For Mature Audiences Only

A little known serial killer in the late 1960's in Cape Cod. I was deciding between a 3 ⭐ or 2 ⭐, and decided on 2⭐ for this book.

Thinks I liked:
⏩It was well researched
⏩It was True Crime, which is one of my favorite genres.

Thinks I hated:
⏩ It is GRUESOME. I had to take breaks from reading it because of the gruesomeness.
⏩It talked about writers, Mailer and Vonnegut. Which I really didn't get the point of doing.
⏩It rambled on in certain parts
⏩The author called is writing True Crime/Fiction, which I didn't care for.

The main thing is how gruesome this book is, though. What Costa did to these poor girls is unimaginable. I read a lot of true crime, but I have never read anything like this before. This is definitely not for the faint of heart. In fact, I will probably have nightmares about it.

Thanks to Netgalley, and Sourcebooks for the Kindle Version of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

#netgalley
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A non-fction true crime book with a fiction feel to it. While I fancy myself a true crime aficionado, I had never heard of Tony Costa. Maybe because his crimes are overshadowed by the infamous Manson murders of the late 60's.
You can tell Casey Sherman researched the case well, really spent time detailing the story and the book was well written. Sherman took some liberty with the story though, and it comes across a bit more fictionalized than a black and white non fiction book. If you're a fan of the more factual and precise detail non fiction book this may not be your cup of tea. Also intertwined into the story is historical background on writers Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer, which at times I enjoyed as it related to the murders/ trial, but it often went on a tangent that didn't seem necessary to the story.
I really enjoyed the facts of the case and found that part interesting. The dialogue and re- created conversations/ thoughts inside the killers head put me off a bit. It seemed a bit contrived.

Overall an okay read. I did learn more about the killer and his crimes, and a bit about 1960's socal climate and current events.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read and review honestly an advanced digital copy.

True story of a killer who committed multiple murders in the late 60's in and around Provincetown. By day the killer was a part-time carpenter who also sold drugs to the young people who seemed mesmerized by him and at night he lured, killed and mutilated the young women who were totally devoted to him. This book gives a unique and also disturbing account of the crimes of a man who committed one last killing in prison---his own.

As a fan of true crime, I was excited to get the opportunity to read this book and share my opinions on it. However, as I started and continued to read, I quickly realized that I only really like true crime books if they're well written. Unfortunately, this book does not fall into that category.

This book is about twice as long as it needs to be. It spends full paragraphs talking about small details that do not really have any relevance to the subject matter. I found myself almost rolling my eyes and skimming through some of the chapters, wondering when the story was actually going to get back to what it was advertised to be about: the Cape Cod murderers. I also understand that Vonnegut was a part of this story, but I felt as though the story spent way too long focusing on his inner thoughts.

I also found the dialogue to be so stilted and unnatural, which especially took me out of the story, since it's supposed to be nonfiction but it read so unnaturally. And for the most part, the dialogue was used to tell more parts of the story rather than using more interesting ways that would show us.

I DNFed this book around a third of the way in because it was dragging on, but from the other reviews I've read, at the very end of the book is a disclaimer saying that creative liberties were taken. I'm okay with fictionalizing parts of the story as long as there is a disclaimer, but the fact that this comes at the end rather than the beginning feels wrong to me.

Overall, this book dragged on and on and took a very interesting topic and made it very boring.

Very well researched,you can see the work gone i to the book,very gruesome but then that's what happened and a bit too much swearing but a shocking true story

On the outside, Tony Costa was a charming and charismatic young man. To some, he was simply a hippie dealer, and to others, he was a gentleman and helpful handyman. To a few who cannot tell their story, he was an incredibly dangerous predator.

Helltown is a gripping true-crime novel that recounts the gruesome murders in Provincetown in the late 60s. It takes a look into the people, places, and events surrounding the tragedies that took place in the sleepy Cape Cod town.

I found the story to be intriguing yet haunting. For me, too much time was spent on Mailer, Vonnegut, and general historical events, causing my interest sometimes to fade in and out. This is because, as mentioned in the book, the Manson crimes eventually overshadowed Costa’s, leaving this story mostly untold and unknown to many for so long. For this reason, I instead would have preferred to learn more about the investigation and even more details about the victims to humanize them further (although not in a way that would be a detriment to those who knew and loved them).

The story itself was well written and drew me in relatively quickly, and I almost forgot I was reading a book based on actual events. However, to know that these women suffered such inhumanity at the hands of another is disturbing. To say that I enjoyed this book is not the correct word. Rather, I learned from it and empathized with the many people whose lives were made worse due to these events.

