Back in January of 1958 Charles Starkweather, age 19, and his girlfriend, Carol Ann Fugate, age 14, went on what was called a “killing spree,” an 18-day rampage of killing taking them through Nebraska and Wyoming. I vaguely remember the horrific news articles of the times; I was 11 years old.
Starkweather
by Harry N. MacLean – 2017
Read by William DeMerritt 13h 15m
Rating: 8.25 / true crime
Many books and films dealing with these events have been released since then, but this book, published in 2017 by Harry L. MacLean, has its own sensibilities. It’s so full – it reminds me quite a lot of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, very realistic, grim, and there are others like it. It has a strong western atmosphere but the reader knows this is no fantasy – even the fantasy of teens on a binge.
And this is different from your usual “true crime” book, too. Rather than present a standard tension builder with a new investigation of the newspaper reports and court documents and evidence, MacLean has chosen to provide the reader with a challenge: was she or was she not guilty as charged or were there “circumstances not fully understood or appreciated at the time? And there’s a certain melancholy involved.
Personally, I thought it was long with a lot of digression into background on various details, legalities and psychology. I was sometimes a wee bit dizzy from it but if you’re interested it’s definitely worth the read.
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