A concise, no-holds-barred retelling of the Robert Durst investigation and murder trial from the woman who pursued justice...
The district attorney who reopened a 17-year-old cold case tells her side of the story.
The HBO show The Jinx and the movie All Good Things showed two perspectives on the life and crimes of Robert Durst. Now former DA Pirro (Clever Fox, 2013, etc.), who reopened the case regarding the disappearance of Durst’s wife, Kathleen, chronicles the years she spent pursuing justice for all of Durst’s victims. In this pithy account, the author holds back none of her feelings toward the man she tried to prove had committed murder. “This book is the history of my mission as part of the insanity, from the first time I heard the name Durst in 1999 to today, right now,” she writes. “It’s the insider perspective of exactly what went down during my fifteen-year investigation of this serial murderer, this pathological liar, this narcissistic, disgusting, fascinating, brilliant, evil little bastard.” Pirro elaborates on the details of each moment of her quest, including the obstructions and sexism she faced from a number of men involved in multiple aspects of Durst’s cases[b1] , simply because she was a woman in a position of power. The writing is fast-paced and informative without being too heavy with judicial jargon. Throughout, Pirro repeatedly informs readers of her true feelings toward Durst and others who hindered her progress during the investigation. Bits of humor, sometimes black, are interlaced throughout the narrative, providing much-needed levity to the sinister tale of Durst’s depravities. Pirro’s account also provides readers with an insider look at how the American justice system works and shows how certain men, who have considerable influence and money, can literally get away with murder.
A concise, no-holds-barred retelling of the Robert Durst investigation and murder trial from the woman who pursued justice to the bitter end.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2500-3
Page Count: 326
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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