Overall, I thought this was a good overview of the Green River killer case. I had not paid much attention to it, but when Ridgway was caught and sentenced in Nov, 2003, it really got my attention. The book by Smith and Guillen portrays the police who chased the killer for so many years, and also explains some of the mistakes they made, partly because they had never had to deal with a situation of this magnitude before. It is a very interesting book. However, I did find lots of typos in the copy I had, which was paperback. The person who checked for errors did not do a good job. No book should be released with typos in it today. Some of the victims' names were misspelled. For instance, Shawnda Leea Summers' first name was spelled Shawanda. These are mistakes that should not have been made. According to Dave Reichert's new book it was Shawnda.
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| I've always been facinated by true crime stories. And this was the first book I picked up. In the past getting me to read was a task, and I just never cared much about reading. Therefore getting through a 200 page book took me months. I bought this book in an airport on my way to Las Vegas. It grabbed me in the airport waiting for a plane, I couldn't put it down. In fact I ended up reading for hours on my trip in Vegas instead of gambling (might have saved me a few bucks). Regardless, I finished this book in about 4-5 days. It's over 500 pages long so I even impressed myself. I agree the politics gets a little too much at times, and it gets a little repetitive, but it does tell the story of "the search" for the Green River Killer. What makes this book even better now is that the killer has been caught and the book has been updated with more details. There were times late a night reading this book where I felt like someone was in the room with me, and that felt freaky. Obviously nobody was, but it's just the feeling I got that scared me pretty good. Needless to say, I thought it was a great book to read. It's a tragedy that so many people died and that the police were so screwed up on this, but could I have done a better job? I doubt it, hind-sight is always 20-20. If you like good stories about true crime or serial killers, this one will get to you. Not many killed more than he did and even more rare is how long he was loose in today's times. Reinhart and Kranske have my blessings for all that they went through over the years, and the toll it must have taken on their families as well as all the others that were involved. And to know they were so close but just didn't know is disturbing. Buy this book, you won't regret it. You might find the police politics interesting as I did, or you might skip over a few paragraphs and get back to the discoveries, either way you shouldn't be disappointed. |
