I usually like true crime, and the premise of this novel really intrigued me. I have never heard of these murders so I thought it would be a good read since I had no background information to go off of to spoil the story. However, this title fell flat for me. The story was very slow paced and I felt like I was trudging through massive amounts of facts just to get to the interesting parts of this story. I also felt like the author was focusing on too many people at once throughout this novel. I also had a problem with the fact that aspects of this story were completely fictionalized, as explained by the author himself. It just hit the mark for me overall.

I love true crime and this story was interesting to me, as I hadn't heard much about Tony Costa.
I'm torn on rating this book. Much of it was good. The inclusion of Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut, while interesting, distracted me from the actual story. The author did use some fictional elements (admittedly - it's in the author's note) regarding conversations that may or may not have happened.

It is clear the author did a lot of research. The base story of Tony Costa was compelling and I found him a bit out there and fascinating. Like many other serial killers, he knew how to turn on the charm and win people over! I had never heard much about this case and it was interesting.

I would definitely try out this author again.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A well told true crime novel set in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Tony Costa is a charismatic figure, a head of counter culture, and able to charm all the younger women who come into his path. What follows is a twisting tale of a serial killer who becomes known as the most dangerous man of Cape Cod.

Very well researched, and told in an engrossing manner - Helltown by Casey Sherman was a win for me.

In the late 1960’s, Cape Cod was plagued by a serial killer. Young women go missing, their bodies turning up months later proving they were killed in incredibly gruesome manners. Local writers, Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer, become obsessed with the case and the man at the center of the investigation, Tony Costa. This book takes you inside the mind of a killer while also being told from the perspectives of all of the key players.

This book ended up being a lot different than what I expected. I felt like I was reading a documentary dramatization. At times, it was a little cheesy. The first few chapters were mildly confusing and it took me a while to get invested. However, all of the storylines started coming together and the pace picked up. It was really gripping story telling and kept me turning page after page late into the night! This really mixes thriller and non-fiction genres, which may be aggravating for some readers. Still, the author does a great job of noting references and explaining the thought process behind the novel in the author’s note. This really helped me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Special thanks to SOURCEbooks and Netgalley for the ARC of this book.

This book is about serial killer Tony Costa, who I'm surprised I've never heard of, possibly because it was in the 60's before my time...still the murders ocur in Provincetown and was part of the 60's drug culture.

If I'm reading true crime, not my usual genre, but I've been seeing this book all over. It started out a bit slow and as I started reading it I realized a lot seemed fictionalized and slow and than Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut were in it too. It was hard to keep my interest hanging in there because a lot focused on Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut so I think the blurb misled me a bit.

Still, it wasn't terrible and I think it's better recommend for true crime lovers. because I've been seeing this book all over the place. But like I said, for me, not my kind of book.

This book was intense - I had never heard of these murders before and the way the story unfolding was definitely a trip. The writing was well done and I could easily become immersed in the story. A very well done true crime story - and living in New England made it all the more real as I’ve been to some of the locations mentioned.

This is the best book, I read this summer. And I read a lot. This is one book you won’t put down. Tony Costa a serial killer, with an altered ego. Killing girls and mutilating their bodies. Happens in the sixties, being such memories of the.war in Vietnam, Charles Manson and his followers. Great book if you like this genre.

Are you looking for a great true crime book? This is the story of a serial killer in the late '60's. During the time of Kurt Vonnegut, and in the area he lives, Vonnegut is pulled into the mystery of girls that have gone missing. As the bodies being to pile up, the police are faced with a mystery that they don't know how to solve.

I received a copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

I normally enjoy the true crime genre, but had a very difficult time getting into this one. The pacing felt extremely slow and most of the time I didn't know if I was reading a book that was intended to be historical fiction or biography and whether it was meant to be about Tony Costa, Kurt Vonnegut, or Norman Mailer. Any one of these people would have made for an interesting topic, but a book that continuously shifts gears and shuffles between all three was difficult for me to keep my head in.

I am usually a huge fan of True Crime but wasn’t a fan of the way this was written. I felt that it was a little to fictionalized and the start was a little slow.

The story of Antone Costa’s victims is tragic, but unfortunately they were not the main focus of the book. I felt that too much focus was placed on Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut and their feud rather than on the killer or his victims. That said, I found the story interesting and well written and it has haunted my mind for days after finishing it.

I am a fan of true crime but I had never seen anything about of heard of the gruesome murders in Provincetown. This gruesome but very well written account of the 60's drug culture, unique population of Provincetown and the grisly murders that rocked the region is a page turner even though the reader already knows the outcome. I became totally immersed in the town and it's people. One of the best true crime books I've read.

As a person who doesn't usually read true-crime, I had high expectations for Helltown. It was the first book I read about a serial killer and I expected it to blow me away. However, the narrative of this book became difficult for me to empathize with due to the additional information the author added that was not real.

The research is definitely visible within the pages of the book, but the dialogues of the characters and the scenes where the imagination of the author shines through turn this book into a fictional story about a serial killer who happened to be real.

The description of the book promised something different. I guess I wasn't that into the way the author chose to portray the killer. But, that's on me.

The writing is good and so is the premise, but this was a three-star for me.

If you're already an avid true-crime reader, give this one a try. I'd love to read different opinions.

Thank you to Sourcebooks, Casey Sherman, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

*Thank you to Sourcebooks, Casey Sherman, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

Previously published at https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/helltown/

I rarely say this but this novel, part true crime and part fictionalization of a serial killer in Provincetown in the late 1960s, is amazing.

