HarperCollins, May 2004, 25.95, 329 pp.
ISBN: 0060083263
Writer Miles van Meter is on tour promoting his best selling true crime story Sleeping Beauty. The successful book fascinates the public as it provides an account of convicted killer Joshua Maxfield's murders and collateral damage that includes the author's sister.
Click here to see the rest of this review
Miles states that in Portland, Oregon, Joshua killed Norman Spencer in the latter's home and raped and murdered high school student Tanya Jones, a friend of Spencer's daughter Ashley, who managed to escape safely. Ashley's mother, reporter Terri fortunately was away at the time of the crime. The killer also got away.
Terri encourages her daughter to move on by coaxing her into going to the Oregon Academy where she takes a creative writing workshop taught by Joshua Maxfield. When the instructor reads a murder tale to the class, Ashley recognizes what she hears as too close to home and informs the Dean, who happens to be Mile's sister Casey van Meter. Not long afterward, Ashley finds Miles holding a bloody knife over Terri's still body with an unconscious Casey nearby. Joshua is arrested, but escapes, putting the fear for her life in Ashley.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
