4 comments about To Love, Honor, and Kill.

1. I had watched the 48 Hours episode on this case. I was surprised by how case of homicide received such attention. Both husband Justin Barber and his wife, April Lott Barber, were quite an attractive couple but looks can be deceiving. This book paints Justin as an abusive, two-dimensional character. We don't know much about Justin's upbringing or what created him to be a monster behind closed doors. To everybody else, he made appearances as a good husband and surrogate father to April's younger brother and sister who lived with her and her new husband. It was a disaster. April had instincts to call off the wedding in the Bahamas two weeks before but she never did. Had she have followed her instincts? She probably would still be alive and living in Hennessy, Oklahoma. They were a young couple, beautiful and promising but underneath it was nothing but fights and constant abuse mostly from Justin's behavior. He had affairs, took out a 2 million dollar life insurance policy, refused to give his suffering wife a divorce because he hated failing at his second marriage. Justin blames everybody else for his problems including their financial woes. They should have been happy with their income but they were in debt mostly because of Justin's crazy spending on cars and himself. When I watched him on television, I felt sorry for him but I don't anymore because he really cares only about himself. You can't believe the story about murder on the beach because it's just impossible to hear his story. I had to skim through most of the book after his arrest which was pretty vague because I felt that it was just repetition of information already provided. Butcher has written an excellent account of this case with specific details but it gets tedious and redundant at times.



2. THIS BOOK SAYS THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER. I HAVEN'T FINISHED IT YET AND AM DECIDING WHETHER I REALLY WANT TO.



3. Must agree with the previous reviewers that this was a story that could have been written in just half the number of pages. Obvious points kept being repeated by the author. I had to force myself to complete it. Also, the practice of the trial's outcome being revealed in the photos is a bummer that should be avoided.
   
   I also wondered why so much money and effort was spent by the authorities in prosecuting this. One expert witness for the prosecution alone ran up a $50,000 fee. Unusual yes, but hardly the crime of the century in my opinion.
   
   Anyways, on a scale of one to ten, say a six.



4. I got through 168 pages of this book and stopped (not even halfway done). I could not force myself to read any more. It's a shame, because I was interested in the story and wanted to see how they caught Justin. But the writing was so bad I just couldn't go on. The writer repeated the same things over and over, referred to people by their first names in one sentence and their last names in the next (and there are so many people referred to in this book I gave up trying to keep track of who was who), the story is not chronological but is also not organized in any other coherent manner. I have read hundreds of true crime books and this is only the second one I could not force myself to finish. It's one of the worst books I've read. I normally rely on reviews before I spend my money, but I was at a bookstore and decided to give it a try. Bad decision. Waste of money.

5 comments about Hollywood Kryptonite, The Bulldog, the Lady, and the Death of Superman.

1. In hollywood at the time of his career you were owned by the studio of your contract. Had an adultery affair with a married women scorned..This dark side of George Reeves of his life at the time at the end was a time bomb was ready to go off with the double life he lead as HONEST GEORGE.
   Sad that he did not work on his character to be responsible adult and take resonsibilities for the end result.
   The youngster as myself was aware that he was murdered ear marked in line for promotion ..
   This book needs to be revised to many unreliable resources...
   Truth, Justice,The American way needs more research...



2. I'll tell you something about me: I don't like to read & I hate to admit it. It takes me forever to complete a book, cover to cover, unless it really grabs me. Being the end of tax season, with only 2 days left & lots of number crunching to do before I see my tax man, I received this book.
   Wow!
   I'm only half way through & instead of crunching numbers, I'm reading....and reading....and reading. I couldn't wait to tell you all --this is a great, great book. This book brings alive those characters of long ago. For any of you fellow baby boomers who watched this show, as I did growing up (it's never been OFF TV--check it out) this book fleshes out all those black & white people we loved so much & gives you an in depth feel of what George went through both in his career & personally. This man hated being superman, because he saw so much more for himself. After WWII, his career went boom & the Man of Steel just couldn't revive it. He died not knowing the impact he made. He went through alot, both with the love of his life & his mom--who lied & manipulated him.
   I won't give anymore away. If you love George, get this book in or out ot tax season & enjoy.
   If the rest of the book is not good, I'll delete this commentary, I promise. Until then, go with it.
   Thanks to the authors who really seem to have done their "number crunching" on this one!!!!!!!!!!!!!



