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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
Hands down the scariest thing I have ever read.
In addition to the chilling material, the book is well paced and kept me in the edge of my seat. It is also an illuminating look at our justice system from the inside. Very well done.
In addition to the chilling material, the book is well paced and kept me in the edge of my seat. It is also an illuminating look at our justice system from the inside. Very well done.
Entertaining. Sadly not very accurate. A lot of embellishments and straight up inventions by the author. Also some casual misogyny and racism. All in all was fine but I wouldn’t give it the same credence as other true crime books.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
I hate true crime. I hate true crime books. I hated this books glimpse into that mentality. This book haunted me for years. I only read it because an ex owned it and we were too broke to afford tv. I hate true crime books even more. Still gave it five stars because they did a great job with this book and it's spooky shit.
This was a difficult read. Not just because of dark (very dark) subject matter, but also the book is quite dense. If you’re looking for a lot of details on the Manson murders from the search for suspects all the way through to the sentencing, this is a great book. However, you can certainly get bogged down by the details, and it’s hard to find a momentum for reading this. I found it the most effective to read in small chunks, which was time consuming.
In literature a murder scene is often likened to a picture puzzle. If one is patient and keeps trying, eventually all the pieces will fit into place. Veteran policemen know otherwise. A much better analogy would be two picture puzzles, or three, or more, no one of which is in itself complete. Even after a solution emerges—if one does—there will be leftover pieces, evidence that just doesn’t fit. And some pieces will always be missing.
With sincere apologies to Phil Thoden, my good Goodreads friend who hates true crime, this book deserves its ranking as one of the greatest true crime novels of all-time. HELTER SKELTER: THE TRUE STORY OF THE MANSON MURDERS by Vincent Bugliosi details the horrific 1969 Tate-La Bianca mass murders in Los Angeles, California, in a way that I'll never forget.
By now we know most of the grisly details of the crimes, seared as they are in the zeitgeist of 1960's lore. Charles Manson and his "family" went on a two night murder spree in Los Angeles. It started on August 9th, 1969, with the slaughter of the 8 1/2 month pregnant actress Sharon Tate (wife of director Roman Polanski, who was traveling overseas) and four others in her home, followed by the murder of the Leno and Rosemary La Bianca a night later. In both cases, the perpetrators used the blood of the victims to smear words on the walls of the murder scenes, including the bizarre (and misspelled) term, "Healter Skelter." The phrase would become one of the most important pieces of evidence used to convict Manson and his murdering cohorts, referring to Manson's hope that the murders would spark a race war.
Judgment Day, Armageddon, Helter Skelter—to Manson they were one and the same, a racial holocaust which would see the black man emerge triumphant. “The karma is turning, it’s blackie’s turn to be on top.” Danny DeCarlo said Manson preached this incessantly. Even a near stranger such as biker Al Springer, who visited Spahn Ranch only a few times, told me he thought “helter skelter” must be Charlie’s “pet words,” he used them so often.
While I am a fan of crime fiction and true crime, I wouldn't normally seek out a book like this. Believe it or not, I don't enjoy violence. Instead, I am intrigued by its causes and reverberations - how a violent and unexpected event has the power to expand outwards, larger and larger, like a rock thrown into a still pond.
Recently, I read a top five list of greatest true crime novels of all time and this was cited as one of the best. After reading it, I have to agree. This is the second best true crime novel I've ever read, preceded closely by IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote. What makes this book so powerful is the perspective of its author, Vincent Bugliosi,who served as the prosecutor against Manson and the other perpetrators. The first 1/3 of the book is all that is dedicated to the crime. The rest is dedicated to the prosecution of it. I would imagine that any aspiring lawyer, especially in criminal defense, would love to read the ups, downs, ins and outs of a high profile murder case like this one.
The other reason why I loved this book is that it explains a bit about the world I came into in the late 1960s. When I think back to the events that were happening in November 1967 onward, I can hardly believe how frightening it must have seemed to my parents, bringing a baby into the world. This is a book about the dark side of sex, drugs, and (yes) rock and roll (the term Helter Skelter coming from the Beatles White Album). I remind myself of this every time I think about how chaotic and frightening the world seems today; it's nothing compared to the late 1960s.
A view that's enjoyed some currency is that the murders represent a watershed moment in the evolving social structure of our society. This view holds that the Manson case was the "end of innocence" (the '60s mantra of love, peace and sharing) in our country, and sounded the death knell for hippies and all they symbolically represented. In Joan Didion's memoir of the era, THE WHITE ALBUM, she write: "Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969.... and in a sense this is true."
It took me just over 3 months to finish this book, with a nearly 2 month hiatus in the middle. It contains all the information you will ever need to know about the Manson murders; a truly exhaustive look into The Family, the murders, the trial, and post-trial. Very good but a VERY hefty read!!
Dear god don’t bother, I read this because I wanted to understand the crimes, and the only thing to conclude is there is no understanding. It’s incredibly detailed, as the sheer book length suggests, and SUCH a slog. I didn’t necessarily expect to enjoy this, what with the subject matter, but I also didn’t expect to actively dread reading it due to its tediousness either. There’s no method to the madness of the crimes and there are far better reads out there, for the commitment required to get through this absolute chonker of a book I really wouldn’t bother.