Read a few more true crime books and marvel at how many of the accused were lacking in fangs and were generally considered as "ordinary really, keeping to themselves". because it seems like Tupolski almost suddenly developing bisexuality along with a hankering for a male paedophile is sort of par for the course for Brendan. And when you close it, you will be left undecided about whether you have read something horrible, or something wonderful.

Early in the book, she confesses that she has fantasized about solving the question of whether to consume the work of a monstrous artist with an online calculator that could “assess the heinousness of the crime versus the greatness of the art and spit out a verdict: you could or could not consume the work of this artist. I want to be able to give myself over to a book, so Philip Roth’s magnificent biography of 20th century America, "American Pastoral’, "I Married a Communist" and "The Human Stain" picked me up, held me entranced whilst I read it and put me down, changed. But when they get there they find some obstacles in their path – whether that’s the fog goblins, disgruntled ghosts, some very odd loch monsters and even a rival monster hunting agency.

I thought it was interesting and clever that the book focuses on the couple rather than what was inflicted on the child, it really conveyed both their weird obsession with each other and complete lack of empathy for anyone else. Though Brendan and Sherilyn's flashbacks to their time together are as effective as ever, she then piles on the nasty and cheap plot devices. The problem with this book is not necessarily that it deals with grim and upsetting subject matter, although I can see that this in itself could be enough to put a great many people off. I read this one when it first came out, when I was 13-14 and going through my "look at me I'm so edgy and angsty and different from all you other teenagers" phase, which meant that I couldn't resist a book about a couple who torture and murder their 3-year-old child.

This is definitely not a book for everyone, even for those with a strong stomach and dreamless sleep. Had I read this book a couple of years ago, it may not have gripped me the way it did but now, having had a baby, it horrified me. I would recommend this to very few of my book reading friends, particularly parents, it's very hard to stomach some of the content (and I read some heavy stuff), but books containing child abuse and child murder and paedophilia are just not the type of thing I would recommend to most people. Why does Sherilyn briefly look so relieved when somebody else does something as simple as wipe her daughter's nose? I find, however when in the throes of writing that I can barely read – not from any fear that I might imitate another author, more that I need to inhabit my own unfettered mind.Vecinii, părinții, prietenii, colegii de munca, toți, rând pe rând își aștern gândurile și impresiile despre uciderea Samanthei, dar in acelasi timp isi dezvăluie la rândul lor, problemele pe care le au. With a cacophony of quirky characters tumbling tirelessly from her imagination, she is one of the South West’s most prolific talents. We know that Brendan and Sherilyn practice some BDSM stuff, but I was pretty weirded out by the sudden introduction of Brendan's apparent bisexuality (I guess?