This is a book about the unsolved double murder of two college-aged women at the New Jersey shore in May 1969. Although I’m a New Jersey native very close in age to the two victims, I don’t recall ever hearing about this crime, maybe because it occurred in South Jersey and I’m from North Jersey. At any rate, the New Jersey connection prompted me to read the book.
It’s a hard one for me to rate. On the one hand, the story is compelling. The author clearly did very thorough research on the case and probably knows everything about it that’s available to the public. (Some information remains available only to law enforcement because it’s still an open investigation.) On the other hand, in my opinion, he has allowed his research to overwhelm the story, discussing at length numerous potential suspects whose connection to the crime is little more than conjectural, sometimes based on a thread as a slim as having been within 50 or 60 miles of the murder scene around the same time as the crime.
In the most egregious example, he devotes three chapters to Ted Bundy, despite very flimsy possible connections between Bundy and these murders. Most of what is reported here is not new and just pads the narrative for anyone who knows anything about Bundy. Mark Thomas was a more legitimate suspect than Bundy, but the chapters detailing his white supremacist activities and possible connection to the Oklahoma City bombing, while very interesting in their own right (I actually found them to be one of the best parts of the book), seem to have little to do with the case at hand.
Finally, I have to disagree with the reviewers who have called this book well-written. I agree that some sections are well written—and the author makes very effective use of cliffhangers at the ends of chapters—but the numerous odd turns of phrase, poor or incorrect word choice, and grammatical errors outweigh the better writing elsewhere. Just a few examples: “Krep’s legend is preceded only by his esteemed reputation”; “He was certain he could goad Thomas’s wrath”; Bundy was electrocuted “in the glimpse of an instant” and “the anticipation of the early morning electrocution grew rampant for the two hundred or so onlookers and news reporters impatiently teeming on the pasture.” Sometimes I got the impression that this was being written as a high school essay in which the author was trying to impress the teacher with flowery language or big words that he didn’t really have a handle on.
Because of the poor quality of much of the writing and the unnecessary padding of the narrative, I really can’t recommend this book with much enthusiasm. The story of the young women’s murders deserves telling, but I wish the author had pared it down. He could have saved much of his material on Mark Thomas for a separate book, and he could have left much of the Ted Bundy story to the numerous other Bundy books, movies, etc., that already exist. He should also have hired a good copyeditor.