Review: Guilty or Not
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 1, 2013
Clearly, Betty shot and killed her former husband, but did he, by stripping her of all that defined her--social position, money, marital status, home, and children--did he leave her no options?  The author has looked at every angle of this convoluted case, and although he makes every effort to be fair, the reader feels throughout that he wants our sympathy to be with Betty. We see most clearly into her mind and heart, while the minds and hearts of Dan and his new wife Linda remain mysterious.Or is there ever a justifiable reason to sneak into someone's home in the middle of the night and shoot and kill two people who were sleeping? Probably not. And yet by this point in the book we are so aware of Betty 's tortured mind that we can almost believe this was all she could do.Dan lies to her for over two years, insisting there is no other woman--why she must be crazy!  This seems unusually cruel, but why would she not have him followed--or investigate for herself. Yet we realize Betty believes what she wants to, never really giving up her belief that he will always be her husband--even after he has finally left her and remarried.This is a captivating story. The lure of big money and high society clashing against human baseness and frailty. One finishes this long missive wondering what hope there is for any of us--especially when we lose those higher values of love, selflessness, and human dignity. The things that can keep us so together that we can not be pushed far enough to lose them.