3. I thought the book was great. The author brought me into the life of George Reeves and his misery.Life couldn't give him the one thing he wanted and that was to be A movie star and Kashner & Schoenberger detail his every struggle and disappointment with great epitome.Reeves other acquaintances and friends were interesting as well.



4. The story of the life and death of G.Reeves will accompany us for many years to come.George was and forever will be the man of steel.We have missed and will miss you wherever you are



5. Shadow Watcher
   Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake
   
   Did George Reeves, the star of television's popular SUPERMAN series really commit suicide back in 1959, or was he, in fact, murdered?
   
   That's the question authors Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger pose in this fascinating read that takes a look at Hollywood's "dark side".
   
   In the end, the writers make a very strong argument in favor of homicide.
   
   So, who killed Superman?
   
   Best guess is a professional hitman, hired by powerful MGM studio executive (and fixer) Eddie Mannix whose wife had been having an affair with the "Man of Steel".
   
   Aside from being a first-rate mystery, HOLLYWOOD KRYPTONITE gives readers a yet unrevealed look into the real Hollywood.
   
   
   - Michael B. Druxman, author of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (available December 2008)

5 comments about Body Dump.

1. "Body Dump" is the story of serial killer Kendall Francois, who murdered 8 prostitutes in Poughkeepsie, New York in the late 1990s, and hid their bodies in his house, right under the noses -- literally -- of his family, with whom he lived. The book, while well-written and researched, is ultimately unsatisfying, no doubt to the author himself as well. Since neither Francois nor his parents ever went public, we never learn why he felt compelled to brutally murder these poor women, or how his parents and siblings managed to reside in a filthy, putrid-smelling house without checking for themselves Kendall's poor excuse of dead raccoons in the attic. (Did his family guess the truth but live in denial, or were they just major slobs?)
   
   Apparently there were some psychological issues in Kendall's background, but as he pled guilty and the case never went to trial, his psychological records were never made public. Letters Rosen wrote to him in prison went unanswered.
   
   So, both Rosen and the reader are left without insight into what turned one man into a monster.



2. Driving home after work on September 3, 1998, I found my planned route unexpectedly blocked. I took a right onto Fulton Ave., to see that the usually sleepy street had become a madhouse. Dozens of police cars closed off the road. Huge TV trucks were parked as near as they could get. Throngs of journalists and bystanders were milling around, held back by a platoon of cops. A helicopter hovered overhead.
   
   As I made a U-turn to find another way home, I turned on the radio, hoping to discover what the commotion was about. It wasn't difficult. Every station was blaring the news: the serial killer who had been stalking the women of Poughkeepsie for two years had finally been caught. He lived nearby; in fact, I frequently walked past his house.
   
   Over the following weeks, gruesome details emerged about Kendall Francois. He killed eight women, mostly prostitutes, and kept their bodies in his house - even though he lived with his parents and younger sister. The smell was so bad that it could be detected on the street, and on the skins of the inhabitants of the house...but his family apparently knew nothing about the murders, or the bodies. The house was such a mess, filled with garbage, rotting food, dirty clothes, and excrement, that the police had trouble entering it without stepping on possible evidence.
   
   Ever since this story broke, I've been waiting for someone to write a book about it. Elements of the case are so bizarre they beg an explanation. Unfortunately, this book doesn't provide one.
   
   The main problem is that the author, Fred Rosen, seems to have been unable to get interviews with any of the principles, aside from the police. This makes his viewpoint extremely limited, not to mention one-sided. For example, Rosen writes at length about how unfairly the police were treated by the press. The local papers were rather scathing about the length of time it took the cops to catch Francois, so Rosen's complaint is perhaps warranted. However, it would have carried more weight if he'd given equal time to the reporters' side of the story. He also rails against the FBI and dismisses their profiling techniques as useless...again, sounding suspiciously like a disgruntled local cop.
   
   But those are minor irritants. His inability to interview Francois or his family creates more serious weaknesses. The thin story must be puffed up with what amounts to a Poughkeepsie travelogue. We hear about the history of the area, get instructions on how to drive to the victims' houses, and are given detailed descriptions of local landmarks. It's mildly interesting for area residents, but dead boring for anyone else. (The information is mostly accurate, but there are a few howlers, such as his claiming the area is called the Lower Hudson Valley, when in fact it's the Mid-Hudson.)
   
