In the spring of 1963, the quiet suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts, is rocked by a shocking sex murder that exactly fits the pattern of the Boston Strangler. Sensing a break in the case that has paralyzed the city of Boston, the police track down a black man, Roy Smith, who cleaned the victim's house that day and left a receipt with his name on the kitchen counter. Smith is hastily convicted of the Belmont murder, but the terror of the Strangler continues.
On the day of the murder, Albert DeSalvothe man who would eventually confess in lurid detail to the Strangler's crimesis also in Belmont, working as a carpenter at the Jungers' home. In this spare, powerful narrative, Sebastian Junger chronicles three lives that collideand ultimately are destroyedin the vortex of one of the first and most controversial serial murder cases in America.
"Starred Review. This perplexing story gains an extra degree of creepiness from Junger's personal connection to it." - PW.
"An intriguing crime story that also contains painful truths about race and justice in America." - Booklist.
"A meticulously researched evocation of a time of terror, wrapped around a chilling, personal footnote." - Kirkus.
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Sebastian Junger is the New York Times bestselling author of Tribe, War, Freedom, A Death in Belmont, Fire, and The Perfect Storm, and codirector of the documentary film Restrepo, which was nominated for an Academy Award. He is also the winner of a Peabody Award and the National Magazine Award for Reporting.
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Link to Sebastian Junger's Website
Name Pronunciation
Sebastian Junger: Yuung-ger
He who opens a door, closes a prison
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