I can understand the mixed reviews on this one, but I'll give it a go anyway.

Thompson and his siblings grew up in close quarters in Pittsburgh. With an unfortunate family history of alcoholism and violence, he finds himself reopening the wounds from his sister's death. Despite previously moving on from Eileen's death, he realizes there was some shoddy police work and several inconsistencies in his brother-in-law's story.

My gut reaction post-read is 4-5, because I was enthralled. I needed to know everything. While the ending-ending, post meeting Vic (not a spoiler, he's on his way in the first pages), was a bit lackluster, I think it was also realistic. Sometimes it just is the way it is and we don't get clean closure.

However, I agree with others that we didn't get to know Eileen well enough, and I wish we could've. She loved dogs, wanted children, and seemed like a go-getter, but what else? He said they weren't exactly close, but surely there was more to her. Ultimately, we're left with her simply as a victim, either of circumstance or direct violence. She deserved more.

Jim lost his sister in 1974 to what he viewed as a suspicious suicide. After years of not knowing, he embarks on a journey of truth. He wants to know what really happened. Did his sister, Eileen, really kill herself? Or was it her then husband, who happened to be a cop, who murdered her?

Jim is really trying to get to the bottom of it. He cannot accept that his sister took her own life. He finally decided to try to find the truth. But will the truth set him free? It was a decent book telling the story behind the investigation Jim starts. #netgalley #goodreads #books

This book was very relatable to me, being about the loss of a close sibling and how it eats at you as the years, then decades go by. Author Jim Thomson realized 27 years after losing his sister that he couldn't live with the story he'd been told about what happened. So he started digging into it, trying to find the truth of Eileen's death, whether it was really a suicide, or if her cop husband killed her. Jim was on a mission, a quest to get the real truth, despite destroyed evidence and shoddy police work. The passage of time didn't help matters either. But he had to persist. I liked his writing style in this book and hope he does more non-fiction.

This was good but I couldn't say I loved it. This was more about a brothers love for his sister. It was more personal than true crime.

A Better Ending is a fascinating and heart wrenching book about loss, family and searching for justice. James Whitfield Thomson delivers a well written personal story of the lengths people will go for truth and justice especially for family.

Interesting book.
Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

I want to be clear that what I am about to write is not hyperbole. I have never been left so enraged by a book as I have by James Whitfield Thomson's A Better Ending. I am enraged because it is badly put together. I am enraged because Thomson besmirches the name of multiple people who are not alive to defend themselves (and quite a few of them are his family members). But most importantly, I am enraged that a book about a woman's suicide turns her into an object.

Eileen was Thomson's sister. She is reported to have committed suicide after an argument with her husband. Years later, Thomson decides to reopen the case. Why? Well, Thomson himself admits multiple times that he was trying to write a crime novel that story and decided to write about this instead. He then starts to convince himself that he has been repressing doubts for years and that this is now his mission.

This story is badly paced and written. Recreated dialogue sounds either stilted or heavily dramatized to make the exact points Thomson wants to make. Many chapters and characters are filler. It felt like a TV episode where they stretched out everything to meet a time requirement. You ultimately find out the climactic confrontation is anything but satisfying and much of the narrative before it was extraneous information. Would you like to know that information? Well, Thomson's father was an abusive drunk as was his brother. Thomson is no peach either and I have a feeling many readers will put this book down and never return to it after he admits something about his own past. Thomson's father, brother, and mother are all dead and can't defend themselves or try to repair their reputations. I read these sections hoping that Thomson had a good reason to air his family's dirty laundry. He does not.

None of this helps the reader better understand Eileen. In fact, I am disgusted about how she is treated. Who she was as a person is an afterthought. Was she feisty? Maybe. Some people said yes while others said no. Do you know what I am sure of? She was busty. I know this because her brother, the author, comments on her chest size twice in the narrative. No, her chest size does not in any way affect the story.

But do you know what Thomson thinks does NOT affect the story? Eileen's two miscarriages. You see, Thomson TWICE shuts down women in this book and tells them the miscarriages Eileen suffered have nothing to do with the possibility of Eileen's suicide. It is because this book is all about going after Eileen's husband. This is about Thomson the crusader. It is not about Eileen. I know this as a reader because at NO POINT does Thomson stop and reflect on a simple question. "If Eileen did kill herself, why did she do it?" Answering that question would require Eileen to be front and center. She would be a full character. She would be someone with hopes, dreams, struggles, and a marriage that went horribly wrong. Thomson himself admits that she kept things from him before her death. His book doesn't attempt to answer what happened to his sister that day. It is entirely focused on if Thomson can make a true crime case against her husband.

