The murder of an innocent is tragic under any circumstance, and my heart goes out to surviving family, friends and acquaintances of the victim.

HOWEVER….

Victims are not required to be above reproach or flawless in order to be mourned, nor is the death of an average, unremarkable person any less tragic. Elizabeth, may she rest in peace, was preened about as the paragon of virtue, and her bereaved family was portrayed as the pinnacle of perfection. Never, in my vast reading of the genre, has a family been so profusely idealized and played up. The whole family, while sympathetic, came off as clannish. The book represents them in a cloying, syrupy light, which to me, came off as sanctimoniousness.

Somehow, their thoughts, feelings, anguish, hatred, outrage, shock, and mumbled prayers became the true focus of this book. We’re subjected to one emotional breakdown after another – from every family member – ad nauseam. One wonders if the author didn’t just relinquish his laptop to one of the sisters – or all of the sisters – while in the throes of their grief, because that’s how most of this book reads.

Look, I understand everything this family is going through. My 18-year-old brother was murdered and justice was NOT served in his case. I understand the grief, outrage, frustration….all of that. I don’t understand why any family would allow such a self-serving exhibit of their familial grief or why any author would want to intrude on it and parade it around. It’s obscene and it made them surprisingly unsympathetic.

This book tries SO HARD to idealize the victim and her blood relatives, that it made me question the author’s objectivity, judgment, and motive for writing the book in the first place.

Obviously, we want justice for victims of crime, and I trust the villain (which is the caricature offered by the author of Rick DeCaro) got what he deserved. But it’s unnecessary to resort to portraying these real-life human beings with both flaws and virtues, as one-dimensional characters in a Lifetime TV drama.

This book was long, trite, uninteresting, inappropriate, smarmy, and alarmingly biased. I do not recommend it if you are a person who enjoys actual true crime, but if you’re someone who enjoys emotionalism and interpersonal drama, then yeah….give it a go.