J. Reuben Appelman

While Idaho Slept by J Reuben Appelman is, for me, a problematic book. The writing and research is good, but I have to question both the writer's idea it is a good idea to write a book before the trial and our society's fascination with violent crime that even makes it possible. That said, for someone like me who doesn't watch or read every story, post, or podcast about the murders, it got me caught up so I can better understand what I will no doubt see in numerous news stories once the trial starts.

I found the book itself to be well-written and researched, with information that is questionable labeled as such and even questions about it put forth by the author. Keeping most of the book about the people rather than simply the details of the murders and investigation made it more accessible.

As I touched on at first, I have mixed feelings about a book that covers the investigation going to press before the results of that investigation have proven to be sufficient to convict. While I appreciate what I think was a fairly even-handed approach, it just feeds this beast we have for true crime stories before they are even fully investigated or presented. Armchair detectives think they "know" more than those actually investigating, while those who simply support the defendant label everything as either rumor or propaganda with the additional claims that everything has been "debunked." Neither I nor they know enough to speak so definitively, but everyone wants to play expert, and this book feeds that dysfunctional aspect of our society. Yet, admittedly, I chose to read it and found it to serve my interests quite well. So I am as much a part of the problem as anyone else.

I would certainly recommend this to those true crime fans who have no qualms about books coming before the trials, as well as those like me who don't follow cases that closely and simply want a quick dossier to catch up.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (altro)

After finishing this book I immediately screamed NOOOO! I am so mad and book drunk, and sad, and damn it!

I can't believe the ending, it's a lie. I swear it's a lie! This snarky, perfectly dark book has wrecked me.

I LOVED the writing style. It's so immersive. It's refreshing to read a book on my level of snark. The banter was perfection between all of the characters. Gideon stole my heart and then shattered it into a million black pieces.

The world building so great, so many levels of deceit and lore. Ugh. It all played out so beautifully. Dark, tragic, and lovely. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator added so much emotion to the story. Great pick.

I can't wait to read the next book!… (altro)

This. Was. Wonderful. If by wonderful, you mean creepy and disturbing and compelling and liminal and lovely.

I think this might be a true crime to equal I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, at least for me. It’s got that same fragmentation and self-analysis and exploration of the era, but in the case of The Kill Jar, it’s a whole lot darker. Appelman has personal demons he’s trying to excise, goes more intensely into his obsession with the case than McNamara does, and holy hell was Detroit not a safe place to be a kid in the 1970s.

I really liked the way Appelman told the story, to be honest. It’s intensely non-linear, poetic without being pretentious, and captures people and places in key moments. Here is the guy who ran a “summer camp” for boys. Here is the night I learned my wife was cheating. Here is what the police didn’t report about the bodies. Here is the day someone tried to abduct me. Here is the final day of a victim. Here is a mysterious “suicide”.

The non-linearity makes it a little hard to follow at times, it’s true, but it builds a sense of growing horror at the web of everything, from the ways the victims and suspects were potentially connected, to the possible motives for a police cover-up, to the multiple child porn rings operating at the time, to the victims’ families fight for justice, to Appelman’s own childhood (and adulthood) and what that might reveal about the mind of the killer. It’s almost haunting the way it all ties together and I’ve got my shoulders up just remembering it to write this.

But it’s not just about the OCCK case and the other crimes detailed in the book. This book is very much also a memoir, not only of Appelman’s research into the case, but also him trying to reconnect with his father, exes, and other family, to make sense of his own past and flaws, and to come to terms with himself all while he’s delving into police records and microfiche and visiting crime scenes. That’s about as compelling and disturbing as the rest of the book because Appelman is not a well man, not by any stretch.

In a way, this book is as much about flaws and brokenness and corruption and a lack of answers as it is about the child murders and Appelman’s life. We’re never going to know what really happened. We’re never going to know if there was a cover-up. Like the victims’ families and Appelman himself, we’ve just got to become comfortable with uncertainty, with not knowing key truths, with dealing with the darker sides of the world. The whole reading experience is profoundly liminal, in so many ways, and I think it’s going to stick with me a while.

To bear in mind: This story is very concerned with pedophilia, so if anything surrounding that topic is going to trigger you, this might not be the book for you. There is also discussion of possible police corruption, corruption in general, domestic abuse, depression, anxiety, and alcoholism. Oh, and serial killers, for obvious reasons.

9/10… (altro)