Review: The Boston Strangler

The Boston Strangler by Gerold Frank
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

From 1962-1964, thirteen women were sexually assaulted and murdered, strangled to death by an unknown assailant. This book chronicles the resulting manhunt.

I'm mentioned several times that I'm not really into true crime. I prefer my murders to be fictitious. After enjoying the shit out of True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray, I decided to give true crime another chance.

Well, I still prefer my crimes to be the made up ones but this was a pretty engaging read. The writing was breezy and it did a good job of presenting each suspect as a believable candidate for being the Boston Strangler. One by one they were introduced and dismissed.

I found it interesting that psychics were consulted and police thought the strangler had to be more than one man. The descriptions of the murders wore on me. I can read about fictitious murders all day long but I feel a little squeamish when they're real. Maybe I'm too sensitive for true crime. It also made me a little paranoid. If I didn't have a dog, I probably would have made sure the back door was locked a couple times.

Since I spoiled the ending for myself by looking up the case on Wikipedia before opening the book, I eventually got kind of bored with it and started skimming but that was no fault of the book or the writing.

While it didn't make me a true crime convert, I did enjoy The Boston Strangler. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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