Publishers Weekly said...
This fast-paced account of the murder of three young teenage boys in Chicago in 1955 reads like a Law and Order SVU episode. Despite an intensive investigation and a series of promising but ultimately false leads, the case goes unsolved for 40 years, until a breakthrough leads to a man (Kenneth Hansen), who is charged and convicted. Though the conviction is reversed on appeal five years later, the suspect is retried, convicted and sentenced to 200–300 years for each death. Jack, the lead police detective on the case who followed the investigation for more than four decades, brings an authentic voice and a Mickey Spillane style to this account. But the book falls apart in its last third, at the second trial. Although there is testimony against the suspect, it is relatively weak (one of the witnesses is a married ex-boyfriend of the accused with a criminal record) and is recalled long after the events. Critical readers may begin to mistrust the narrator, who is convinced of Hansen's guilt and the strength of the evidence. The book's subtitle doesn't help, either: the investigation includes some other sexual offenders, but there is never a sense that a broader conspiracy is at play here. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
ALA Booklist said...
Jack was the first detective called in on a shocking triple murder in Chicago in October 1955. Three boys from a nice North Side neighborhood disappeared after walking downtown to a Sunday night movie. Their nude, beaten bodies were found in a forest preserve. Despite massive media attention and the efforts of several law-enforcement agencies, for weeks, then months, then years, police had no solid clues, and eventually different detectives entered the investigation. Jack and several others kept abreast of developments. In the mid-1990s the case broke. Aging miscreants who were dubbed the "sleazy four" came forward to identify the pedophile--onetime stable hand Ken Hansen--who picked up the boys and killed them when they resisted molestation. Jack's manner is straight out of Dragnet, with a twist. Parts 1 and 2 are straight narration, with perhaps a little too much procedural detail. Part 3 essays re-creating the transcript of Hansen's trial. Though heavy sledding at times, Jack's report documents the horror of a crime that developed into many Americans' first exposure to the pedophiliac criminal underground. Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved.
— Mike Tribby