A Death in Belmont (P.S.)

Sebastian Junger possesses a chilling photo. It is of himself, barely a toddler, sitting on his young and happy mother's lap. Behind them stand two men, one, an unexceptional looking workman has a hammer jutting out of his pocket. The other, the central figure of the photo, stands with one enormous hand across his mid-riff. The second figure is Albert DeSalvo, convicted Boston Strangler. It is impossible to look at this photo and not feel the horror of not only what happened when 13 Boston area women were murdered, but what could have happened that would have changed the author's life forever. Albert DeSalvo worked as a carpenter in the Junger home. Spent hours in their home alone with Sebastian and his mother. Seeing this photo, it is easy to see how the Boston Strangler case became an obsession with the author. Before the Strangler is apprehended an older woman is murdered in their neighborhood and a black drifter (Roy Smith) is tried and convicted of the crime. So as an adult Junger explores this murder in his neighborhood, researches the man that was convicted and sent to jail for it, as well as the other crimes committed by DeSalvo. His conclusions? Inconclusive. It is possible that Roy Smith was sent to jail for a crime committed by DeSalvo. But Smith's life is so pointless it is hard to feel much empathy for him. He drops out of school in the 8th grade, and begins living a petty life of drinking, occaisonal jobs, and crime. He lived his life in a way that almost begged to be of interest to police. Junger examines DeSalvo's life too, but not in enough new detail to make it interesting either. So by the time Junger publishes this book, DeSalvo is dead, Roy Smith is dead, most people associated with the Strangler case are dead. Some historic crimes and mis-application of laws are interesting. This is only mildly so and didn't warrant a new book on the matter. There seem to be many reviewers on this site who are very familiar with the Strangler's case. I am not one of those people. I am only someone interested in a compelling read, a cogent argument, a fresh insight, a thought provoking issue. I'm afraid none of these are to be found in this book. Open the fly-leaf, look at the photo, feel the horror it evokes, and move on.

A good procedural is something of a guilty pleasure for me, and it always adds something when the author has a personal interest (see Robert Drewe's The Shark Net for example). And Junger does set the scene well - he describes the fear generated in Boston by the Strangler in the early 60s very well. He describes the arrest and trial of Roy Smith in relation to the Belmont murder well, and tries to be as neutral as possible given the evidence rules in place at the time and the fact that most of the protagonists are now dead.
But then - it sort of peters out. The fact is, noone is really sure what happened that day in Belmont. Junger doesn't really add any new evidence. What indeed can he add? He has his opinion as to what happened, and its one that I probably share, but really its just his opinion. I was left somewhat frustrated by the lack of anything significantly new being added to the evidence and even more frustrated by the pop psychologist attempt to "explain" the motivations and psyche of the putative Boston Strangler, De Salvo. A character has complex of De Salvo needs a more serous treatment of his warped motivations than this.
In short, a book that falls short of the admittedly high standards it aspires to

On March 11, 1963, an elderly housewife named Bessie Goldberg was raped and murdered in her own home in a Boston suburb named Belmont. Her death was initially attributed to the Boston Strangler, but the only suspect that emerged was a black man named Roy Smith who had done cleaning work at the house that day and left perhaps an hour before the crime was discovered.

The evidence against Smith was circumstantial. He had clearly been at the scene and in a position to commit the crime. He may have left with a few more dollars in his pocket than his wages for the day's work, based on his expenditures over the next few hours. Finally, there was not much time for someone else to get into the house and commit the crime after his departure - nor were there any other identifiable suspects.

The police tracked down Smith and arrested him. There was a lengthy interrogation, in which he repeatedly insisted that Goldberg had been alive and well when he left the house. Neither then nor later did Smith fit the profile of a serial killer, although he had been involved in lots of other criminal behavior. So if he was indeed the killer, this particular crime was not the work of the Boston Strangler(s) who had committed some 13 other unsolved murders.

Smith was tried and convicted based on the above evidence, and sentenced to life in prison. He continued to maintain his innocence. Over a decade later, his sentence was commuted and he was released - only to die of lung cancer within a couple of days.

