A review by marselli
The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery by Bill James, Rachel McCarthy James

2.0

This is a fine book if you already are familiar with the Villisca or Midwest axe murders. If you aren’t, prepare for some confusion. The organization of information left me asking myself what was even being talked about? I’m fairly familiar with the more famous cases covered in the book but, the author calls forward and back so many times I’m not sure he convinced me of the murderer or even of the actual timeline of events. A lot of other cases and killers are brought in and serve only to muddy the waters.

Though I feel like my rating doesn’t accurately reflect my feelings because at some times I felt like I couldn’t finish this book (if it wasn’t an audio book I probably couldn’t have finished it, that’s how boring at those points) and other times I enjoyed it just fine. It wavered between no stars and 3.