Tantamount

by Blaine Lee Pardoe

In 1971 and 1972, a deadly predator stalked the streets of the nation’s capital. His targets, young girls who he kidnapped, raped, and left their remains along busy roadways in plain view. Some of his victims he held captive for days, others only a few minutes. Seven victims raging from the ages of ten to eighteen died in his hands. Then, as mysteriously as he started, the Freeway Phantom stopped.

On one victim he left a note, taunting police, and confirming the name the media gave him, The Freeway Phantom.

Now, after nearly five decades, Washington DC’s oldest unsolved serial killing spree is pried open with the suspects, the liars, and the evidence laid bare. Father-daughter duo and bestselling authors Blaine Pardoe and Victoria Hester shed new light and provide tantalizing new clues as to who may be the Freeway Phantom.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Book Club, Ebooks

332 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2019

About the author

Blaine Pardoe is a New York Times Bestselling and award winning author of numerous books in the science fiction, military non-fiction, true crime, paranormal, and business management genre's. He has appeared on a number of national television and radio shows to speak about his books. Pardoe has been a featured speaker at the US National Archives, the United States Navy Museum, and the New York Military Affairs Symposium. He was awarded the State History Award in 2011 by the Historical Society of Michigan and is a silver medal winner from the Military Writers Society of America in 2010. In 2013 he was awarded the Harritt Quimby Award as part of the induction ceremony at the Michigan Aviation Hall of Fame. Mr. Pardoe is also a member of the League of WWI Aviation Historians.

His books have even been mentioned on the floor of the U.S. Congress. His works have been printed in six languages and he is recognized world-wide for his historical and fiction works. He can be followed via Twitter (bpardoe870)

Reviews

[Valerity (Val) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently bought this book and its a thoroughly researched book on the subject, set in Washington, DC and is quite a saga as it goes through its various iterations of early days, the victims, the killings, rumored suspects, false solving/hoax ending and later on, cold case/ reopening. Then new life is eventually breathed into it long after it’s played out, basically starting over, having to rebuild the case with help from other agencies to obtain recovered files. There’s also a strange angle involving St. Elizabeth’s asylum that still has to be run down.

It’s quite a story that needed to be told, and true crime fans will appreciate the depth of it as it has gone unsolved for decades. The case is getting lots of media this Fall. It looks like People Investigates is also doing one of their shows on it in November sometime on the ID channel, as I just saw a trailer for the Freeway Phantom on there when the new season starts, so that should be good as well. Perhaps the renewed interest will bring about a big solve, that would be great.

First published on my WordPress blog seen here:
https://wordpress.com/post/bookblog20...

[Lisa]

ABSOLUTELY HORRID EDITING ON GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION & EVEN FACTS!

I absolutely CANNOT understand how Wild Blue Press, such an esteemed True Crime Publisher, let this book thru in the condition that it's in. The new feature of reporting errors in Kindle got a workout but I finally stopped because 1. It was taking me too long to read the book because I had to keep stopping to correct errors, and 2. I get PAID to edit books and manuscripts and have two waiting that I'm working on. I'm not going to give free advice to these authors anymore.

Not only are they leaving words out of sentences that would have been caught if they'd simply given it a final read through before they published it, but their FACTS are screwy! For example, towards the end they talk about the trouble they have getting people to comply with FOIA requests, and one agency told them the info was misfiled. The case is 48 YEARS OLD! That's BOUND to happen, right?

So, it's misfiled, but, next 5 sentences are about how they argued to death the point that this agency didn't comply with the FOIA request! Okay, wait? Didn't you just say that they tried to but it's misfiled? Which is it...misfiled or they didn't comply?

In another part they call a doctor Ken, then Kim, then "he" and you don't know "his" real name.

And the repetition is totally unnecessary! They repeat the same thing at least 3 times - basically due to the way the book is organized. Because they insist on including certain sections, they then have to repeat the info they already said in the last section ... then repeat it again, just for good measure.

There is also WAY too much filler. They discuss the atmosphere of the time in way too much detail. It was during the Vietnam war, which I'm sure everyone knows about already, but the protests are tasked about ad nauseam. The city and its history is described way, way too deeply for no reason that adds to the story.

I CAN say that they did a LOT of research, and probably spent a ton of time, spent a ton of money, and went through a hell of a lot of headaches to obtain the materials to write this book. The problem is NOT in the research - it's in the WRITING and the EDITING (or lack thereof). I noticed in reading the sample pages from the other books they've written (from the back) that those appear unpolished as well. I'm very disappointed in this publisher. I've been reading books published by them for ages & this is the first time I've read anything that's been this badly edited.

