Compelling, well-researched true crime story in the vein of "In Cold Blood" or "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." I had never heard of these events at all, so it was all new information to me, presented in a fairly clear, mostly chronological timeline. The "B-story" about Mailer and Vonnegut was interesting and the sidebars about other events in 1969 - the moon landing, Chappaquiddick, and the Manson murders - provided relevant historical context to the overall atmosphere of the era. The only negative was that some of the dialogue in the first half of the book was very stilted and formal (people talk using contractions!) before the author turned to official reports and transcripts that sounded more realistic.

I was very interested in this from the description. I enjoy true crime and want familiar with Tony Costa or the Provincetown murders, oddly, so thought this would be right up my alley. Imagine my surprise and irritation then, when it turns out that more than half of the book is not actually about him but about Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer and their back and forth as writers... It's a weird duality and one I found distracting and disjointed. I am not a fan of either of those authors, and the ridiculous over the top behavior of Vonnegut was particularly irritating. It completely destroyed my connection to the underlying story, which I did otherwise find interesting if gruesome. It felt like a bizarre way to tell both sets of stories and was a difficult and not very enjoyable read for me as a result.

Sherman has managed to find a true crime case that hasn't been on every podcast and streaming service! I hadn't heard of Tony Costa before and I was compelled by the history of Cape Cod in the 60's and all of the research put into this book. I think people might be unhappy about the story about Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut since it takes up a big chunk of the book and may be disappointing to people who just want the true crime aspect.

As this book is located in our state, I was excited to read it. But I've found having Vonnegut as a "character" here to be too distracting for some reason. It didn't feel authentic to me. I wasn't able to stick with it, unfortunately.

I don’t read a lot of true crime because I have a fundamental issue with books that blur the line between fiction and non-fiction, dramatizing events and incorporating fictitious dialogue to flesh out scenes and drive a narrative based a true story. Helltown offers well-researched insights into serial killer Tony Costa, his horrific crimes that are laid out in visceral detail, and his subsequent trial. In addition, the book also tracks the experiences of real-life authors Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer who were tangentially connected to Costa’s story and ended up writing about the case. Their dedicated chapters, while interesting, never failed to take me out of the story. Nevertheless, if serial killers are your thing, this book does deliver an absorbing account of one of Cape Cod’s most notorious murderers.

Say the phrases “serial killer,” “Cape Cod,” or “1960s” and I’m sold. BONUS POINTS if they’re in the same sentence!!! So one can imagine my excitement when I read the synopsis for this book. I’m typically very knowledgeable when it comes to true crime, however I was completely unfamiliar with this case. It was so interesting to read about the ins and outs of it. It was disturbing at many different points, as fans of true crime have come to expect in stories like these, but very well written. The only thing I didn’t enjoy, was the secondary storyline of Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer. It felt unnecessary and even somewhat random. This was just my personal opinion though, and I’m sure many others will love this layer of the story! 3.5 stars from me! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

Bizarre. Weird asides and random bits of I fo that have no real bearing on the main story. Do not recommend at all.

DNF @14%

This was just not for me. Two things:

One: I don’t at all care for the story about Mailer and Vonnegut. At this point the chapters about the time period and these two authors are two times as long as the actual true crime story. And I’m not enjoying it.

Two: I don’t enjoy the writing style. The book has run-on sentences with way too much uninteresting details and it is written in a kind of fiction format, with dialogue and thoughts of people. But some of these people are actually dead, so how do we know that that’s what these victims were thinking? No one, besides our serial killer, who’s high half the time, could have possibly known about these conversations. Let alone the actual thought of his victims. I just prefer more a more fact-based story, if you will.

It just didn’t work for me, personally, while it might work for others. And even though I always push through on an arc so I can give an honest review, life’s too short to read books you don’t enjoy. I’m moving on to books that are more my speed.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have a difficult time rating this because of the story being told in this book. At first I thought this was a fictional story, when I did further research and saw that this was a real case, I was kind of shocked. Nothing has been sugar coated about the gruesome murders done by Tony Costa. Besides feeling sick to my stomach for most of this book, the story was interesting and I wanted to finish this book. I hadn’t heard about this case before, and that also made me want to finish the book. There were times where I had to collect myself before continuing to read due to it being very graphic, detailed and extremely disturbing. With that being said I advise you: Do NOT read this book if gory details makes you uncomfortable. Because you will be uncomfortable reading this book.

This is for my true crime enthusiasts!! And let me tell you: go and READ THIS BOOK ASAP!

This is a well written story of Tony Acosta the Cape Cod serial killer that took place during the 60’s and how the killer was captured with the help of two writers; Kurt Vonnegut Jr. And Norman Mailer alongside the police department.

I’d totally recommend this book to my fellow friends.

