Deadly Obsession

Joseph Bosco compiled a huge body of evidence researching a true crime, known as the baseball bat murder, outside of New Orleans in 1984. The story's prinicipals are the victim Janet, married to Kerry and his closest friend Bill. After 560 pages, several grand juries and two trials, the reader is not so much left with the question of "whodunnit," but where did the passion and fury come from to inflict such brutality.

These characters are not upper crust Louisiana but lower middle class, struggling to buy a house and keep a job. Although all three went to college, they never made any use of their talents. Janet was the youngest child in a strict home and went wild from her first day on campus. Kerry never met the expectations of his father and resented him for divorcing his mother. Bill was just too cool and too slick, with a schtick for attracting girls and keeping score.

There was domestic violence in Janet and Kerry's marriage but friends who noticed that pattern since college described it as almost foreplay. Admittedly Bill added Janet to his tally and Kerry must have discovered them together and gone beserk. But the main tension and mystery of the book is why he stayed at the scene of the crime for hours, why he had blood splatter patterns more extensively on his clothes, and the biggie -- did the two guys conspire to cover for each other.

This book is sordid, not for any sex or lust, but rated X for violence. Bosco piles up mounds of taped interviews, chapters of opinions from friends, family members and fellow workers. Court testimony is quoted verbatim. Back office discussions from both defense and prosecuting attorneys lay out their plans for presenting their side of the case. No one cracks, no one explains what really happens.

In his introduction, Bosco says he writes to leave it to the reader to decide who is guilty. As hard and inconclusive as that is, I am left thankful that I was not a juror. My steady diet of murder mysteries has trained me to believe that motive will be as apparent as physical clues. And aren't I searching for "motive" anyway this year, reading why people fall and stay in love? There is no mystique in this book, and as a result, Janet, Kerry and Bill are all less than human.