Voluntarily reviewed after receiving a free copy courtesy of NetGalley, the Publisher, and the author, Casey Sherman.

Helltown explores the atrocious murders by psychopath Tony Costa while exploring the careers of one struggling writer and one successful author who find themselves in the Cape Cod region during the times these murders were committed!

Tony Costa was a crazed mass murderer and made for good reading...if you're into gorry! However, if you're truly looking for a true crime, then this isn't the book for you! Probably less than half the book is dedicated to murders the rest involves the one sided fued of the two authors, the Kennedy family, the Manson murders, witchcraft and more! Yeah, it was just too much wrapped into one story and very loosely clasifed as true crime! Author did a great job in writing about the killer and I found those parts very entertaining but the rest, I could have done without!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy of Helltown. I was very excited to read this title, but unfortunately, did not finish it. Helltown is clearly very well-researched, to the point of gratuity. Sherman's retelling of Tony Costa's murders is detailed and SO graphic, it was sickening, and I am not currently ready to work through that. Additionally, while the Costa chapters are so detailed it reads like fiction; conversely, the Vonnegut/Mailer chapters are disjointed and verbose. I made it 50% through the book and have yet to see the clear connection between the two narratives, forcing me to pause Helltown for now.

I had never heard of Tony Costa so when I saw this book I knew I wanted to read it. Ultimately, there was too much going on (509 pages!) and it felt like separate books. I didn’t care for the Kurt Vonnegut/Norman Mailer storyline at all and felt it was completely unnecessary. I also think it took away from the actual victims. Sherman takes a lot of creative liberties with dialogue and emotions and I wondered how much was actually non-fiction. He adds in a completely fictionalized “what if” storyline about a cult follower of Costa continuing his legacy but plays it off as it’s true - you wouldn’t know it was fiction if you skip the Author’s Note. If you like more of a tabloid feel to your true crime than this one might be for you.

* Disclaimer: I received a free advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. *

I generally love true crime. I generally love fictional crime. I don’t love this book, which considers itself “a work of fact with elements of fiction storytelling” (this should have been disclosed as a foreword, and not in the author’s note after completion). This was the first and last book I’ll read from this author.

This book is a mess. Oftentimes it read like a high school book report. If the cheesy low budget tv re-enactments of the 1990s and early aughts were a book, they would be this one. The Norman Mailer/Kurt Vonnegut storyline in this book was entirely too long winded, boring, and almost entirely unnecessary. I had to skim just to get through those chapters.

To be perfectly honest, I found myself skimming just to get through it significantly more than I was able to buckle down and read every single word. Did this book need to be 509 pages? NO IT DID NOT.

I didn’t like it and I don’t recommend it.

1969 Provincetown, Massachusetts, Tony Costa is at the center of it all. To a certain group of smitten young women, he ithe leader of their counter-culture movement, the charming man who speaks eloquently and hands out hallucinogenic drugs like candy. But beneath his benign persona lies a twisted and uncontrollable rage that threatens to break loose at any moment. Tony Costa is the most dangerous man on Cape Cod, and no one who crosses his path is safe.
The book is technically nonfiction but used some fictional elements when it came to the storytelling which I kind of enjoyed. When it came to the crime, it was well written and gave the details of the crime in a way that someone who was unfamiliar with this killer was able to learn what happened. I did not like that the book talked about the writers Mailer and Vonnegut because it did not add to the story and really slowed down the book. I wished the book focused on the victims and not the writers who wanted to get associated with writing about Tony Costa. This book is one for true crime fans who want to know about a case that isn’t talked about as much. I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily

I was hoping to love this book. I love true crime. I very much when an author brings in the time period to help us understand better what was going on at the time that contributed to the crimes. Eric Larson does this so very well. It seemed that Casey Sherman was attempting to do the same. However, the asides about authors seemed forced and were unpleasant to read. The descriptions of the actual crimes were far overwritten and practically silly. The moment someone was murdered should not be presented in an over the top way that makes me roll my eyes. I read parts aloud to my husband to see if it was really as ridiculous as I thought it was. I’m sorry, but your description of the death of a real person should not be written in a way that could be construed as comical.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This was a very hard book to get through. The author is the nephew of 19-year old Mary Sullivan, the last and youngest victim of The Boston Strangler. Sherman’s previous books are predominantly true crime. I thought that perhaps his style would center more on the criminal mind and the trial proceedings, however, there were some very graphic and gruesome descriptions of the murders which are repeatedly referenced.