I cannot under any circumstances recommend this book to anyone.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Avid Reader Press.)

A Better Ending: A Brother’s Twenty-Year Quest to Uncover the Truth About His Sister’s Death
James Thomson
Genre: Non-Fiction/True Crime
It was 1974, James Thomson came home and found out his little sister was dead at 27 years of age, Eileen had taken her own life. Naturally, his family was shocked. Eileen and her husband were living in California. She was married to Vic her high school boyfriend/sweetheart, Vic. Eileen had been depressed. She and Vic had a fight, he stormed out of the room. A gunshot was heard within minutes, within seconds. She was dead.
In 2001, Jim had Eileen on his mind. His parents and brother were gone. Jim had questions and no answers. He wanted answers; he hired a private investigator to help him find those answers. It meant tracking down old friends. Things just didn’t add up.
This is a book about violence against women. In the 70s, unfortunately, many turned their back on it. Men believed men; women were hysterical. We have come a long way in recognizing domestic abuse. We will have come much farther when there is no abuse of any form.
I wish author Jim Thomson peace of mind.

Thank you NetGalley for the review copy.

Definitely the concept is an interesting one. This is a highly personal story of the trauma of a sibling dying, supposedly by suicide. I think this book didn’t fully grab me because it often felt that there was a lot of filler. I was interested to read about the husband who was in the house at time but there wasn’t enough consistent information for me to anchor myself in this story. I wish the author all the best. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc.

This book was ultimately unsatisfying. A brother investigating the death of his sister could be an interesting story, but the author spends most of the book demanding answers from people who don't have them. He sends several strongly worded emails to various law enforcement officers demanding to know why they aren't doing more to investigate a 30 year old (possible?) suicide. It's a peak example of a Boomer white man insisting that what he says must be of value to those around him. And after all that, the "Better Ending" he lands on is basically, "I guess we'll never know."

The authors sister died in her twenties from suicide.,this book is their story his searching for the reasons why.Their family history his own behavior makes for a very compelling read.#netgalley #avidpress

I received a free copy of, A Better Ending, by James Thomson, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. In 1974 Eileen Thomson committed suicide, at the age of 27. Eileen's older brother James decides to investigate his sisters life and death. Their is no bond like a the bond of siblings. This was an interesting read about a brothers love for his sister.

A….hmmmm…somewhat interesting, definitely different take on true crime, I’ll say that for it.

One day in 1974 the author came home from a baseball game to find that his younger sister, Eileen, 27, had taken her own life. Jim, his parents and his brother were left reeling. Eileen had been living in California with her high school sweetheart husband, Vic, a cop, had a job she loved and lots of friends. But her family learned she had been depressed. In the day she died she and Bic fought and he stormed out of the room; moments later a gun went off.

Cut to 2001. Jim’s parents and brother were dead and Jim found himself thinking about Eileen, wondering why she hadn’t told anyone about her troubled marriage. He hired a private investigator to track down her old friends and a disturbing picture began to emerge.

So, like I said, this was interesting. Definitely true crime, but also hard to totally categorize. First, for Jim to start investigating so long after the incident, I was amazed at how many people were still alive, around and available.

It’s hard to discuss anything about the book for fear of spoilers. I will say, generally, that there was a depressing history of violence against women and children throughout, and, in what should come as a surprise to exactly no one, men believe men when it comes to women’s claims of domestic violence…and it appears to have been no big deal in the 1970s to knock the little woman around a little. I mean, they just won’t listen, amIrite?

The book was maybe a bit long and I’m curious about the time lag between the events that take place and publication. That’s a big thing that is not explained. So, if it appeals to you, and you really like true crime, give it a go.

Interesting deep dive into the forensics of a 30 year old mystery, and the grief that continues within a family. I felt that the misogyny was very prevalent in the 70s in this family and the author himself admitted to hitting his wife once and having an affair. This made it difficult to feel as sympathetic to the author as I might. I think the overall mystery was clouded by the narrator's confusion of how someone who seemed fine could suddenly commit suicide. As more evidence came through and as time and understanding came about, it became clear that this wasn't a whodunnit or a how-dunnit, but a why-dunnit. And there really isn't a good answer as to why she committed suicide or why the men in this story acted the way they did. It made me think, and still has me considering various facets.

I definitely didn't like the narrator and that made it hard to feel empathy for him.