   Worst of all, the dearth of information means the most compelling questions of this case - why Francois did what he did, the way he did it - go unanswered. This is a fatal flaw. Motive is everything in a true crime book, and here, it's sadly lacking. Rosen can offer little insight on what made Francois tick.
   
   Though the cover advertises "16 pages of disturbing photos," the photos are not all that disturbing. There are grainy pictures of the victims (mostly from the "missing" posters that were circulated before the killer was caught). There are photos of Francois' high school, and the school where he worked. There are a lot of pictures of the house, and some of the police officers involved in cracking the case. Far more disturbing images appeared in the local paper, The Poughkeepsie Journal, which ran photos of the bodies being carried out of the house on stretchers.
   
   How could a comfortable, white-collar professional couple, living in a nice neighborhood, let their house get that filthy? Could they really have not noticed eight bodies, rotting away in their own home? Why did Francois keep the bodies in his house, despite the smell, and the danger of his family discovering them? These are the questions about this case that demand answers...but none are offered here. "Body Dump" is shallow, padded, and disappointing. [...].



3. I've read most of Fred Rosen's books and I've found him to be a consistently entertaining and informative writer. He really knows how to stitch together all the pieces, which is really the most amazing part. This particular story about Kendall Francois is grizly and horrifying. Rosen weaves a story of good and bad police work as they try to figure out why prositutes are vanishing in a quiet upstate NY town. Highly recommended. One of his best. Note: Great photography too!



4. In BODY DUMP, readers are introduced to Kendall Francois, an African American serial killer, who killed at least five of Poughkeepsie, New York's prostitutes. Aside from the fact that Francois goes against the standard serial killer ethniticity, his modus operandi also included storing the bodies in the attic and crawl space of his home; despite the fact that he lived with his parents and younger sister (all who claimed to not know of the stored corpses).
   
   This was an interesting and quick read into the crimes of a serial killer. The one disappointing aspect, however, was the limited information provided into the background of Francois. While readers are provided information about his adulthood (mostly following high school), details of his family life were little. Of course, this could be attributed to the fact that the Francois family chose to enter into seclusion following the arrest of Kendall.
   
   This is an interesting read. I would recommend it to fans of the true crime genre.



5. I read this book a long time ago. I remember about a man in upstate New YOrk who was a killer. This book is memorable but mostly forgettable because they become blended into the true crime genre of literature of time. I have read hundreds of true crime books and sometimes they are just too alike. While crime particularly murder is never identical twice, this book is like so many others. It's vague and doesn't hold or have the same punch in the stomach. It's not that shocking anymore.

3 comments about The Encyclopedia of Mass Murder: A Chillling Collection of Mass Murder Cases.

1. This is the ultimate source for those interested in mass murder or are planning to commit mass murder. I was suprised that they have recent cases like StienHauser and Columbine in their. Its a very good read.



2. This is the most badly researched book i've ever seen! For example, I was reading about the columbine massacre and it gave the wrong date of the massacre and loads of false information. I do not recommend this book to anyone. Don't waste your money.



3. I am very familiar with the facts of one of the murder cases covered by this book, so I read that entry first to see whether this book could be relied on to set forth the facts accurately. It was severely inaccurate! Even the names of the victims were wrong! And space is wasted on tangential matters while more important matters are not mentioned at all. What a waste!

5 comments about Absolute Convictions: My Father, a City, and the Conflict That Divided America.

1. "The book is remarkably rational, reasonable, informative, and balanced."
   
   Mr. West you might have kept your comments more focused. While I agree with you in large part you do a disservce to your opinions. I am not sure what incidence of VD has to do with what the otherwise admirable group of stats that you have gathered. Or for that matter, why you would bother dwelling in what is a murky a clearly impossible to settle personhood argument or an off-topic and probably paranoid Malthusian worry is beyond me. Nor are the reports that most women who have abortions free of psychological trauma any consolation to those that do.
   
   Your key point deserves emphasis: the making of coercive law on the basis of the beliefs - mostly religious - of a subset of the population has no place in a free society. It would be nice though if we really lived in a free society.