We begin on Cape Cod in the late 1960’s, where young women are starting to disappear. While there is some effort on the part of law enforcement, the disappearances are attributed to the drug and counter culture mantra: turn on, tune in, and drop out. But then their bodies begin to surface. The common denominator is Tony Costa, who will soon be arrested, convicted, sentenced and commit suicide in his cell.

The author fictionalized Costa’s relationships with the women, as well as the actual murders. Costa always maintained his innocence, blaming others as well as an alter ego, and Costa’s conversations with his alter ego are also fictionalized. The details are gruesome, and they are again repeated in the court proceedings. Once was enough. My feeling is that the author should have noted up front, not at the end of the book, that this is a work of fact told with elements of fiction storytelling. That left me wondering what parts were true, and why the author didn’t just market the book as a fictionalized account based on a real event.

There are also so many side stories which give us a sense of the times, yet are not directly relevant to the case itself. We have stories of Charles Manson, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Mary Jo Kopechne’s fateful night with Ted Kennedy and the Apollo 11 moon landing. There are also in-depth biographies of Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer, both residents of the area that wanted to write about the case. While the author could have touched on all of these subjects, it was just way too much information, and fictionalized information perhaps.

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What do two award-winning novelists, Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer, and a depraved serial killer have in common? Perhaps more than you might think. In “Helltown,” Casey Sherman uses Tony Costa’s serial murders in the late 1960s Cape Cod area as the centerpiece to provide glimpses of life during that tumultuous era.

True crime fans won’t want to miss this one. I could not stop turning the pages. One caveat: Sherman does tell this story using techniques borrowed from fiction. Most of the important aspects are based on factual details; however, at least one aspect of “Helltown” is based purely on Sherman’s imaginative conjecture, which he acknowledges in his end notes. This did not bother me because Sherman includes extensive documentation of the factual elements, but purists will want to be forewarned.

For fans of Erik Larson’s “The Devil in the White City.”

As a huge fan of the true crime genre, this story stood out and I was excited to get to it. The basis of the story is about Antone Costa who terrorized Cape Town in 1969, said to have killed 4 women although he was only convicted of 2 murders.

The author of the book inserted dialogue that may or may not have happened between people at times and I felt that was disingenuous. There were full chapters devoted to Kurt Vonnegut Jr and Norman Mailer, as well as others. With the book being so long already, I felt these were mostly filler and not necessarily pertinent to the story. I ended up skipping whole chapters because of this. I can tell the author did extensive research into this topic but when I'm reading a story about a particular serial killer, I really just want to read about that person and what exactly happened regarding their crimes.

This particular book just fell flat for me. While the original topic is interesting the filler is not. I received this book free from NetGalley for an honest review.

Very gruesome and detailed. Definitely a hard book to read. It was speculative too, the author took liberties when talking about the killer and victims felt.

Thank you to Sourcebooks and Netgalley for the arc but unfortunately I this was a DNF for me. I love true crime books and got 50% through it before I had to give up, and I hate doing that. This book follows Tony Costa a serial killer in the Cape Cod area. What I couldn’t get past is it seemed all over the place and I cringed when I had to read about authors Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer. I would have finished if the authors were left out.

True crime writer Casey Sherman has blended the mostly true story of Antone (Tony) Costa with fictional liberties. If you're unfamiliar with the crimes in the sleepy, but mysterious shores of Cape Cod, you'll want to go on this journey that takes one through a little-known serial killer before the term was widely used. I read this book in about 24 hours --hard to put down!

This book has everything from the details of gore and true crime all the way to a study of the political and counterculture movement of the 60s.

This review is thanks to an advanced copy from NetGalley.

This one felt more fictionalized to me, and less fact based nonfiction true crime. I had a hard time getting through this one, and found it to be rather boring for the most part, and I even contemplated DNF it, but I stuck it out.

I wanted to love this one, I really did. You all know that I love true crime stories, and this one sounded so promising, but unfortunately it was anything but that.


This one felt more fictionalized to me, and less fact based nonfiction true crime. I had a hard time getting through this one, and found it to be rather boring for the most part, and I even contemplated DNF it, but I stuck it out.


The writing style is what bothered me, the fact that the author included dialogue and thoughts of people, who are actually dead now, made it seem more like a fiction read than a fact based true crime story. Conversations throughout the book between the killer and his victims really irritated me as well, this is far from non-fiction, and it was rather daunting at times.


My advice to you is to skip this one, but if you do decide to read it, I would be interested to see what you think of it!