The author should have quit while she was ahead

I agree with other reviews that this book is not really all about Mary Mount, although her abduction and murder comprises the first half of the book. The second half is about the murder of his family by the teenager John Rice Jr (only his father was not killed). In terms of true crime accounts I think these are both resonably good, although a bit more detail might have been nice. The premise of putting them together in one book is that there is some "suspicion" that John Rice Jr may also have killed Mary (he lived nearby). However this is very tenuous and based only on proximity of the crimes and township rumors. No proper evidence at all is given.

I had to take a whole star off as I got to the end of the book as the author lists all possible murders in a vast area around where John Rice Jr now lives. Does she think he is guilty of all of these? Even if he may be, there is absolutely NO evidence of his involvement, and it seems that he was never even considered by any of the investigations. It was very un-professional to suggest he is linked to these killings just for the sake of sensalization.

Other serial killers known to have been active at the time and in the area are also discussed, and I liked that these were included. I think one of these killer is a much more viable suspect (for the Mary Mount murder), and should have been dealt with in considerable detail (although there is some discussion of him). The begining of this book is ok, but might have been better presented as novella-size stories ala Ann Rule. As it goes on, however it becomes rambling and spurious and looses the otherwise decent rating it could have had.

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