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tanja_alina_berg 's review for:
Helter Skelter
by Gentry Curt, Vincent Bugliosi
Almost twenty years ago I read "And the sea will tell" by the same author. I very badly wanted to read "Helter Skelter" then, but I was unable to get my hands on it. I'm not sure I knew it was about Manson and at any rate, at that point in my life, I had no idea who he was. The years passed and it this book slipped my mind - until I was reminded of it on goodreads and immediately downloaded it to my kindle, putting the increasingly annoying fantasy I was reading to the side.
I can't say I knew much about Charles Manson and his "Family" prior to picking this up. I knew that the murders committed had caused fear - I don't think it had dawned on me that Roman Polanski's pregnant wife was one of the victims. I've seen the "Fearless Vampire Killers" and remembered Sharon Tate from there. I also googled here when I started reading "Helter Skelter". It made me sick to my stomach. The Tate and Labianca murders were truly atrocious - all victims stabbed multiple times and some of them even after they were dead. Words were written on the walls with the victim's blood. Sharon Tate was eight months pregnant, but no amount of begging for her own and her baby's life could help her.
Bugliosi makes a fine point in illustrating the fear, what happened and the incompetence of LAPD. For example, a little boy finds the gun used in the crime and is very careful not to leave prints on it - the officer who came to pick up left his prints all over it. The bloody clothes discarded were found by a television crew months afterwards. The case against Charles Manson wasn't strong and that he could have had such influence of the female members of his "Family" to make them murder for him was hard to believe. Manson's twisted schemes are laid bare and a motive in the senselessness introduced - the victims were strangers.
Bugliosi is not a sensationalist. This is a factfilled, long and rather dry book. Except for where it's stomach-twisting revolting, but that is in presenting Manson's handiwork. The crimes are presented, the members of the Family and the case is slowly built. The trial takes much of the book. The epilogue and the afterward recaps what happened with the people involved afterwards. Definitely worth reading.
I can't say I knew much about Charles Manson and his "Family" prior to picking this up. I knew that the murders committed had caused fear - I don't think it had dawned on me that Roman Polanski's pregnant wife was one of the victims. I've seen the "Fearless Vampire Killers" and remembered Sharon Tate from there. I also googled here when I started reading "Helter Skelter". It made me sick to my stomach. The Tate and Labianca murders were truly atrocious - all victims stabbed multiple times and some of them even after they were dead. Words were written on the walls with the victim's blood. Sharon Tate was eight months pregnant, but no amount of begging for her own and her baby's life could help her.
Bugliosi makes a fine point in illustrating the fear, what happened and the incompetence of LAPD. For example, a little boy finds the gun used in the crime and is very careful not to leave prints on it - the officer who came to pick up left his prints all over it. The bloody clothes discarded were found by a television crew months afterwards. The case against Charles Manson wasn't strong and that he could have had such influence of the female members of his "Family" to make them murder for him was hard to believe. Manson's twisted schemes are laid bare and a motive in the senselessness introduced - the victims were strangers.
Bugliosi is not a sensationalist. This is a factfilled, long and rather dry book. Except for where it's stomach-twisting revolting, but that is in presenting Manson's handiwork. The crimes are presented, the members of the Family and the case is slowly built. The trial takes much of the book. The epilogue and the afterward recaps what happened with the people involved afterwards. Definitely worth reading.