The Strangler
by William Landay
Bantam/Delacorte, HK$187
It was one of the most shocking cases of its time. Between June 14, 1962, and January 4, 1964, 13 single women in the Boston area were murdered by either a single serial killer or possibly several killers. The deaths of at least 11 of the women were attributed to the Boston Strangler.
Although the police didn't regard all of the murders as the work of a single individual, the public did. All of the women were murdered in their flats, had been sexually molested and were strangled with articles of clothing. With no signs of forced entry, the women apparently knew their assailant (or assailants) or voluntarily let them into their homes. These were respectable women who, for the most part, led quiet, modest lives.
Even though nobody has officially been tried as the Boston Strangler, the public believed that Albert DeSalvo, who confessed in detail to each of the 11 Strangler murders, as well as two others, was the killer. With William Landay's new thriller, all doubts are fully explored.
To call this 'just' a book about the Boston Strangler, despite the title, is to do it an injustice. Landay's carefully paced tale is primarily the story of three Irish-American brothers from a hard-working cop family. Joe, the eldest, is the muscle and a crooked lieutenant on the local force; Michael, the middle son, is a thinker and a lawyer; Ricky, the youngest, is a charmer, trickster and top- class burglar.