Unholy Matrimony: A True Story of Murder and Obsession

by John Dillmann

A New Orleans police detective recounts his experiences investigating a hit and run case which proved to be a cleverly disguised murder and insurance fraud

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime

Mass Market Paperback

First published November 28, 1986

Reviews

[♥ Marlene♥]

Wow.Is there no end to people´s cruelty.. I am so disgusted with these 2. Very well written true crime book where the author treats us to how his investigation evolves including the ending.

Once finished I googled and ended up at the movie that was made based on this book on imdb. To my surprise there were friends of one of the main suspects telling in their reviews what a good man he is and to let bygones be bygones. .Yes so easy when it is not your loved one.

4.5

[Fishface]

Awful true-crime story, wonderfully written by a detective whose disgust for the killers oozes off the page. Don't miss this one.

[Coleccionista de finales tristes]

Es la historia de un asesinato verdadero narrada por el investigador. Otro libro de esos que poco dejan.

[Kiriko]

Okay so I'm struggling to find a good book to read, not remotely interested in the books some of my groups are reading for the month (September).

So I decided to potter around the house see what buried treasure I could dig up (literally we have stacks of books in boxes in the basement buried under old clothes, my elder sisters things and a whole bunch of unidentifiable objects.) I found this book closer to the top and grabbed it.

Not a bad read, I like true stories like this based on cops where they portray what is actually is like day to day in their line of work. This book is about the first major case of John Dillmann.

While I liked reading about his work, I felt the author tended to make himself sound like something special. Granted, he did a great job of handling the case and the bad guys got what was coming for them in the end. But I still would have preferred to read it without the references to how he basically was a protégé. Youngest to join the murder squad, best presentation of a case seen yada yada. It's annoying but did not distract from the main story.

[James Marcus]

I was with this book from the first conversation with William Hoffman, who became the ghost writer, and James Drury, "The Virginian", who had met Detective John Dillman at a bar in the French Quarter, several years before. Hoffman wanted to do a "true crime" book, and asked if either of us had any ideas. Drury had Dillman's card stuffed in his wallet, so we called him, and 36 hours later, on a cold and rainy day in Dallas, we heard the details from the cop who just happened to have enough respect for a beautiful but dead girl and her parents, to make a phone call instead of writing a letter.

This is an amazing story, written well and factually accurate, that will have you identifying with the characters at every turn. An amazing, factual story that made a terrific book and an excellent movie!

[Jane]

As I was watching a Lifetime movie from 1990, I became interested in locating the book by John Dillmann of the same title, Unholy Matrimony: A True Story of Murder and Obsession. I really don't want to compare the two media because it definitely is apples and oranges, but a large portion of the book appears to be taken from the actual court transcript from the trial of the actual murderer with very little of the actual investigation of the insurance fraud that caused the death of a woman in her twenties on a get rich scheme appearing on the pages. It is a fairly quick read if you have some time on a dreary afternoon though.

[Patricia Atkinson]

john dillmann got a job to check out a hit and run accident where the girls parents say was not an accident at all.dillman than uncovers a insurence scam where patricia giesick marries the wrong man and her new husband jim who says hes a psychologist is not who he says he is and his friend reverand sam corey who has a bunch of massage palour decide to get them married and murder her on her honeymoon... they might have got away with it if the homicide detective hillmann had not found them out....

[Eva Tipps]

I prefer reading true stories, or at least stories based on truth. In this one, the novice detective who investigated a hit-and-run murder relates how he approached the case. The details fascinated me.

[Kayleen Holt]

I read this book because my mom testified against one of the defendants. She's even mentioned (briefly). The writing is a bit heavy-handed, but the story is intriguing.

[Athornton]

Sorry this was a DNF for me- don’t know if it’s because the book is older but I just couldn’t get into it!

[Diane Wachter]

Unholy Matrimony, John Dillmann, RDC-M, #4-87, 1987. A true story about a newly wed woman who was killed in a hit and run accident, that John Dillmann investigated and came to believe that it was murder. Okay.

[Bonnie Kernene]

Excellent book. Movie not so much. The book was easy to read and a real page turner, hard to put down.

[Hoagie]

This is one of the most disturbing true stories I have ever read.

[Marie]

Read this in 2000 ... WHY did I reading the books I did?!