I only got this one because it was part of a subscription package and I also thought I’d read and enjoyed the author prior. Had I checked my own blog, here, I would have realized I’d never read anything by Glatt before and the narrator the same – never heard of him.  The samples weren’t anything to further my interest – lol.

The Family Next Door:
The Heartbreaking 
Imprisonment of the 
Thirteen Turpin Siblings 
and Their  
Extraordinary Rescue
by John Glatt / 2019  
Read by Shaun Grindell 8h 1m
Rating –  6/10 – / True Crime 

In all honesty I’d followed the actual story from the time it broke the news in LA. I lived just up the road a couple hundred miles so it was of general interest.  Ever since Ann Rule’s books of the 1990s I have enjoyed the “true crime” genre.  Some of it is excellent stuff these days, including literary value, and although that was likely NOT true in the 1990s, it’s become more true with the years. This book, otoh, is only worth those parts of the whole tale you’re not familiar with.  And it does tie up some ends I suppose.  This is NOT Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (published in 1966).  

Louise and David Turpin of Princeton, West Virginia married young, relocated and started a family. Being a computer engineer, David had good job prospects so they eventually settled their 13 children in Paris, California.

Homeschooling helped cover their tracks but it was in Paris when Jordon was 17 years old that Jordon escaped, told the police and life for the Turpin children changed forever.

I was not particularly interested in the first 2/3rds or so, although there was plenty I hadn’t read or seen somewhere.  What was interesting to me was how, after the rescue, the neighbors came together for the kids – heartwarming! And then came some basic hospital and recovery time.followed by the trials.

I think my primary reason for reading this was to find out how everyone is doing today, after some basic hospital and recovery time. 5 yeas later.

Bottom line? – Although some parts were very interesting, the book as a whole wasn’t really worth the bother.  The narratoronly made things worse.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpin_case

and many photos on the internet.