2. Of course Mr. Press views the abortion industry as an honorable profession. This book is an extremely biased justification of a horrible "procedure". I actually couldn't even finish the book.



3. Only in America does the controversy over abortions rage so openly and bitterly, never seeming to be settled or pushed off the front page for long. Long ignored by everyone except medical practitioners (doctors and midwives) and those who needed their services, it was thrust into the national public eye by the Roe v Wade decision January 22, 1983 when the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not prohibit abortions in the first trimester and also allowed for certain abortions in the second and third trimester. But before that time, the issue had come to a head in several states including New York.
   
   "Absolute Convictions, My Father, a City, and the Conflict That Divided America" by Eyal Press tells the story of Eyal's father Dr. Shalom Press at the center of this controversy in Buffalo during the turbulent 70's, 80's and 90's. The book describes Dr. Press as anything but a fighter for a cause. He is more like the worker who shows up every day, day after day, because it is the thing to do. And his patients need him. He did not go into medicine to perform abortions but to deliver babies. Abortions simply came with the territory because some women would have other wise chosen unsafe, illegal abortions or suicide to terminate their pregnancies.
   
   The book explores the wide gulf that exists between pro-choice and pro-life groups and the small but significant beliefs they share: women should be treated with respect and the fewer abortions, the better. The book also explores the tactics of right-to-life groups and how those tactics sometimes escalate the actions of a fringe element to commit murder to "prevent murder". For being so intimately tied to one side, as his father could easily have been one of the few doctors who have been killed for performing aborions, Eyal Press does a marvelous job in presenting both sides.
   
   I found the book an outstanding example of telling the history of abortion in America in the late 20th century. And it makes a good case for why the issue won't soon fade into the past.



4. I know Eyal Press. I know his father. I was there. All of the analyses from people who think this thing about abortion, that thing about feminism, something else about the religious right - none of that comes down to earth half so well as Eyal's book does for those of us who lived it. And who live it still.
   
   Absolute Convictions tells the human story of the Press family's experience with the sheer hell that became Buffalo. No one realized in the early days that Buffalo was 'Ground Zero' in this battle. Who think Buffalo is central to anything? But it was the third hardest-hit city in America because it was Randall Terry's home turf by proxy - he had many a good friend in that town, and he and they made as much political hay as they could out of it. The venom and divisions they fostered ultimately erupted in a violence of such magnitude the city and the friends of Bart Slepian are still reeling 8 years later.
   
   Only Eyal could find and ask those on the periphery of this virulence whether they have culpability in the butchering of a man who wasn't evil - just different from them in terms of where he placed his value for life. No one has asked the anti-abortion zealots that before, and the very question may have altered some of the future choices and actions these people make. Abortion opponents are ultimately low-sacrifice people: they think they are brave for giving up a few hours on Saturday morning or shivering in the cold, but they have remained merely smug finger-pointers. They are without reflection on their own morality, their own culpability, their own need to examine values and conscience. Eyal made at least one face up to the consequences of her actions. Perhaps more will follow.
   
   Eyal makes it clear: Doctors who respect women's health and their right to choose the course of their lives are pro-life, too. They value adult, sentient human beings over what for them are still only potential humans. And on the turn of this difference, real people are dying.
   
   Absolute Convictions lets us see inside the fanatacism, and it becomes frighteningly clear: no matter what happens to Roe, either the nation or the states with strong pro-choice positions will erupt once again. Absolute convictions don't just go away.



5. ABSOLUTE CONVICTIONS is a surprisingly good book. It's thorough, fair, and well-written.
   
   Mr. Eyal Press tells the story of abortion in Buffalo, New York. He tells the story of his Jewish family. He tells the history of Buffalo including the economy and politics and industry. He then weaves all this together with the abortion battle and how Buffalo was to became "the next big thing" in the abortion battle.
   
   In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the "Rescue Movement" was actively blocking abortion clinics and using civil disobedience to stop abortion. After the massive "Summer of Mercy" protests in Wichita, Kansas in 1991, Pro-Life leaders set their sights on Buffalo. The Union-supporting Democrat mayor of Buffalo was Pro-Life and actually invited Operation Rescue to town to shut down the abortion clinics. A showdown followed during the 1992 "Spring of Life". But this time, the proabortion side would not be caught off-guard as they had been in Wichita. Things didn't got well for Pro-Lifers in Buffalo.
   
