Bone Crusher
Rosencrance, a veteran crime reporter, recounts the terrifying case of Larry Bright, an ex-con and drug addict who, over a period of about 15 months in 2003–04, murdered at least eight women. The killing spree was stopped only because another intended victim managed to escape. While the author doesn’t shy away from graphic language—her descriptions of Bright’s crimes are unsettlingly frank—her overall tone is objective and reportorial. This is not one of those trashy, sensationalized paperback quickies; it’s a solidly documented story about a man who committed horrifying crimes and the dedicated investigators who put him behind bars. Like an episode of CSI or Law & Order, the book focuses primarily on the investigation itself: we see police putting the evidence together, talking to people who knew Bright, building an airtight case. Rosencrance may not be as well known as, say, Ann Rule or Jack Olsen, but she writes as well as those veteran true-crime authors. --David Pitt