An urgent yet messy accusation of murder in the case of Michael Jackson.
A writer argues that a pop superstar was murdered in this debut work of true crime.
Michael Jackson’s death spawned theories of foul play almost immediately, many of them directed at the singer’s personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray. Watson contributes his own evidence to the case against Murray, who was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served two years in prison for improperly administering the drug that killed Jackson. In Watson’s view, Murray actually successfully carried out a premeditated murder of Jackson. Using documents from the court case, Murray’s film on the subject, and the author’s own research, Watson attempts to establish that the doctor’s work for Jackson was essentially a scam from the beginning, one that only got worse the longer that the singer was in his care. The author claims that Murray kept Jackson drugged and confused in order to extract increasingly lucrative contract provisions for himself and then—when the superstar discovered his scheme—elected to end the singer’s life rather than suffer the consequences. Watson’s prose is generally choppy and ungrammatical: “As Dr. Murray’s situation begins to unfold and the situation begins to materialize,” his common-law wife “knows his future is in jeopardy, but also was her’s and her son’s. It was a question of if he would be charged and now it is when would he be charged and what with.” The book seems to be primarily an adaptation of the material from Watson’s film The Murder of Michael Jackson: The Perfect Murder, which he claims he was unable to find distribution for due to the appearance of Murray’s own documentary on the case. The author delivers some intriguing details and thought-provoking contentions. Unfortunately, he offers proof for some of his arguments but not others. For example, he claims several times without explanation that Murray was not a licensed cardiologist. Watson also mentions events and people, like “Dr. Cooper” (the subject of an entire chapter), without properly introducing them. While the author’s theory certainly seems to be within the realm of possible scenarios, it is laid out in such an undisciplined way that readers will be unable to give it as much credence as they might otherwise.
An urgent yet messy accusation of murder in the case of Michael Jackson.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4809-5590-5
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Highly instructive for would-be tycoons, with plenty of entertaining interludes.
Well-crafted memoir by the noted media mogul.
Diller’s home life as a youngster was anything but happy; as he writes early on, “The household I grew up in was perfectly dysfunctional.” His mother lived in her own world, his father was knee-deep in business deals, his brother was a heroin addict, and he tried to play by all the rules in order to allay “my fear of the consequences from my incipient homosexuality.” Somehow he fell into the orbit of show business figures like Lew Wasserman (“I was once arrested for joy-riding in Mrs. Wasserman’s Bentley”) and decided that Hollywood offered the right kind of escape. Starting in the proverbial mailroom, he worked his way up to be a junior talent agent, then scrambled up the ladder to become a high-up executive at ABC, head of Paramount and Fox, and an internet pioneer who invested in Match.com and took over a revitalized Ticketmaster. None of that ascent was easy, and Diller documents several key failures along the way, including boardroom betrayals (“What a monumental dope I’d been. They’d taken over the company—in a merger I’d created—with venality and duplicity”) and strategic missteps. It’s no news that the corporate world is rife with misbehavior, but the better part of Diller’s book is his dish on the players: He meets Jack Nicholson at the William Morris Agency, “wandering through the halls, looking for anyone who’d pay attention to him”; hangs out with Warren Beatty, ever on the make; mispronounces Barbra Streisand’s name (“her glare at me as she walked out would have fried a fish”); learns a remedy for prostatitis from Katharine Hepburn (“My father was an expert urological surgeon, and I know what I’m doing”); and much more in one of the better show-biz memoirs to appear in recent years.
Highly instructive for would-be tycoons, with plenty of entertaining interludes.Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780593317877
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A sharp, entertaining view of the news media from one of its star players.
The veteran newscaster reflects on her triumphs and hardships, both professional and private.
In this eagerly anticipated memoir, Couric (b. 1957) transforms the events of her long, illustrious career into an immensely readable story—a legacy-preserving exercise, for sure, yet judiciously polished and insightful, several notches above the fray of typical celebrity memoirs. The narrative unfolds through a series of lean chapters as she recounts the many career ascendency steps that led to her massively successful run on the Today Show and comparably disappointing stints as CBS Evening News anchor, talk show host, and Yahoo’s Global News Anchor. On the personal front, the author is candid in her recollections about her midlife adventures in the dating scene and deeply sorrowful and affecting regarding the experience of losing her husband to colon cancer as well as the deaths of other beloved family members, including her sister and parents. Throughout, Couric maintains a sharp yet cool-headed perspective on the broadcast news industry and its many outsized personalities and even how her celebrated role has diminished in recent years. “It’s AN ADJUSTMENT when the white-hot spotlight moves on,” she writes. “The ego gratification of being the It girl is intoxicating (toxic being the root of the word). When that starts to fade, it takes some getting used to—at least it did for me.” Readers who can recall when network news coverage and morning shows were not only relevant, but powerfully influential forces will be particularly drawn to Couric’s insights as she tracks how the media has evolved over recent decades and reflects on the negative effects of the increasing shift away from reliable sources of informed news coverage. The author also discusses recent important cultural and social revolutions, casting light on issues of race and sexual orientation, sexism, and the predatory behavior that led to the #MeToo movement. In that vein, she expresses her disillusionment with former co-host and friend Matt Lauer.
A sharp, entertaining view of the news media from one of its star players.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-53586-1
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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