   This book is amazingly fair. The author is the son of an abortionist, yet he is fair and honest and open with Pro-Lifers. Mr. Press doesn't demean or misrepresent the motives or dedication of Pro-Life activists... even those who blockaded his own father's abortion clinic. And Pro-Life activists were candid with him. This speaks volumes about the author's character. I am a Pro-Life activist, and I know how tightlipped we have learned to be when "journalists" want to interview us. Mr. Press had to earn the trust of Pro-Lifers which he obviously did.
   
   Mr. Press talks about the shooting of a Buffalo abortionist in 1998, but he doesn't try to convey culpability upon those who were not involved... as some have vainly tried including Phyllida Howe who has also reviewed this book.
   
   If you're seeking a self-affirming proabortion rant, then please look elsewhere. If you're wanting to read stale proabortion slogans, then buy something else. If you want to view the abortion battle through a warped, paranoid lens, then buy some other book. There are plenty proabortion books like that for sale.
   
   I recommend this book for any abortion activist whether Pro-Life or proabortion.

4 comments about Jack the Ripper: The Facts.

1. If you're tired of reading all the fictional "non-fiction" works on Jack the Ripper, this is a book for you. It's very well-written in a straightforward style & sensibly organized, & thus easy to follow. Mr. Begg is a co-author of "The Jack the Ripper A - Z," one of the two "bibles" of Jack the Ripper study (along with Philip Sugden's "The Complete History of Jack the Ripper") & therefore Mr. Begg is one of the field's eminent experts. The book is not without conjecture, but conjectures are identified as such & not stated as "facts." This book is excellently produced from the spooky dust jacket to the quality binding & typeface. There are none of the typos, misspellings, or misconstructed sentences that are common in the many self-published Jack the Ripper books available. "Jack the Ripper: The Facts" comes together in a way that allows the reader to concentrate on what the author is writing rather than leaving the reader trying to figure out what the author "really meant" (but did not write). A wonderful book on a fascinating subject, this has to be considered one the top three of all Jack the Ripper books. The updated (2004) hardcover version is available through amazon.co.uk, it's been expanded to 550 pages, & has an excellent index & bibliography. Highly Recommended!



2. Because this book is for some reason unaviable in Canada, I ordered it from amazon.co.uk and was not in the least disappointed. The book contains much less detail on the social conditions than his "Definitive History" in favour of a complete history of the case. While in some ways, this book contains less detail on certain aspects than Sugden does, it still, in my opinion, deserves to be ranked with it as the best comprehensive account of the case because it deals with much of the more recent research on the case and still provides a wealth detail, not all of which is in Sugden. The book provides an overview of the case, and covers the expected ground, with chapters on each of the canonical victims (including Tabram), Leather Apron, the letters (with significant detail on the Dear Boss and Lusk letters), the police, the reactions/climate in Whitechapel and London, and the Macnaghten Memorandum. All the chapters contain references to primary sources, mostly quotes from newspapers and police reports.
   The suspect oriented chapters on the case include Druitt, Ostrog, Kosminski and Tumbelty. There is also a small section in the Kosminski chapter on Fido's "David Cohen" theory, which in my opinion, despite the dificulties, is the best one out there (I think the confusion of suspects and Anderson's veracity cannot be so easily dismissed). A final chapter briefly discusses, and refutes, various other suspect theories, including the royal theory, Sickert and Maybrick. There are also a few pages of Chapman/Klosowski in chapter 8. There are also the standard victim pictures in the book and pictures of the murder sites. There are also pictures of many of the notable police officers involved in the case as well as two photos of the Swanson marginalia.
   Begg's account is, in many respects, as conservative as Sugden's, correctly I think. For example, they both express agnosticism about authenticity of the Lusk kidney, and deem Packer completely unreliable.
   There are also differences between Begg's account and Sugden's, giving the book a certain enjoyable idiosyncratic flavour. Sugden and Begg both add Tabram as a probable sixth canonical victim (in my opinion quite rightly), and plausibly discount Smith, Coles and Mackenzie. However, while Sugden includes Millwood and excludes Wilson, Begg discounts Millwood and makes a case Wilson. One final, and perhaps the biggest, difference between the two is that Sugden argued that George Chapman/Klosowski is the only known suspect who could have been, and perhaps was, the killer, Begg all but discounts Chapman seems to tacitly favour Kosminski, although he rightly acknowledges a lack any definitive evidence. While Ripperologists will probably have to die not knowing anything for certain, one cannot help but obssessively keep working at it and Begg's work is basically the best we can do.



