was paved over into the pool at the rec center, Alexander's Inn, etc.
This sentence seems a little questionable though: "Along with the very silly things, Barbara did some very serious things, as a woman adrift is apt to do. For a while, she had a black man living with her. Some teen-agers, peeking in the window one day, saw Barbara and the man naked, and the mother of one of Peter's classmates, who lived down the road, had to warn her son about going to Peter's."
January 20, 2021
I read this book many many years ago and it is just as good as it was the first time. Trying to find the movie but it isn't anywhere online that I can see it. I like how the author wrote the book as she told enough detail to get you involved with Peter and the others that cared for him. Too many times writers go into too much detail which can lose you.
November 11, 2022
This was an extremely interesting read. I am from Connecticut and was 15 years old when this occurred. I spend a lot of time riding motorcycles with my husband and our friends in the Northwest Corner and knew of many of the areas mentioned in this book. I will probably try to find more to read regarding this tragic event.
September 4, 2019
Although it was tedious to read, I appreciate them including the entire interrogation transcript. This is the anatomy of a false confession, and anyone who says "I would never admit to something I didn't do!" should read this and see if you still feel the same way.
March 23, 2022
This is a true crime classic. It is a very important story, and it is still sadly true that the same type of gross mistakes happen in American justice. However, the rythm of the book, especially the transcripts, is somewhat slow, and I did not enjoyed the reading as much I thought I would like.
April 17, 2023
Shallow look at what could have been fascinating case
The author could have dug so much deeper into Barbara's life, and who really did kill her. She started with a detailed look at Barbara, but stopped just short of her final days and the harassment.
The author could have dug so much deeper into Barbara's life, and who really did kill her. She started with a detailed look at Barbara, but stopped just short of her final days and the harassment.
October 16, 2023
too much on polygraph
No one wants to read hours of the polygraph test.
I am appalled that Peter wasn’t given food and let him sleep.
And because they had Peter they never looked for the real killer.
I liked the story but not how it was written.
No one wants to read hours of the polygraph test.
I am appalled that Peter wasn’t given food and let him sleep.
And because they had Peter they never looked for the real killer.
I liked the story but not how it was written.
June 4, 2018
Too repetitive. Too painful because of what the police was doing to an innocent boy. I skimmed the whole thing.
February 7, 2020
Very interesting
Easy to read; well written; scary to think something like that could and did happen,,, thank heaven for the people who helped him!
Easy to read; well written; scary to think something like that could and did happen,,, thank heaven for the people who helped him!
October 20, 2023
Good story about a sad situation. How can things go so wrong and never a solution.
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