Fresh on the heels of my review of the first real classic true-crime novel, In Cold Blood, I figured I would take a jump forward to the state of true crime today. I did that via Murder Beyond the Grave by James Patterson – yes, that same James Patterson famous for selling nearly 400 million fiction stories.

This book is actually a compilation of two different stories. Patterson explains that there are some minor tweaks to the voracity of the story from what actually happened, but those were done mainly in the real of imagining the content of conversations that would be impossible to verify.

I won’t give any spoilers about the stories themselves but I will say that I liked the first one more than the second. It kept me interested throughout and apart from the very abrupt ending, I enjoyed every word. The second story wasn’t as interesting but still very good.

I used to read a lot of true crime during a stint of fascination with psychopathy, but really haven’t read much of the genre recently. I don’t see myself jumping back in but it does make a nice break from reading educational/motivational/business-related books.

by Chris Doelle

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