African American Literature, America, Book Reviews, Creative Non-Fiction, FOUR STARS ****, NON FICTION
In the early 60s the Boston Strangler attacked, murdered, and then raped eleven women in and around the city. A black man with a criminal record was arrested, tried, and convicted for the murder and rape of the aged Bessie Goldberg on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Years later a shady handyman who worked in Junger’s home while his mother was home alone with him admits to the murders, also without providing concrete evidence. Junger recounts the stories of the two potential murderers and leaves it to the reader to draw conclusions. The story is more terrifying than any fictional murder mystery and simultaneously a strong lesson in the principles of the rule of law: better to have ten guilty men walk free than a single innocent man wrongly convicted. September 2008.