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A review by mburnamfink
The Dead Girl in the Bathtub by Lisa DePaulo
3.0
So Chuck Peruto is running for Philly DA in 2021, and has a section on his website titled "About the Dead Girl in the Bathtub", which is usually what we'd call a big yikes. This longform article (40 pages) is on Kindle Unlimited, so I decided to see what was up.
And the answer is, not much. Peruto is a major Philly defense attorney who parties as hard as he works, and has had a string of 20 something girlfriends, all brunette knockouts. Julia Law was the latest model, a paralegal at his firm. But Julia had a complex life. She'd previously dated another lawyer at the firm, and a had a longstanding relationship with an anonymous older man. On top of that, she was an alcoholic, who was likely in the midst of a relapse. And one night when Peruto was at the Jersey Shore, she drowned in his bathtub.
DePaulo skips through the messy drama, but doesn't much get at the psychology of anyone involved, except perhaps Peruto who has a type for pretty, broken girls, and who really isn't husband material. Julia herself is a cipher, a joyful person who died a sad death, and I wish DePaulo had talked to more of her friends.
There's a B plot, about a potentially mishandled investigation by the Philly police into her death, and the weird way Peruto reacted, which was heartbroken but also for a defense attorney dumb as a box of rocks. True crime isn't really my genre, and this isn't much of an example.
And the answer is, not much. Peruto is a major Philly defense attorney who parties as hard as he works, and has had a string of 20 something girlfriends, all brunette knockouts. Julia Law was the latest model, a paralegal at his firm. But Julia had a complex life. She'd previously dated another lawyer at the firm, and a had a longstanding relationship with an anonymous older man. On top of that, she was an alcoholic, who was likely in the midst of a relapse. And one night when Peruto was at the Jersey Shore, she drowned in his bathtub.
DePaulo skips through the messy drama, but doesn't much get at the psychology of anyone involved, except perhaps Peruto who has a type for pretty, broken girls, and who really isn't husband material. Julia herself is a cipher, a joyful person who died a sad death, and I wish DePaulo had talked to more of her friends.
There's a B plot, about a potentially mishandled investigation by the Philly police into her death, and the weird way Peruto reacted, which was heartbroken but also for a defense attorney dumb as a box of rocks. True crime isn't really my genre, and this isn't much of an example.