RRP: £12.99 Pages: 1050 True Crime/Biography Paperback
I did my best. I really did. I wanted to read this book, and found I just couldn't get past page 350. And that was fairly easy to do until page 300 when it just seemed to slow down so much it was like wading through sticky treacle sauce - just couldn't seem to go any faster, any easier.
To begin with, the book was easy and quick off of the mark. It gave the background of the main character - Gary Gilmore - who the book is about. And that was interesting and easy to read. However, after he got arrested, the book took a downward turn in that it went into too much detail. It was kind of like reading the encyclopedia cover-to-cover instead of just picking out the interesting bits. I always thought that books with lots of info would be good to read, but this once gave way too much. I personally felt it did not need to go into so much detail. For some readers, this might work, but not for me unfortunately.
In the summer of 1976 Gary Gilmore robbed two men. Then he shot them in cold blood. For those murders Gilmore was sent languish on Death Row - and could confidently expect his sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment. In America, no one had been executed for twn years.
But Gary Gilmore wanted to die, and his ensuing battle with the authorities for the right to do so made him into a world-wide celebrity - and ensured that his execution turned into the most gruesome media event of the decade.
Maybe I will try and read this book again in a few months. It is well-written, but just not to my taste at the moment as too hard to really concentrate well on. And this book needs the concentration and the focus on details!
Rating - 7 out of 10
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