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74 reviews for:
The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths are Solving America's Coldest Cases
Deborah Halber
3.18 AVERAGE
74 reviews for:
The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths are Solving America's Coldest Cases
Deborah Halber
3.18 AVERAGE
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
The book jumps around a lot which was mildly confusing, and some parts read like a bad detective novel. Overall, an enjoyable read
An interesting view into the history of web sleuths and some cold case solves. I don't think it was meant to be "a history of" style book but listening to it in 2021 about the technology of and hurdles regarding the 2010 (most recent date I believe the book mentions and the copyright is listed as 2014) point of view kind of turns it into one. The style feels a little bit of a mix of first person and stream of consciousness which is a little different but the characterizations and descriptions of the places and people the author is describing paints a vivid mental picture. I think the topic is very fascinating and the true crime side of my brain appreciated the details of the cases that were being talked about in context. I think it's a decent read for someone wanting a true crime fix that's not quite as heavy as a lot of other true crime media tends to be.
I received this book as a Goodreads First Read.
When I first read the description, I assumed it was a researched-based book on missing person cases: I was wrong.
The book was way more anecdotal than expected, and the stories jumped around too much - I found myself going back to remember what happened, or wanting to know what happened next, but not sure when I would know the answer. Although the book is very anecdotal, Ms. Halber is very passionate on the subject and it shows throughout the book.
I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in the topic, but looking to dip their toes in the pool rather than diving head first.
When I first read the description, I assumed it was a researched-based book on missing person cases: I was wrong.
The book was way more anecdotal than expected, and the stories jumped around too much - I found myself going back to remember what happened, or wanting to know what happened next, but not sure when I would know the answer. Although the book is very anecdotal, Ms. Halber is very passionate on the subject and it shows throughout the book.
I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in the topic, but looking to dip their toes in the pool rather than diving head first.
Difficult to follow the jumbled organization of this book. The stories of everyday “arm-chair” detectives solving cold cases could be really intriguing, but the author’s style didn’t hold my attention.
I loved this book. I’m someone that’s maybe a little too obsessed with true crime. I figured the people featured in this book were probably similar to me. Maybe the kind of people who started out watching a lot of Investigation Discovery in their spare time and it snowballed from there. That’s not the case. A lot of them began investigating because there was a local unsolved case that they couldn’t forget about. Some had family members or friends disappear and it pulled them into a labyrinth of other families and friends searching for people too. These sleuths are not really finding out the whodunit of cases. They’re instead solving bodies. They examine descriptions of unidentified bodies—some decades old—and match them up to missing persons reports. (This a simplistic description and doesn’t really convey the true scope of the hours of research and investigation they do.)
The book itself is a little jumpy and disjointed. There are a lot of people and a lot of unidentified bodies mentioned throughout and it would be hard to keep them straight anyway, but Halber has a tendency to make cosmic leaps through space and time without much warning. I got mightily frustrated at first (GIRL STAY ON TASK, PLZ) because it bounced around every 10 pages or so. Luckily Halber discovers the power of a cohesive narrative about halfway through and we became friends again.
Something this book drives home again and again is that there are an obscene amount of unidentified/unclaimed bodies in this country. Some are buried unceremoniously, some are reduced to bones shoved in a banker’s box in the back of a police station storage room. The estimated numbers in the book are mind-boggling. I can see why these armchair sleuths get sucked in. Don’t these people have someone, somewhere wondering where they went? They have to, right? It’s very sobering.
After reading this book, I looked up how many unidentified bodies have been found in Maryland since 2000. 15 women. 65 men. I clicked on a random woman, aged 25-27. She was assaulted. She had been dead for months when she was found. I hope someone finds out who she is. I hope her family gets to say goodbye.
And that’s why I’m glad Deborah Halber wrote this book. I hope these unsung detectives keep doing their good work. They deserve this recognition (and more) for all the years of research they do to try and bring people home to their loved ones.
The book itself is a little jumpy and disjointed. There are a lot of people and a lot of unidentified bodies mentioned throughout and it would be hard to keep them straight anyway, but Halber has a tendency to make cosmic leaps through space and time without much warning. I got mightily frustrated at first (GIRL STAY ON TASK, PLZ) because it bounced around every 10 pages or so. Luckily Halber discovers the power of a cohesive narrative about halfway through and we became friends again.
Something this book drives home again and again is that there are an obscene amount of unidentified/unclaimed bodies in this country. Some are buried unceremoniously, some are reduced to bones shoved in a banker’s box in the back of a police station storage room. The estimated numbers in the book are mind-boggling. I can see why these armchair sleuths get sucked in. Don’t these people have someone, somewhere wondering where they went? They have to, right? It’s very sobering.
After reading this book, I looked up how many unidentified bodies have been found in Maryland since 2000. 15 women. 65 men. I clicked on a random woman, aged 25-27. She was assaulted. She had been dead for months when she was found. I hope someone finds out who she is. I hope her family gets to say goodbye.
And that’s why I’m glad Deborah Halber wrote this book. I hope these unsung detectives keep doing their good work. They deserve this recognition (and more) for all the years of research they do to try and bring people home to their loved ones.
This book was amazing. It had me in it's grip from beginning to end, never actually straying into territory that would lose my interest. As someone who loves all those CSI and Bones-type shows, learning about this internet revolution in cold case solving was fascinating. The fact that people spend their free time searching for answers for distraught family members says something, I think, about people in the 20th and 21st century, when most people abhor what's "become of the world". A must read for any mystery or CSI enthusiast!
emotional
informative
mysterious
I had highly anticipated reading this for a long time. A friend and former work colleague and I had talked about our fascination with cold cases and how they are solved. I had figured I would recommend this to her once I finished it, but I can't do that. It just didn't hold my interest, and I fell asleep numerous times. Essentially, the book looks at how websites and amateur sleuths are working to solve cold cases whose solution hasn't been possible before the Internet. Parts of this were compelling. It's touching, after all, when families get closure after decades of wondering whatever happened to a loved one.