3. After reading Philip Sugden's Complete History of Jack The Ripper, over ten years ago, I thought no one would be able to write a book that would compare to this. Paul Begg's first edition came out first (which I didn't read the first edition). However, he did a total update on the book, and because of all the praise it received I had to read it. He is an excellent writer, and even though I've read many books on the Ripper, he has a way of telling this story with total freshness. I also must give him credit for being totally unbiased in who may or may not have killed these 4,5,6,7,8, or 9 women. Is it a better book than Philip Sugden's? For me, it's too close to call. I think both have done a great job. Be sure to get the revised edition of this one.



4. The odds are, if you are into the Jack the Ripper story, you're into more than just the plain facts. You're into the time period, true crime, and probably find psychology fascinating. Paul Begg incorporates all these into his book, compressing fact after fact into a page-turning suspense story...that really happened!
   It goes in chronological order, explaining all kinds of national/international events shaping the Whitechapel district where at least 5 (yep, at LEAST 5) women of ill-repute were killed and horribly mutilated. Don't rely on stuff like "From Hell" if you want historical accuracy. Read this book and learn from an expert that makes things easy to understand.

5 comments about The Mother, The Son, And The Socialite: The True Story Of A Mother-Son Crime Spree (St. Martin's True Crime Library).

1. This is the story of Sante Kimes, her son, Kenneth, and the murder of Irene Silverman. Well, it is supposed to be that story.

   The story opens with a scene of Kenneth Kimes lugging a suitcase dripping blood down the sidewalk and putting it into the truck of their Lincoln towncar, then speeding away. Then it jumps to the early days of the victim, Irene Silverman, and her career as a ballet dancer.

   The author leaps into the past and tells the story of the Kimes gang from the early 1900's. Although this has no bearing on the story being told, he meanders through it anyway. Then, he tells the life story of the parents of both Sante Kimes, her husband, and his first wife. He goes to great length to tell about the nasty divorce proceedings from that first marriage. Then, he finally gets around to the life story of Sante Kimes and her son.

   Although the book contains some interesting reading, it meanders too far off course in an attempt to "flesh out" the manuscript. I found the ancestral rambling to be boring and actually skipped most of two chapters. While the movie might be okay, the book was a real bummer!




2. First of all, I don't agree with people who complain about too much background being given or, as one person called it, "historical meanderings." No wonder people think all Americans have the attention spans of fleas. I happen to LIKE "having the table set" first.

   As for Sante and Kenny...scary! I used to feel sorry for Kenneth, Sr. but after I read about the shabby treatment he accorded his first wife, I thought that, in Sante, he got what he deserved.

   Great read, hard to put down. Never fails to amaze me that there are people like that walking amongst the rest of us!




3. The story of this books is lost among all of the historical clutter. The author writes about too much past and not enough about the story line. I find my self skipping pages and twice whole chapters. Very disapointing.



4. This was an excellent book on the would-be drifters who became killers. Easy to read with good historical background to the Kimes family, which had its own group of bandits from the 1920s and beyond.
   
   Mike Koch, author of "The Kimes Gang."



5. it was real good. ans sante kimes is hilarious the way she trys to look like liz taylor. she's the ultimate "embarrassing mom". and son kenny is also funny as the geeky mommas' boy gone wrong. the mother & son crime team should really consider becoming a comedy team with their quirks and antics. the part where sante crashes a government soiree in d.c with her husband is a laugh riot, also.

No comments about Serial Killers: Up Close and Personal: Inside the World of Torturers, Psychopaths, and Mass Murderers.

5 comments about Facing the Wind: A True Story of Tragedy and Reconciliation.

1. My biggest problem with this book is that the author tries to make it more socially meaningful than it is by telling it as the story of a man "overwhelmed" by the responsibilities of caring for a severely handicapped child -- hence a person we can all relate to on some level.
   