I knew a little of the story of Tony Costa before reading this book. I really loved the way this was written, it wasn’t just facts it was a story. It was interesting following the lives of the two writers involved and seeing the murder and Costa’s life from their perspective. Any true crime fan should definitely check this out!

I love true crime stories and its hard to find ones that are about popular topics you already know the result of. I love that more authors are finding stories to tell that people aren't familiar with. I also loved the dual story line between the serial killer and the Norman Mailer feud.

While I am a True Crime fanatic, this book baffled me. I found the subject matter interesting enough, but the secondary stories of the rival relationship between Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut seemed arbitrary. The constant infusion of history during the time of the Murders was a distraction and it was a lot to keep track of. It felt like this should have been two books instead of cramming it all into one.
That said, the crime aspect was riveting. Very graphic and detailed, and often disturbing- but it’s crime, so there’s that.
Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC.

While the real-life serial killer view was interesting and the descriptions of the murders were extremely gruesome, I honestly found most of the book boring and hard to read. It felt like the book could have been half its size and would have been long enough. The sections about the dueling authors seemed like they didn't need to be in there at all.

Excellent writing about the horrors brought onto Cape Cod in late 1960's by Tony Costa. The author interweaves that evil man's murders with the often turbulent lives of famous authors Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut. I had to skim over Tony's recollections of his brutal destruction of many young women's lives. I had a very hard time with the sections told in Mailer and Vonnegut's point of view as well. But, the author captures the late 60's and early 70's so well that I have to give this 4 stars. The coverage of the trial of Costa was fascinating as he thought he would be as infamous as Charlie Manson. Well, Costa was so wrong.. I had never even heard of him and I am a huge true crime fanatic and was born in 1968. Overall, I would recommend to anyone who reads true crime. and likes to learn about the historic upheaval the US was going through in the late 60's..

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for a chance to read and review.

Overall, this was an enjoyable true crime book. I listen to and read a lot of true crime but hadn't heard of this killer, like the title implies.

I thought the parts about Vonnegut and Norman Mailer felt a bit weird too. They weren't in the subtitle so it didn't seem like they should be as relevant as they were. A subtitle that included authors, writing, or something to that effect I think would've better reflected the true nature of the book. However, still a really interesting story to read!

Hell Town tells the compelling story about a string of murders committed by Tony Costa in the late 1960’s in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Author Casey Sherman pads this true story account of how the killer was captured with the whole context surrounding the murders as far as the political scene and the two notable writers in the Cape Cod area writing at the time, Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I’ve since learned that Hell Town will be a series which makes sense because this novel reads like a script. I only hope that the real victims of Tony Costa’s sick mind are not dramatized and forgotten. We re-live the murders through the eyes of Costa and it’s brutal and horrific. The male chauvinism of the times is on full display. Both Norman and Vonnegut abused their wives, people assumed missing women ran off to do drugs and get abortions, a pretty juror in a murder trial is put on the front cover of magazines because she’s pretty and on and on. It’s the classic case of shoddy police work, an ambitious district attorney and a raving media that wants to capture it all. It all makes for a very dramatic telling and an interesting glimpse of a specific time and place with a mixture of fiction and non-fiction.

i love reading true crime books and this wasn't a miss! very suspensful, and kept me intrigued until the very end! this is my first book by this author but i'm definitely picking future works because i found the writing to be very engaging.

will probably grab a physical copy when it's out

Helltown is a solid true crime novel about the Cape Code serial killer Tony Costa. This is my first time reading a true crime novel from Casey Sherman, but I now know it won't be my last. I enjoyed the way Sherman presented the case. Highly recommended!

This tale of the Cape Code serial killer Tony Costa was in several ways a pretty interesting read, especially with its surprising connection to Kurt Vonnegut (and also Norman Mailer, but I was genuinely unfamiliar with him until I came across this very book). Also, considering all that I have absorbed through the culture consciousness relating to similar figures like Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer, I was genuinely surprised to realize that I had never heard of Costa or his crimes, especially as a New Englander.

However, this also proved to be a bit of a challenging read as well. I am not a true crime kind of person beyond a few documentaries that I've watched alongside my partner, and so "Helltown" was very much new territory that I curiously ventured into. Little did I realize just how much more intensely graphic the descriptions of the murders were going to be compared to what I've experienced watching streaming shows about unsolved crimes on Netflix or Hulu. The amped level of grisly detail related to all the crimes almost immediately proved to not be my cup of tea.

I had some issues with the writing - namely the dialogue that Sherman wrote between various figures as part of recreated conversations. Frankly I found them to be quite wooden, and at times almost distractingly so.

So while there was intriguing general subject matter, this book definitely didn't convert me into a fan of the genre - if "Helltown" has done anything, it's mostly confirmed that true crime still isn't for me, and this will be a personal one-off foray for now. However, I think it's safe to assume that for fans of this kind of stuff, you'll probably be quite pleased with what you'll find here.