[Aimee Massey · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's really true what your high school English teachers always tried so hard to drill into your head: no matter how good you are with words or how interesting your subject matter is, if you don't proofread and make corrections, you don't get that A.
The subject matter was very interesting, and obviously extensively researched: the brutal sex-slayings of several young black girls and women in the Washington DC metro area in the early 1970s. The crimes have never been solved, and are unlikely ever to be solved, due to a variety of factors including the typical lack of publicity and public outrage over the murders of urban blacks, badly boched and bungled investigations, and lost or destroyed evidence.
Pardoe and Hester clearly worked hard gathering infromation for this book, and some of what they discovered is presented to the public for the very first time.
But what should have been a powerful and riveting book was ruined for me by the fact that no editing at all seems to have been done. The book is essentially rough-draft quality, packed with typos and misspellings and mangled sentences. Words are used incorrectly: anxiety and fear are described as being "palatable" rather than "palpable." The authors contradict themselves: after stating that a certain victim in a series was sodomized, not a page later they say there was no sign of sodomy at any of the murders in that series. Even very elementary mistakes are made: someone is described as wearing "white knee-length bobby socks." Bobby socks are not knee-high; they are ankle socks, and they're called bobby because they're bobbed, or short!
I finished "Tantamount" only because I wanted to learn as much as I could about these undeservedly forgotten murders. But it was very distracting because my brain kept trying to edit the sentences on the fly so that the Reading Voice In My Head could make them sound better.
The authors are apparently well-established ones, and their publisher appears to have a good reputation. For those reasons, this sloppiness is all the more inexcusable.

[Blaine Pardoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Totally biased but I think what makes this resonate is that some of the investigators that worked the cases said they saw new information in the original drafts of the manuscript. That says the digging that was done by the authors was good.

[Melissa Rush · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good true crime story

I would’ve given this book more stars would be terrible grammar mistakes and lack of editing maybe drop it down to three stars. Overall the book is great as a solid true crime books lots of good fax well written my only complaint is the terrible grammar if the grammar and spelling errors were fixed I’d give it more stars the grammar errors take you out of the story and make it hard to follow.

[Stephen Stroble · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve enjoyed Blaine’s fiction for many, many years now... but nothing prepared me for Tantamount. Compelling, immersive, exceptionally detailed and nuanced - I’m now on thrust upon the horns of dilemma, do I next go with Murder in Battle Creek or A Special Kind of Evil... easy one, I’ll get both. I am still a fan of Blaine’s fiction but these books I’ve mentioned here are a new genre for me and I find I am enjoying them just as much as I enjoy my old favorites of his.

[Ryan Hannay · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, like every other reviewer has said, the amount of grammatical errors and typos in this book is absurd. I am far from a grammar nazi, but 95% of these mistakes would have been easily caught by microsoft word. This includes portions where whole statements are repeated almost like a cut and paste error.

That being said, I powered through and ended up finding this worth reading. I just recently stumbled upon this unsolved case and was looking for a thorough account of the investigation and everything since. This book delivered that, and I also appreciated that right up front the authors stress that they aren't "solving" the case or giving us their solution. It's just the facts, from every insane theory to probable suspect. And also provides a lot of cultural context for the time and area, considering the fact that these were murders of black girls.

I have no doubt that if these were the murders of white women this either would have been solved or would be on the top of every unsolved serial killer list. As it is, we'll probably never know who killed these girls but at least this case isn't totally forgotten.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, this book might be 2.5 stars. Terribly, terribly repetitive.

[Angela Hedworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very similar to a podcast I listened to that also featured these two authors. Intriguing, sad cases that seem like they would be so solvable today.

[Ti.Me · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF. Abandoned at 55%. Tantamount documents the cases of numerous DC area violent crimes, suspects, and witnesses, all of which may be connected to the never-apprehended Freeway Phantom serial killer.

[Joan Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

An account of an unsolved serial murder spee in Washington DC. The book was a representation of facts which have never been able to find the serial killer.

[Paige · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, and it focuses on such a fascinating case. Unfortunately, the copy errors are so bad it is barely readable. I don’t like to ding books for typos here and there, but there is one on every page! Victims’ names are misspelled frequently, which is more than just bad editing, it comes off as disrespectful. (Poor Darlenia, I must have seen 3 different iterations of her name at least.) As someone who lives in DC, it was irritating to see streets and neighborhoods spelled wrong. There are addresses listed without quadrants which makes it ambiguous what area is being referred to sometimes. It’s just sloppy and confusing. At points the authors contradict themselves sentences apart, and it’s difficult to say if this is bad research or the bad editing. (I think at one point they talk about a victim going missing from NW DC, then later say all the victims are from SE. They say the Suitland Slaying victims were sodomized, then say it differs from the Freeway Phantom cases because the phantom victims were sodomized but not the Suitland victims. What?) I don’t think this went through editing at all!

[GERALD GENTRY · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tantamount is the spine-chilling, true crime story about The Freeway Phantom serial killer, preying on young girls in the Washington D.C. area in the 1970s. Tantamount is sadistically twisted as it gets. A must-read for true crime readers.

[Yvonne Kanocz]

Justice or no justice.It's most

The author goes into detail about the crimes of The Freeway Phantom Killer as well as the possibility that the perpetrator may have come to justice under another crime that the committed.

[marijane flenner · Rating 5 out of 5]

INTERESTING READ

I live in the setting of this book. Would love to keep up with any ongoing new facts if they're uncovered.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had never heard of this case before reading this book.... The fact that it may never be solved is heart breaking.