Category 2: A book of true crime
Who killed my daughter? The startling true story of a mother’s search for her daughter’s murderer
Author: Lois Duncan
Publisher: Open Road Media
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: August 28th 2012 (first published 1992)
Page count: 354
Genres: true crime, nonfiction, mystery, paranormal
Page count: 354
Genres: true crime, nonfiction, mystery, paranormal
Date read: November 17, 2018
Number of times read: 1
Format: ebookSource: Kobo
Summary
On July 16, 1989, Lois Duncan’s daughter was chased down and shot to death in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After the police abandoned all leads, Duncan refused to give up her search for the truth.
In this tragic memoir and investigation, Lois Duncan searches for clues to the murder of her youngest child, eighteen-year-old Kaitlyn Arquette. Duncan begins to suspect that the official police investigation of Kaitlyn’s murder is inadequate when detectives ignore her daughter’s accidental connection to organized crime in Albuquerque. When Duncan loses faith in the system, she reaches out to anyone that can help, including private investigators, journalists, and even a psychic. Written to inspire other families who have lost loved ones to unsolved crimes, Who Killed My Daughter? is a powerful testament to the tenacity of a mother’s love. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lois Duncan including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection. -- via Goodreads
On July 16, 1989, Lois Duncan’s daughter was chased down and shot to death in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After the police abandoned all leads, Duncan refused to give up her search for the truth.
In this tragic memoir and investigation, Lois Duncan searches for clues to the murder of her youngest child, eighteen-year-old Kaitlyn Arquette. Duncan begins to suspect that the official police investigation of Kaitlyn’s murder is inadequate when detectives ignore her daughter’s accidental connection to organized crime in Albuquerque. When Duncan loses faith in the system, she reaches out to anyone that can help, including private investigators, journalists, and even a psychic. Written to inspire other families who have lost loved ones to unsolved crimes, Who Killed My Daughter? is a powerful testament to the tenacity of a mother’s love. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lois Duncan including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection. -- via Goodreads
Review
This is one part true-crime saga, one part emotionally driven memoir, and one part narrative nonfiction about psychic phenomena. Being so many disparate things you might not expect a cohesive whole, you would be forgiven for thinking that, because you wouldn't be wrong. It's not entirely cohesive. Overall, it's written in a very narrative style and sometimes you can forget you're not reading one of Duncan's YA suspense novels. But this is very much nonfiction, it's about the as still unsolved murder of Lois Duncan's youngest daughter. A situation very much, as Duncan herself points out, that could have been directly ripped from the pages of one of her works. Indeed there are some eerie precognitive moments in some of her earlier works that are creepily correlated to circumstances surrounding Kait' murder.
Those parts of the book where Duncan is talking directly about the facts of the case, or where you get to experience the pure raw emotion of her as a mourning mother are the best parts of the book. And then she completely breaks the flow by inserting long, rambling, really hard to follow transcripts from a psychic. Yes, a psychic, Duncan and her family consulted with more than one psychic when they weren't getting anywhere with the police. Now, I am not a sceptic, never have been, but these readings drove me nuts. One of the psychics they consulted did something called automatic writing and the transcripts from those automatic writing sessions are the ones that are included in their entirety. They are so hard to read and follow that they really detracted from the book for me.
The investigation itself was so completely botched you can't help but be completely enraged about it. You can very much sympathise with what Duncan and her family went through and why they did the things they did. Now that's granted that one of the biggest criticisms about this book is that it is one-sided so you do need to consider that. From what I've read the sequel Duncan wrote later delved more into actual evidence from the investigation but I haven't read that yet so I really can't comment on that claim. Just be aware that this book doesn't have an ending, like the leads in the case it just kind of peters out.
If you're a fan of Lois Duncan's fiction then this will be a fascinating and truly emotional read for you. If you're interested in a look at psychic work in a police investigation this could be a good choice. If you're looking for a hard-hitting true crime story then this is not what you're after. And definitely, don't read it if you don't like books that don't have an ending.
This is one part true-crime saga, one part emotionally driven memoir, and one part narrative nonfiction about psychic phenomena. Being so many disparate things you might not expect a cohesive whole, you would be forgiven for thinking that, because you wouldn't be wrong. It's not entirely cohesive. Overall, it's written in a very narrative style and sometimes you can forget you're not reading one of Duncan's YA suspense novels. But this is very much nonfiction, it's about the as still unsolved murder of Lois Duncan's youngest daughter. A situation very much, as Duncan herself points out, that could have been directly ripped from the pages of one of her works. Indeed there are some eerie precognitive moments in some of her earlier works that are creepily correlated to circumstances surrounding Kait' murder.
Those parts of the book where Duncan is talking directly about the facts of the case, or where you get to experience the pure raw emotion of her as a mourning mother are the best parts of the book. And then she completely breaks the flow by inserting long, rambling, really hard to follow transcripts from a psychic. Yes, a psychic, Duncan and her family consulted with more than one psychic when they weren't getting anywhere with the police. Now, I am not a sceptic, never have been, but these readings drove me nuts. One of the psychics they consulted did something called automatic writing and the transcripts from those automatic writing sessions are the ones that are included in their entirety. They are so hard to read and follow that they really detracted from the book for me.
The investigation itself was so completely botched you can't help but be completely enraged about it. You can very much sympathise with what Duncan and her family went through and why they did the things they did. Now that's granted that one of the biggest criticisms about this book is that it is one-sided so you do need to consider that. From what I've read the sequel Duncan wrote later delved more into actual evidence from the investigation but I haven't read that yet so I really can't comment on that claim. Just be aware that this book doesn't have an ending, like the leads in the case it just kind of peters out.
If you're a fan of Lois Duncan's fiction then this will be a fascinating and truly emotional read for you. If you're interested in a look at psychic work in a police investigation this could be a good choice. If you're looking for a hard-hitting true crime story then this is not what you're after. And definitely, don't read it if you don't like books that don't have an ending.
Overall Rating
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| 3.5 bolts |
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