Monster

Repetitive. Needed a good editor to pull this together. There's too much needless information in every direction. Persons in the story give their renditions over and over again. This author just doesn't know when to stop. Less is more and a gifted writer can weave a riveting tale; it took effort to finish this book.

Additionally, while possible victims are introduced to the reader, only one is the MAJOR focus of the book. While Cher Elder's murder is worthy of remembrance in a book (as all victims are), the expectation is that a "serial killer" has serial victims who will share the spotlight. Additionally, one young lady who is presented in the beginning of the book as one of the victims of the killer has different DNA than the suspect by the end of the book and so may not belong in the book after all.

This is a bad dude who belongs in prison, no doubt about it. I'm just not sure I understand what he's done entirely from this book. Yes, he beat women. He killed Cher Elder. A few women he's been seen with he may or may not have done something to. I finished the book and I'm still not clear.

There's seems to be ambiguous feeling on the author's part about Snider, the girlfriend: She loves him, she testifies, no- she's not cooperating, she's a victim too, etc. Let me help you out - she's a psycho herself and should have been charged as an accessory. She obstructed the investigation and lied to investigators. A psychiatric nurse is she? What a joke.

This is a well-researched, fairly well-written book. However, you might find almost too much information in this long, 540-page narrative. Most of the book’s middle 200 pages consist of reports of the endless, round-about equivocations issuing from the suspect’s associates. The principal investigator of the case spent over two years tracking through a maze of these conflicting statements made in connection with the disappearance of one victim in particular. The gist of some of the conflicting statements elicited was:

“I don’t know anything about Luther or any body.”
“I never saw Luther that night.”
“I followed Luther to the burial site. I was curious. He didn’t see me.”
“I just drove Luther to the mountain when he wanted to bury the body deeper.”

And then over again. After about 50 pages of this, I was tempted to just skip ahead to see if Luther, or anyone, was brought to justice for the crime. Those middle pages seemed a rather dreary slog through the lives of petty criminals, inveterate liars, and those whose primary goal in life was evasion of one kind or another. However, in the end, I didn’t skip over any of this, and I’m glad. This painted a picture of the endless frustrations many investigators probably go through on their way to extracting a grain of truth about any crime. The cumulative effect of all this is to demonstrate how really unexciting, unglamorous the life of crime and crime investigation can be. It serves as a good antidote to CSI-style quick, dramatic resolutions.

The book picks up again toward the end when the author recounts the jury’s deliberations and their frustration with one hold-out. Then this edition has an 2013 "Update" epilogue that tells the reader what has become of some of the main people involved in the commission and investigation of these crimes.

Here and throughout the book, author Jackson includes verbatim conversations and interviews that took place over the years. How could he have known what was said, word-for-word? One sometimes suspects that many of these conversations have to have been guessed at or imagined, which tends to cast just a shade of doubt on the general veracity of this account.

However overall, these pages become a lesson in how twisted human psychology can be. They illustrate the oddity of people willing to be loyal to the very worst individuals – to be loyal to them, and even to protect them and love them. In a larger sense, this book becomes a lesson in our capacity for bizarre, self-defeating psychology - for delusion, self-deception, and deadly deceit.

Excellent book. Could not put it down. Not familiar wuth this author. Will purchase more books by him. I felt like I was right there. Very detailed. A great read.

Great book since Ann rule passed away was looking for another true crime author that can keep u on the edge of your seat and he did just that with monster just start his book bogeyman

Too much yaddayadda get to the facts

The book was a decent read but as others have stated in their reviews, dragged on about 100 pages too long. I finally gave up about 75-80% in...just couldn't read it anymore. Too much was repetitive. I would read this author again though. Had not heard of Thomas Luther before so was interested in the subject matter also. His girlfriend, Debrah Snider, is the epitome of a weak woman. I would not be able to stand her in real life and feel that she should've been charged as an accessory of sorts. I will likely loan this book to others.

I bought this for all the good reviews but dang....I just could not follow it. Call me slow, that's fine. However, the lack of character development and inclusion of millions of different characters had me turning back pages to see to whom he was referring. I found it confusing and way too much detail in what, in my opinion, were things that did not add much to the story.

This probably could have been a good book with more development on prime characters and a lot of silly details left out. My 0.02

Book is difficult to read. Printer put book together with one page over lapping another to where you can't see next page . I won't buy a book published by this company again...not worth the strugglie

This is such a good book I have yet to put it down ,it has been so fascinating not only giving the view of the victims but the ppl who supported the perpetrator, the lover who herself was a psychologist smart enough to know better yet stupid in love not willing to let go of the Monster she called" the only man who made her feel special "holding on to the ridiculous notion she could change him .Tom Luther the perpetrator was a sick pathetic pos that like most criminals cried the "poor me " game and told so many lies he himself couldn't see straight .The dedicated investigator Richardson takes you into his life along with the ups and downs of dealing not only with Luther but others who were bound and determined not to man up but play the cowards game over and over and stall the justice their victims deserved .I am so impressed by this book I can't wait to read "Boogeyman" and dive yet into another world of Steve Jackson .

This got pretty long and confusing, and by the time I got to the court case, I just skimmed through to get to the end.