I would have liked to know more about any profiling used to try and identify the killer during the intervening years. Frankly, I was a bit surprised that the perpetrator was actually convicted on the strength, or lack of strength, of that evidence there wasn't much, or if there was, it wasn't brought forth in the book. The crime itself was heinous, not solved for 30 years while it languished waiting for DNA testing to develop to the point where it could be used on the evidence. The trial was covered, but not in excruciating detail (if you're a transcript aficionado, you won't find any of that here.) The style is journalistic/police report, but with appropriate coverage of the emotional destruction the crime caused. It follows a typical true-crime pattern, mostly chronological, although with some disjointed segments that I found hard to follow in the second half. I settled on 5 stars for this reason: this book concentrates on the impact of this crime on the friends, relatives, and acquaintances of the victims in detail, dealing with the perpetrator factually but without sympathy, which is as it should be. I went back and forth a bit about whether to rate this book 4 or 5 stars. If someone knows the rule I am talking about I would appreciate. How come they get the benefit of not being caught sooner? That is so weird. I have come across this rule and it is mostly of benefit for the criminals.

The killer committed a crime as a teenager and the lawyer had the audacity to ask that he (40 years old now or so) would be held as a juvenile because that was what he was if he had been caught. One thing I find very weird of American law is that when a criminal is not immediately caught, but let's say years later they a lot of time profit from that. Mum was always going out to the bar and left Tina alone or with a friend as a teenager. The author did not say it but I did feel Tina was not being raised very well. Only thing annoying was that he sometimes called people by their first names and then by their last names and you know how bad I am with names, it did confuse me for a while. Again an old case (it seems lately I have read a lot of old case tc books) but I thought it an interesting read and not boring.

Tina faelz cold case files