Book-It 'o11! Book #22
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one and two, just in case you're curious.) This was a library request.
Title: In the Middle of the Night: The Shocking True Story of a Family Killed in Cold Blood by Brian McDonald
Details: Copyright 2009, St. Martin's Press
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "AN INNOCENT FAMILY
The affluent suburb of Cheshire, Connecticut, seemed like the perfect place for Dr. William Petit and his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, to raise their two lovely daughters… Until July 23, 2007, when, according to police, two ex-cons invaded the Petit home hoping to embark on a routine robbery-one that would ultimately prove deadly.
AN UNSPEAKABLE CRIME
What unfolded at 300 Sorghum Mill Drive was a tragic and horrifying sequence of events that shocked a community and made headlines across the nation. Before the morning was over, Mrs. Hawke-Petit and one of her daughters would be sexually assaulted, the entire house would go up in flames, and only Dr. Petit-his head bloodied, his legs bound-would manage to escape with his life. With the help of neighbors and local police, the two suspects were soon found and captured. Now, Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes await trial for murder
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I had heard about this story whilst consuming one of many forensics docs and the author of this book was briefly interviewed.
How I Liked It: I am horribly spoiled when it comes to true-crime literature. Just recently, two of the books I've read that can be said to be of the same style as this one ( The Stranger Beside Me and Columbine) are masterpieces of the genre. Still, that does not excuse this piece of shlock.
Just a cursory glance at the back cover should give you an idea (because sometimes, yes, you can tell a book by its cover). Unfortunately, when I went requesting the book from my library, I did not think to research the back cover. Or maybe I'd give it the benefit of the doubt? At any rate, the book manages to be even worse.
It's not so much that it's too sensationalized-- to be so, it would require far more substance. This book, churned out as quickly as possible, no doubt (at the time of publishing, there wasn't even a conviction yet), offers no real meat, save for perhaps a bit of backstory on one of the killers, thanks to jailhouse interviews and letters the author breathlessly describes scoring. His interviews with secondary characters are not of the crime, but of killer Joshua Komisarjevsky's life. Youth pastors, schoolmates, and other extras offer their opinions. This would be acceptable and even interesting if it was the framework for the details of the crime.
Of the victims, the author devotes a small, saccharine portrait; he spends far more time in painting Komisarjevsky (whose name pronunciation, the author helpfully explains in the first mention, is "Ko-mi-sor-JEFF-ski") in understandable, relatable terms.
The book doesn't offer many details of the crime itself, not even the more sensationalized aspects of an already made-for-horror case. The mother, forced at gunpoint to pull money from the bank (making an appearance on security cameras, nonetheless), the young daughters, one of whom fought her captors every step of the way, even managing to bravely escape her bonds several times, the sole survivor, the father, who picks up the pieces and starts a charity in the name of his lost loves-- all of these are barely secondary characters to the star of the show, Komisarjevsky. The author lingers (or perhaps gushes over) his intellect, his education, even his looks (when meeting Komisarjevsky in person for the first time, the author mentions to him how much handsomer he looks in person than in his mugshot).
As for the "eight pages of startling photos" splashed across the back covers, the photo leaflet inside the book is certainly startling in the sense that it devotes a great deal of time to lone survivor William Petit, including him attending numerous memorial services, in a fashion that the text of the book lacks almost entirely. Also, there are no pictures of the deceased victims, save for one where Petit faces a portrait of his slain older daughter at a memorial service.
With so many aspects to this case and so many ways to approach it, this is not and should not be in any capacity the "definitive" book on this case. Hopefully with time, a far more competent author will step up to the challenge.
Notable: In the epilogue, a memorably pathetic opening reads as follows:
“On any summer day, far above Route 84, which climbs through south-central Connecticut, hawks wheel in the white sky. Perhaps now, only after the murders of that July morning in this bedroom community of Cheshire, Connecticut, does the appearance of the majestic birds seem ominous. The flight of the hawks is a reference, of course, to the most famous true crime story, that of a half century and more ago in Holcomb, Kansas.
I don't dare pretend that the previous pages approach the literary perch of Truman Capote's classic. Not by a long shot. But there are undeniable parallels in the two stories: a home invasion, members of a family terrorized and two mismatched ex-cons accused of the murders. They are similar also in the scar these two horrible events left on their communities. In the weeks and months, indeed, years, after that rainy morning of July 23, 2007, Cheshire remained a wounded town.” (pg 231)
I've yet to read In Cold Blood. But I can say this with assurance: it is far, far, far better than this bit of tripe. And simply because two cases share similarities does not suggest that the authors of the most famous books about the cases in any way share literary similarities, despite the false modesty of the author.
