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A review by cornerofmadness
The Kill Jar: Obsession, Descent, and a Hunt for Detroit's Most Notorious Serial Killer by J. Reuben Appelman
3.0
I received this from Goodreads in a giveaway but that did not influence my opinion on this. It's hard to review this (and in fact it took me quite some time to get to this point for which I apologize. I do try to review ARCS quickly). As a true-crime book, this isn't my favorite. As memoir, it works but that's probably not what it's meant to be.
It centers on The OCCK ( The Oakland County Child Killer), a series of rape/murders in Detroit in the late 70s. The author was nearly kidnapped there himself in this time period which makes for an understandable compulsion for Appelman to dig into this case. However, it feels almost like we're looking at his raw notes. This isn't a clean progression from the first crime to the conclusion. It's all over the place as if we're seeing things written just after he interviewed whoever the short chapter was about. There's not much depth to it.
To be fair there isn't a conclusion. What is clear there was a pedophilic ring in action here (I've seen TV true crime shows with interviews of some of the surviving victims). One of the pedophiles was wealthy enough to maybe buy some justice but ends up dead in the world's most suspicious suicide (read, he was murdered but it was written off). Appelman (and some of the victim's family members) all buy accuse some of the cops of being dirty, and while there is a suggestion of it, there isn't a whole lot of proof (to back up all the names that were named).
The rest of the book is pure memoir, him talking about his abusive upbringing, his disintegrating marriage (I'd be curious what his kids think of all this), the drug-addicted ex girlfriend he dances around as he investigates this case, his own near abduction, his alcoholism, his iffy relationship with his kids and his sister.
It's a raw and oddly compelling read as a memoir. It was much less satisfying as a true-crime book.
It centers on The OCCK ( The Oakland County Child Killer), a series of rape/murders in Detroit in the late 70s. The author was nearly kidnapped there himself in this time period which makes for an understandable compulsion for Appelman to dig into this case. However, it feels almost like we're looking at his raw notes. This isn't a clean progression from the first crime to the conclusion. It's all over the place as if we're seeing things written just after he interviewed whoever the short chapter was about. There's not much depth to it.
To be fair there isn't a conclusion. What is clear there was a pedophilic ring in action here (I've seen TV true crime shows with interviews of some of the surviving victims). One of the pedophiles was wealthy enough to maybe buy some justice but ends up dead in the world's most suspicious suicide (read, he was murdered but it was written off). Appelman (and some of the victim's family members) all buy accuse some of the cops of being dirty, and while there is a suggestion of it, there isn't a whole lot of proof (to back up all the names that were named).
The rest of the book is pure memoir, him talking about his abusive upbringing, his disintegrating marriage (I'd be curious what his kids think of all this), the drug-addicted ex girlfriend he dances around as he investigates this case, his own near abduction, his alcoholism, his iffy relationship with his kids and his sister.
It's a raw and oddly compelling read as a memoir. It was much less satisfying as a true-crime book.