Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2006
320 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
In the spring of 1963, the quiet suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts, is rocked by a shocking sex murder that exactly fits the pattern of the Boston Strangler. Sensing a break in the case that has paralyzed the city of Boston, the police track down a black man, Roy Smith, who cleaned the victim's house that day and left a receipt with his name on the kitchen counter. Smith is hastily convicted of the Belmont murder, but the terror of the Strangler continues.
On the day of the murder, Albert DeSalvo—the man who would eventually confess in lurid detail to the Strangler's crimes—is also in Belmont, working as a carpenter at the Jungers' home. In this spare, powerful narrative, Sebastian Junger chronicles three lives that collide—and ultimately are destroyed—in the vortex of one of the first and most controversial serial murder cases in America.
"Starred Review. This perplexing story gains an extra degree of creepiness from Junger's personal connection to it." - PW.
"An intriguing crime story that also contains painful truths about race and justice in America." - Booklist.
"A meticulously researched evocation of a time of terror, wrapped around a chilling, personal footnote." - Kirkus.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sebastian Junger grew up in suburban Massachusetts and graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in cultural anthropology in 1984 and has been a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in such magazines as Outside, Men's Journal, American Heritage, and The New York Times Magazine. Drawn to stories of adventure, Junger has delivered radio reports from the war in Bosnia, covered smoke jumpers in Idaho's wilderness wildfires, and written about the smallest border town in Texas.
His notable works include: The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea (1997), his award-winning chronicle of the war in Afghanistan in the documentary films Restrepo (2010), Korengal (2014), and his book War (2010). Restrepo was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Sebastian Junger's Website
Name Pronunciation
Sebastian Junger: Yuung-ger
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