   But NOBODY in the story actually says that Bob Rowe was overwhelmed! Bob coped quite well for many years until his mother died. Then he began to have hallucinations that his mother was telling him to kill his WIFE (not his handicapped son.) As a result he was hospitalized and medicated. Unsurprisingly, the medication prevented him from functioning as a cracker-jack lawyer, as he had previously, and he began to lose jobs. He developed an obsession with his dwindling finances. Eventually he decided to stop taking his medicine. At that point, he was both out of a job and psychotic. BOB says that the precipitating cause of his murdering his family was fear that he could no longer provide for them.
   
   One of the prosecutors interviewed for this book says exactly the same thing. He says it's a "male ego" thing which is not at all uncommon in men (but very rare in women.) The man feels that he is a failure, that he can no longer take care of his family, ergo he has to kill himself, ergo he has to kill all of them too, because how could they survive without him?
   
   In all of the court proceedings NOBODY says that Bob Rowe killed his family because he was overwhelmed by caring for a handicapped child. In fact, it's pointed out that, of his three children, he killed his handicapped son LAST. Also, that he had many many occasions to kill his handicapped son in a way which would have avoid all suspicion. If the handicapped son were the big issue in his life, why kill the whole family? Why not kill the son secretly (he took the kid sailing regularly and could easily have staged a sailing accident)?
   
   I think the author is trying to manipulate the reader into feeling "there but for the Grace of God go I" (i.e., "perhaps I too would crack under similar unbearable strain") but this is just not supported by the facts -- unless the reader is concerned that they might suddenly become psychotic for no discernable reason.
   
   Among many diagnoses given to Bob Rowe was "borderline personality disorder" and this is clearly correct in that he NEVER seems to have grasped the enormity of what he did. After he "recovered" (pretty much immediately in the sense of starting to perk right up and take care of his own interests) his big sorrow was the great injustice done to HIM in that he was unfairly blamed for something he wasn't responsible for. Here's the luckiest murderer in the history of the world -- three years in a mental institution, gets out, gets a new family, is surrounded by love and forgiveness -- and we're told that he's "devastated" that he can't get his law degree back! HE'S the victim!
   
   If any one of us had a seizure disorder and we were supposed to be taking medicine for it, and the medicine was interferring with our ability to work, so we decided to stop taking the medicine, and then, while driving, we had a seizure and killed our whole family -- how would we be affected for the rest of our lives? Overwhelming despair? Guilt? Sorrow? (Or would we dedicate our lives to fighting the injustice of having our driver's license taken away?) But Bob whacks in the heads of four people with a baseball bat (fully aware of what he's doing and why -- only "psychotic" in the sense that he's making such a horrifically bad decision) and spends the rest of his life feeling sorry for himself!
   
   BTW -- unlike others, I found the BEST part of this book to be the stories about the moms with handicapped kids. Frankly, as per above, I thought this really didn't have a whole lot to do with the murders, so actually it was pretty irrelevant to the book. But it was very interersting on its own -- in a way that the story of this murderer was not.



2. "Facing the Wind" tells us of the life of Bob Rowe, an attorney with a pretty and spirited Irish wife, Mary, and three children. Their middle child, Christopher, was exposed to Rubella in the womb and was born severely handicapped, both physically and mentally. The author gives us an interesting background on these "Rubella babies" and the disabilities that resulted. The disabilities varied, but nearly all were blind. We learn about the mothers and children who knew Mary and Bob, and all were amazed at what an active role Bob took in Christopher's life, helping equally along with Mary to provide the child with as normal a life as possible.
   
   All seemed to be going well when one night, Bob decided to bludgeon his family to death with a baseball bat. First was Bobby, Jr., the eldest son, then Christopher and Jenny (their adopted daughter), and finally Mary, after he called her home from work to show her a surprise. He had her stand in the living room with her eyes closed, and then killed her, too. Afterwards, he turned the gas on in the oven and tried to kill himself by lining the door with plastic wrap, which one can assume Bob thought would help him inhale more gas.
   
