Purchased for book club.

I liked this book way better than I would have thought! I found a bunch of non-fiction this year -- me! hater of non-fiction -- that I really liked. I was out of town when the BBC read this, but since I'd bought it anyway, I decided to read it. Who knew how much I'd like it?

Of course, I read it quite a while ago and can hardly remember what I wanted to write in this journal entry ...

This book read like fiction, and although it's about a fairly grizzly murder, it was still fascinating and hard to put down.

I marked multiple spots and can't remember why I marked any of them. Here's one, though, which talks a bit about the humanity in this book:

Cullivan probed, trying to gauge the depth of what he assumed would be Perry's contrition. Surely he must be experiencing a remorse sufficiently profound to summon a desire for God's mercy and forgiveness? Perry said, "Am I sorry? If that's what you mean -- I'm not. I don't feel anything about it. I wish I did. But nothing about it bothers me a bit. Half an hour after it happened, Dick was making jokes and I was laughing at them. Maybe we're not human. I'm human enough to feel sorry for myself. Sorry I can't walk out of here when you walk out. But that's all." Cullivan could scarcely credit so detached an attitude; Perry was confused, mistaken, it was not possible for any man to be that devoid of conscience or compassion.

At one of my book clubs recently, a friend mentioned she liked true crime books, so I'm lending this to her. The problem is we only meet once a month and I forgot it last month, so I'm putting it by the door now, regardless of when we meet again!

Ha! I just read the previous entry. NOW I'm lending this to that friend :)