A serviceable true crime book originally published in 1976, and honestly that's what made it memorable. For one thing the author changes the names of the victims and the murderer which is positively quaint in today's world where podcasters and arm chair investigators are rooting around in victim's (and their family's) business. Of course there was also no Internet in 1976, which would have made the job of amateurs a little harder but not impossible for the determined.

The methodical first half of this is where the meat and the potatoes were for me, the messy crime scenes and how flummoxed the police were. Of course today they'd be crawling all over those scenes snapping up DNA evidence and maybe have CCTV cameras and Ring doorbell footage at their disposal, but in the late 1960s, in that area of Michigan where stuff like this didn't happen, I thought the author did a good job of conveying tension and the difficulties of the investigation.

Naturally once they zero in on a potential suspect the cops seem bound and determined to fumble it on the 20 yard line and my eyes glazed over a bit during the recounting of the trial (as I'm sure the eyes of the jurors probably did....). I found this interesting but not always riveting.