   Bob is found not guilty by reason of insanity because of the stress of his job and of raising a handicapped child. He is placed in a mental institution for several years. After he gets out, he meeds Colleen, a much younger woman - she is 19, I believe, and Bob is in his late 40's. Eventually, they are married and have a daughter. Colleen is aware of his past. The second half of the book, the slower half, is about their life together and Bob trying to get reinstated to the bar.
   
   The author's writing flows nicely, and she provides letters Colleen wrote to Bob professing her love to him. She does not include any pictures, which was disappointing, but maybe Colleen Rowe asked her not to. I thought the author was very sympathetic to the Rowe side. I personally doubt his "innocence" because he came across as arrogant to me, and unremorseful. As a mother of two myself, I also doubt Colleen's stability if she thought it was a good idea to not only marry a man who bludgeoned his family to death, but to also have a child with him. Of course, you can draw your own conclusions on that.
   
   All in all, I recommend this book. It's a good read.



3. 
   
   
   I thought Julie Salamon did an excellent job writing this book. I felt she was very objective, so objective in fact that I kept wondering why she wrote this book. It was almost like she didn't have an opinion about Bob Rowe and what he did; murdered his entire family in cold blood. For me it made me wonder...how should we judge people and how should we punish people? And how can we ever know what another person is truly capable of or what is really in their heart? Should someone like Bob Rowe ever be released? Personally I don't think someone should be set free after serving a minimal sentence when they have murdered their entire family. This book led me to another, as books always do, called The Sociopath Next Door also very interesting.



4. This book was personally intersting since I was a classmate of Robert Rowe, the oldest child at South Shore HS in Brooklyn. He was very quiet but very nice and I sat next to him in math in high school. Then one day he did not come to school and there was only very brief news coverage of the fact his father killed the family. Nobody talked about it at home or at school. It wasn't like it is today when they bring in grief counselors etc. Locally, this was treated as a non-event. This was a horrible thing for us to have to find out--that his father killed him with a bat when he was in bed. How awful. The book names people I know and the psychiatrist in the book, Dr. D., treated lots of people I know so the whole book took me back in time.
   
   However, this guy should have been killed! I cannot believe he got away with this! If this would have happened today he never would have been able to get himself out the way he did. He never deserved a second chance, not after what he did. Back in the 70's life was very stressful with all sorts of financial stress on many people and the recession or whatever it was when lots of people lost their jobs. It was hard on my family as well but at least none of us killed each other



5. Facing the Wind is such a compelling read that at times I forgot this was nonfiction. This book goes beyond sensational headlines describing a lurid crime and into the lives it devestated. Salamon presents the information in a way that is compassionate but not biased in either direction. Most importantly, Facing the Wind proves not only to be an interesting book but also one that urges the reader to contemplate questions of the limits to forgiveness. Ethically and morally, it is not a black and white world, and the strange case of Bob Rowe was certainly steeped in shades of gray. It seems like this would be a great pick for a book club; it could spark some very revealing and emotional conversations.

5 comments about Fatal Error.

1. Sharee Miller is theperson you read aboutin this bok. You think how could one person be this messed up and do this to actual people. I think that to myself everyday she is my ex stepmother. Sharee is the way she seems in the book but the funny thing is she feals no mercy no hurt no guilt for any actions she makes. She has about 20 different lifestyles depending on what she is gonna scam out of you and trust me she dont belong in prision she belongs in a straight jacket.



2. Fatal Error is a good book to read. I think internet stories should be told and this book was made into a movie for TV. Another book titled "Instant Message" (IM) is based on a true story by Barbara Jones and is about a black man and a white woman from alabama who had a relationship from the internet. So over all these internet stories are worth the time.



3. This book in now a movie on Lifetime TV called: Fatal Desire starring Anne Heche & Eric Roberts, if any of you read the book check out the movie it is one of Lifetime's best movies! It's steamy & sexy! The acting is suberb!



4. I did enjoy the book. I wanted to see what these people looked like as I had seen the movie. It was somewhat different from the movie of course. How sad and tragic this story is.



5. no character development and written in a very dry way that dehumanized the story for me. Would've liked more insight into Sharee. Jerry just came off looking like a greedy loser. I bought this book because I caught half of the Lifetime movie starring Eric Roberts recently and was puzzled by some of the plot points. thought it would be better explained in the book, but the truth was even more convoluted. Like another review said, it was basically transcripts with no emotion.