Meanwhile, a white man named Albert DeSalvo had confessed to the Boston Strangler killings - not including the murder of Bessie Goldberg, which was viewed as a solved crime even though it followed essentially the same script as the others. And, of particular interest to the author, Albert DeSalvo had been involved in a construction project at Junger's boyhood house - just a few blocks away from the Goldberg residence. DeSalvo was in their house for part of the day on March 11, 1963, and the next day a picture was taken at their house of DeSalvo, the contractor, Junger's mother, and Junger as a baby. Pretty sobering if DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler, as he would later claim to be, particularly as DeSalvo had once tried to talk Mrs. Junger into coming down in the basement.

The central issue of the book is who killed Goldberg, namely Smith or DeSalvo. Junger argues the evidence back and forth, delves into the backgrounds and psyches of both men, and ultimately suggests that the truth is unknowable at this point. Indeed, he muses, maybe the most interesting things about this story are not discovering the truth but "all the things that could be true."

Given the author's unique perspective and in-depth research, such a suggestion seems like a copout. Also, the narrative skips around in time and place, making it unnecessarily difficult to follow, and the coverage of the legal proceedings is not very thorough.

In short, this could have been a far better book than it turned out to be.

I don't have any information on the case other than what I read in this book, so unlike other Amazon reviewers, I can't challenge or confirm Sebastian Junger's facts. What I can say is this book wonderfully reported, brilliantly structured, and beautifully written. I can't wait to read Junger's next book!

From a master, this is more than just a true-life murder mystery, it is a commentary on the social fabric of its time. A masterpiece of suspense, journalism and story-telling told with clarity and substance. It will stay with you long after you have put it down.

I enjoyed this book because I love crime books. Junger's connection to this series of crimes was surprising and interesting. I have been reading about the Boston Strangler since I was a teen, so this book satiated my curiosity. Junger is a great writer! When I read it, I felt as if I lived in Boston at that time.

I could not put the book down, I was mesmerized from start to finish. How this man who wrote a famous and great tragic story was himself a part of such a larger-than-life infamous time frame and proximity. I highly recommend this story.

Somewhat overwritten analysis of a Boston area murder case that overlapped the Boston Strangler serial killer spree back in the '60s. To try to make up for the somewhat thin material, Junger delves into tedious explanations of the justice system and takes extended looks into social issues concerning race and class. This is no "Perfect Storm," if anyone is hoping that lightning has struck twice for this author. It's a competent book, just not especially interesting. I didn't bother to finish it because other better books came along.

Sebastian Junger is without a doubt one of the best journalists of our time. His writing is fluid, clear and easy to read, even when he is writing about deeply complex subjects. "The Perfect Storm" was - well, nearly perfect - and "A Death In Belmont" is close to that. It gives an alternative view of the Boston Strangler murders, and never says, outright, that Roy Smith was undoubtedly innocent; only that he was probably so. Still, his innocence was presented as pretty convincing, and I wept at the end of the book, that a good man had been unjustly kept behind bars. I wonder if his son ever knew of his father. In any case, I had just graduated high school when Bessie Goldberg was murdered; I lived in Newton, two suburbs west of Belmont, so it remains quite vivid in my mind, all that occurred. We were all a little spooked to think that the Strangler might have ventured forth into our verdant, middle-class world. Up to that point, he was mostly seen to have been killing women in the inner city. What's particularly amusing to me is that I was living in Rockport, Massachusetts (just north of Gloucester) during the "Perfect Storm" Junger writes about. So I got to experience, up close and personal, the events of both of his books. I knew people involved in the storm, and I knew people involved in the Goldberg investigation and the Massachusetts politicians and other officials in that book. I used to walk to the commuter train with Mike Dukakis in the early seventies, when I lived in Brookline, and I remember discussing the Strangler case with him one morning. Neither of us had any idea of the important role he would end up playing in Roy Smith's commutation process, however. Way to go, Mr. Junger - my hat's off to a fantastic writer - I enjoyed the book immensely.

Mr. Junger is a very successful writer and I have enjoyed some of his books. With this one, I feel that he was just trying to write another book but without enough material to make it a worthy book. Could we say he was doing another book to make more money. I found the book disappointing but read it all the way through thinking the mystery of who killed the lady would be settled. We still don't know.