A thoroughly reported procedural too much repetition and heavy-handed foreshadowing.
Thorough account of a quadruple murder in a Houston suburb in 2003.
Veteran true-crime author Phelps (Kill for Me, 2010, etc.) chronicles the story of the killing, which took place inside a home on a usually peaceful street, of best friends Tiffany Rowell and Rachael Koloroutis, both 18; Tiffany's boyfriend Marcus Precella, 19; and Marcus' cousin Adelbert Nicholas Sánchez, 21. For more than two years, Houston police and related law-enforcement agencies seemed stumped by the crime, and it took three years from the day of the slaughter to publicly identify two suspects. Two Houston homicide detectives provide the focal point for Phelps, with numerous other law-enforcement officers entering and leaving the narrative. The author is respectful of the police, never suggesting they are incompetent, but he points out shortcomings of the investigation with admirable detail. The book is primarily a police procedural, but it is also a tribute to the four murder victims. Readers completely unaware of the case will begin to suspect the identity of the murderers, despite numerous other persons of interest as the police pursue a theory of a drug deal gone bad. Illegal drugs were important in the case but not the key to finding the perpetrators. Phelps explains how police, despite their diligence and compassion, might never have found the murderers without guidance from calls to a crime-solving hotline. After police began seeking one suspect, he committed suicide before apprehension. The other one faced trial, which Phelps reports in unimaginative, sometimes overwhelming detail. A jury found her guilty quickly, and she received a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
A thoroughly reported procedural too much repetition and heavy-handed foreshadowing.Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7582-7338-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Bowers's enthralling manhunt for a pseudonymous poem-thief is a multifaceted investigation into art and originality. Although the New York Times, the Times of London, and other media have publicized Bowers's battle with an unknown plagiarist, his own account taps both the personal experience of literary theft and the cultural questions it poses. The hunt begins in January 1992, when a fellow poet notifies Bowers (English/Iowa State Univ.) that one of his poems, with minor alterations, has appeared in the Mankato Poetry Review but is attributed to a ``David Sumner.'' Bowers and his wife investigate and eventually discover that poems by Mark Strand, Sharon Olds, Marcia Hurlow, and Robert Gibb are among 57 works printed under Sumner's alias in 46 publications. Sumner has repeatedly used two of Bowers's poems (they have appeared 20 times in 19 different literary magazines). Both poems are deeply intimate, drawn from Bowers's own life, and he is as wounded by their mangled appropriation as he is baffled by his campus colleagues' indifference. The initial inquiry does not turn up much more than embarrassed and often uncooperative editors and the name David Jones, a.k.a. David Sumner, with an address in Oregon. Assisted by a slightly bemused lawyer and a meticulously diligent private detective, Bowers and his wife at first attempt only to stop Jones's submissions and force him to admit guilt, but Jones proves to be a cunningly evasive and ultimately sinister character. Even though Bowers can never pin down Jones or his antisocial motives, he discovers that an alarming but revealing incident of child-molesting ended his nemesis's teaching career. Bowers finishes with a final, creepy twist: Someone with David Sumner's m.o. but calling himself ``Paul G. Schmidt'' has been trying to submit plagiarized short stories to literary magazines. Partly a page-turning detective story, partly a modern defense of poetry, Bowers's brief book does poetic justice to a literary crime.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-393-04007-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
A gripping account of the serendipitous investigation that uncovers two miscarriages of justice that branded innocent boys as killers. While doing some unrelated research in 1989, criminology professor (Edinboro Univ.) and former FBI agent Fisher came across the case of 11-year-old Charlie Zubryd, who confessed to the hatchet murder of his mother Helen 28 months after its occurrence in 1956 in Sewickley Township, Penn. Inconsistencies in evidence reports, the delay in gaining a confession, and Fisher's doubt that an eight-year old could drive a hatchet five inches into a skull led Fisher to investigate. Eventually, he found that the boy had been coerced into his confession by an overzealous homicide detective—the same man who would oversee the false confession of a second minor, 13-year-old Jerry Pacek, in another woman's murder. Unsatisfied with demonstrating that the two boys were innocent, Fisher began hunting for the true killers; his findings comprise the last part of the book. As in his previous book (The Lindbergh Case, 1987), Fisher is deliberate in unraveling evidence: Conversations are recounted at length, evidence is carefully gathered and described. Zubryd and Pacek are victims of a manipulative, fame-seeking detective, but they are not presented as Victims of Society. Except for one transforming event that stole their childhood, they are men who would likely have lived out their lives without incident. Fisher's precise reporting also lends an effective sense of place: Descriptions of a funeral home, of houses, courts, and street corners, all conjure up mid-century Pittsburgh and the mill towns that surrounded it. While today's legal process often seems lost in loopholes and deals, this tale reminds readers that there really are miscarriages of justice. Fisher's righting of two terrible wrongs is a remarkable act of generosity; and his narrative of those events is haunting and worthwhile. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Dec. 14, 1996
ISBN: 0-8093-2069-X
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Southern Illinois Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1996
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
