From the Bookshelf of Bookmarks Subscribers …

Longtime journalist, mystery writer, and Wyoming native Ron Franscell has penned a true-crime book reminiscent of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood or, more recently, Terri Jentz's Strange Piece of Paradise (**** Sept/Oct 2006) and Sebastian Junger's A Death in Belmont (*** July/Aug 2006). Fall serves as a grim reminder of ubiquitous violence, and the author's journalistic style__clear, cogent, and compelling__makes for a readable, sometimes gripping, narrative. While some critics find that Franscel

Longtime journalist, mystery writer, and Wyoming native Ron Franscell has penned a true-crime book reminiscent of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood or, more recently, Terri Jentz's Strange Piece of Paradise (**** Sept/Oct 2006) and Sebastian Junger's A Death in Belmont (*** July/Aug 2006). Fall serves as a grim reminder of ubiquitous violence, and the author's journalistic style__clear, cogent, and compelling__makes for a readable, sometimes gripping, narrative. While some critics find that Franscell only haltingly succeeds in connecting the crime to his own childhood in Casper, Karen Algeo Krizman points out that, as a testament to the depth of evil and an elegy for a simpler time, Fall "delivers a crackling story of lives and innocence lost."

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.