Hopefully a Truman Capote (or an Ann Rule) will take to this case and do it justice.
Title: In the Middle of the Night: The Shocking True Story of a Family Killed in Cold Blood by Brian McDonald
Details: Copyright 2009, St. Martin's Press
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "AN INNOCENT FAMILY
The affluent suburb of Cheshire, Connecticut, seemed like the perfect place for Dr. William Petit and his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, to raise their two lovely daughters… Until July 23, 2007, when, according to police, two ex-cons invaded the Petit home hoping to embark on a routine robbery-one that would ultimately prove deadly.
AN UNSPEAKABLE CRIME
What unfolded at 300 Sorghum Mill Drive was a tragic and horrifying sequence of events that shocked a community and made headlines across the nation. Before the morning was over, Mrs. Hawke-Petit and one of her daughters would be sexually assaulted, the entire house would go up in flames, and only Dr. Petit-his head bloodied, his legs bound-would manage to escape with his life. With the help of neighbors and local police, the two suspects were soon found and captured. Now, Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes await trial for murder
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I had heard about this story whilst consuming one of many forensics docs and the author of this book was briefly interviewed.
How I Liked It: I am horribly spoiled when it comes to true-crime literature. Just recently, two of the books I've read that can be said to be of the same style as this one ( The Stranger Beside Me and Columbine) are masterpieces of the genre. Still, that does not excuse this piece of shlock.
Just a cursory glance at the back cover should give you an idea (because sometimes, yes, you can tell a book by its cover). Unfortunately, when I went requesting the book from my library, I did not think to research the back cover. Or maybe I'd give it the benefit of the doubt? At any rate, the book manages to be even worse.
It's not so much that it's too sensationalized-- to be so, it would require far more substance. This book, churned out as quickly as possible, no doubt (at the time of publishing, there wasn't even a conviction yet), offers no real meat, save for perhaps a bit of backstory on one of the killers, thanks to jailhouse interviews and letters the author breathlessly describes scoring. His interviews with secondary characters are not of the crime, but of killer Joshua Komisarjevsky's life. Youth pastors, schoolmates, and other extras offer their opinions. This would be acceptable and even interesting if it was the framework for the details of the crime.
Of the victims, the author devotes a small, saccharine portrait; he spends far more time in painting Komisarjevsky (whose name pronunciation, the author helpfully explains in the first mention, is "Ko-mi-sor-JEFF-ski") in understandable, relatable terms.
The book doesn't offer many details of the crime itself, not even the more sensationalized aspects of an already made-for-horror case. The mother, forced at gunpoint to pull money from the bank (making an appearance on security cameras, nonetheless), the young daughters, one of whom fought her captors every step of the way, even managing to bravely escape her bonds several times, the sole survivor, the father, who picks up the pieces and starts a charity in the name of his lost loves-- all of these are barely secondary characters to the star of the show, Komisarjevsky. The author lingers (or perhaps gushes over) his intellect, his education, even his looks (when meeting Komisarjevsky in person for the first time, the author mentions to him how much handsomer he looks in person than in his mugshot).
As for the "eight pages of startling photos" splashed across the back covers, the photo leaflet inside the book is certainly startling in the sense that it devotes a great deal of time to lone survivor William Petit, including him attending numerous memorial services, in a fashion that the text of the book lacks almost entirely. Also, there are no pictures of the deceased victims, save for one where Petit faces a portrait of his slain older daughter at a memorial service.
With so many aspects to this case and so many ways to approach it, this is not and should not be in any capacity the "definitive" book on this case. Hopefully with time, a far more competent author will step up to the challenge.
Notable: In the epilogue, a memorably pathetic opening reads as follows:
“On any summer day, far above Route 84, which climbs through south-central Connecticut, hawks wheel in the white sky. Perhaps now, only after the murders of that July morning in this bedroom community of Cheshire, Connecticut, does the appearance of the majestic birds seem ominous. The flight of the hawks is a reference, of course, to the most famous true crime story, that of a half century and more ago in Holcomb, Kansas.
I don't dare pretend that the previous pages approach the literary perch of Truman Capote's classic. Not by a long shot. But there are undeniable parallels in the two stories: a home invasion, members of a family terrorized and two mismatched ex-cons accused of the murders. They are similar also in the scar these two horrible events left on their communities. In the weeks and months, indeed, years, after that rainy morning of July 23, 2007, Cheshire remained a wounded town.” (pg 231)
I've yet to read In Cold Blood. But I can say this with assurance: it is far, far, far better than this bit of tripe. And simply because two cases share similarities does not suggest that the authors of the most famous books about the cases in any way share literary similarities, despite the false modesty of the author.
Hopefully a Truman Capote (or an Ann Rule) will take to this case and do it justice.