Reviews with content warning for Death - Helltown: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod

If you read this as a fiction book with a few facts, it’s interesting, though a little chopped up.
Because the author meshes facts with fictional convos, it is hard to determine which are real facts based instances and which are fictional. So it should not be read as true crime.

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hhanock's review

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dark tense medium-paced

4.5

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elizabethjane's review

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dark informative sad slow-paced

3.5

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avidreaderandgeekgirl's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

2.5

I don't think authors should narrate their own books most of the time, but this author did okay. However, the book was at least 5 hrs too long with all the Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonget stuff. Also, the gruesome narrator of the crimes was graphically described WAY too many times, it was just over and over again. I did appreciate the amount of research the author put into the book, but I probably wouldn't recommend this book. It's simply just too long!

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theoceanrose's review against another edition

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The background information on the killer was interesting, but there was so much that seemed irrelevant that it was frustrating.

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ceeemvee's review

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

2.25

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This was a very hard book to get through. The author is the nephew of 19-year old Mary Sullivan, the last and youngest victim of The Boston Strangler. Sherman’s previous books are predominantly true crime. I thought that perhaps his style would center more on the criminal mind and the trial proceedings, however, there were some very graphic and gruesome descriptions of the murders which are repeatedly referenced.

We begin on Cape Cod in the late 1960’s, where young women are starting to disappear. While there is some effort on the part of law enforcement, the disappearances are attributed to the drug and counter culture mantra: turn on, tune in, and drop out. But then their bodies begin to surface. The common denominator is Tony Costa, who will soon be arrested, convicted, sentenced and commit suicide in his cell.

The author fictionalized Costa’s relationships with the women, as well as the actual murders. Costa always maintained his innocence, blaming others as well as an alter ego, and Costa’s conversations with his alter ego are also fictionalized. The details are gruesome, and they are again repeated in the court proceedings. Once was enough. My feeling is that the author should have noted up front, not at the end of the book, that this is a work of fact told with elements of fiction storytelling. That left me wondering what parts were true, and why the author didn’t just market the book as a fictionalized account based on a real event.

There are also so many side stories which give us a sense of the times, yet are not directly relevant to the case itself. We have stories of Charles Manson, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Mary Jo Kopechne’s fateful night with Ted Kennedy and the Apollo 11 moon landing. There are also in-depth biographies of Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer, both residents of the area that wanted to write about the case. While the author could have touched on all of these subjects, it was just way too much information, and fictionalized information perhaps.

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amandas_bookshelf's review against another edition

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dark informative sad medium-paced

3.0

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