With the rivalry of writers, Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer who lived on the same street to a bit of Chappaquidik, to a piece of the Manson murders, this book has it all. With admitting that the first chapters did not pull me in, I absolutely could not put it down after the third or fourth chapter.

Antone “Tony” Costa was a serial killer in Provincetown, Massachusetts, who achieved notoriety, similar to Charles Manson, for the brutal murders of several woman, cutting them into pieces, removing their heads in one instance and cutting them in half, burying them in the woods in Truro. On January 24, 1969, Patricia Walsh and Mary Anne Wysocki vanished during a trip to Provincetown from their hometown in Providence, Rhode Island. They were staying in a rooming house where Tony Costa was also staying. They found their bodies when a rival of Tony, Cory Deveraux, pointed out Costa’s secret marijuana garden in the woods of Truro. While searching for Walsh and Wysocki’s bodies, they were able to uncover the bodies of Susan Perry and Sydney Monzon, also reported missing. All bodies were mutilated and in various states of decay. Tony Costa was also in possession of Walsh’s Volkswagen, which he said had been exchanged for drugs. The murders were committed around the same time as the Manson murders in Los Angeles, and the bodies were similarly mutilated. Like Manson, Costa had his own following, though smaller.

District Attorney Edmund Dinis, running for re-election in Provincetown, gained notoriety for his garish description of the murders – “The hearts of each girl had been removed from the bodies and were not in the graves…Each body was cut into as many parts as there are joints.” He went on to say also that there were teeth marks on the bodies as well, coining the phrase “vampire killer.” Dinis was also infamous for his involvement in the incident at Chappaquiddick involving Ted Kennedy and his cover-up of certain details as to not rile the infamous Kennedy family, royalty in Massachusetts.

Rival writers Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. lived down the street from each other in Provincetown and were bitter rivals. While Mailer had no connection to the Costa murders, Vonnegut’s daughter Edie had possibly met Costa in another setting, though she “wasn’t sure it was him”. While both wrote about this case. Mailer writing Tough Guys Don’t Dance and Vonnegut’s anthologizing in Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons, Vonnegut was infinitely more successful., even writing an article for Life magazine. Sherman does an excellent job of giving interesting biographies of both prolific authors. Though I wished for more on the actual serial killer than the authors, who were at least 50% of the book.

While Sherman took conversational liberties in Helltown, specifically the dialogue between Costa and his alter ego, Cory Deveraux, also the name of his rival in the Provincetown drug trade. The author, in his final notes, had also gained access to Costa’s unpublished manuscript, which I am sure gave him credible research. While Helltown is an amazing recount of this true crime, it is so much more. Sherman was able to flawlessly weave stories that happened around the same time. One of the best books I have read this year.

Helltown combines an interesting mix of events in this ugly true story. In Provincetown, MA, a serial murderer is suspected when women began to disappear. The murders were committed in the 1960s and the author used this backdrop throughout the book. Cape Cod residents, and rivals, Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut were included in this backdrop. I got a good feel for Provincetown in the off-season. The characters were distinct. Tony Costa and his mother were the people I remember the most. Tony had some big problems that helped explain his actions. Getting to court and the trial was interesting. The book took the mix of big events from the 1960s and strung them along as part of the backdrop, but this information didn't add to the story of Tony. I would have liked to get deeper into the Mailer/Vonnegut contest. The personalities and home life were distracting from the main character, Tony. In all, I didn't find it a compelling read.

I received this advance copy from NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

As a fan of true crime and serial killers of sort I was so excited to read this book. I will say this was not what I was expecting. No don't give me wrong this was a very well researched book and it was very well written, however while I thought this would be about crime the author added in an additional story to it to me it just really didn't make sense to go into this book based on what it was about. While I understand why he put it in there I just don't feel like I wanted to know that information and it kind of just turned me off. I really really wanted to like this book but I just couldn't get past all the back-and-forth and sadly it just wasn't for me. This was my honest review upon receiving this ARC.

Helltown is set in Provincetown and even though I have lived in Massachusetts for 31 years, I had never heard of serial killer Tony Costa — and I know my serial killers! Costa may have murdered as many as eight people from 1966-1969.

I didn't expect to read this as a work of creative nonfiction rather than just-the-facts true crime. Casey Sherman is a talented writer, but he should have left the imagined dialogue to experts like the late great Truman Capote. Helltown is not In Cold Blood by any stretch, but it does have a trick up its sleeve: a rivalry between two literary legends, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Norman Mailer. Both authors were working in Provincetown at the time. This book is well researched with gritty details of the murders and the historical events happening at the time.

The sections involving Costa's murders are brutal and the story is fascinating. If only Sherman had kept his focus on the crimes and not EVERY other event going on at the time. Apart from Vonnegut and Mailer, readers are distracted from the killings by mentions of the moon landing, the Manson murders, and even Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick, The book is simply too long, and that's a shame because it could have been great.

Could. Not. Put. This. Down. Great for true crime fans who want a fast and creepy read. I enjoyed the way the story developed and the overall structure. Highly recommend.

Thank you SOURCEBOOKS and Netgalley for this ARC.

This book is out and available now. I give this book 3.5 stars. I loved her crime. I listen or watch almost daily. I've never heard of Antone Costa. I'm glad I learned about him and his crimes. I think it's important to have victims stories heard even if it is through the killer. I did feel the book was a little slow. But I did find it interesting about learning about these crimes that I had not heard about. It took me a little bit to get through. I just feel like it was a little long but overall it was a solid true crime book.

Really loved the premise but ft there were to many subplots going on. I was fascinated by the story however as I had never heard of this serial killer and I enjoyed learning about them!