The sheriff's office in Ohio's Amish country recorded back in 1977 that Ida Stutzman, wife and mom, died of injuries related to a barn fire. For most of her community, though, there were doubts that there wasn't any foul play. And for Gregg Olson, author and sleuth, this case stank of murder. Having already written one book about the case thirty years ago, he revisits the crime to try and provide justice for Ida with the assumption that instead of dying in a fire, Ida was somehow killed by her husband Eli.
First, I should mention that I honestly have very little interest in the genre, I think I've read like five true crime books in my entire life, so my baseline for judging the form itself isn't very sophisticated. The ones I've read just felt like general nonfiction and this one is more like a glorified journal where we are walking along with Gregg during every step of his investigation - we are interviews with him, on phone calls, feeling all his feelings with him and always making connections to his previous book. I found myself really wanting to know what happened to Ida and the look into Amish life was interesting. However, I feel like it could've been significantly shorter and still told me what I needed to know. I completely gave up on keeping all but the most frequently referenced names straight. It is unbelievable how many people we encounter in this book with the exact same or similar names.
I read this one because I got it as a free offering from Amazon First Reads and I thought I'd try something different but I can't say this has made me want to read more true crime. If I did, I'd try a different author.
sensitive content: child abuse, lgbtq violence, sexual descriptions, language
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