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A Death in Belmont
by Sebastian Junger
Product Group: Book
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (2006-04-18)
ISBN: 0393059804
EAN: 9780393059809
Dewey Decimal #: 364.1523097444
Binding/Media: Hardcover - 320 pages
Edition: 1
SKU: 70918082
Condition: Used: Like New
Comments: Sold with pride. Gently read copy in like new condition.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
A fatal collision of three lives in the most intriguing and original crime story since In Cold Blood. In the spring of 1963, the quiet suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts, is rocked by a shocking sex murder that exactly fits the pattern of the Boston Strangler. Sensing a break in the case that has paralyzed the city of Boston, the police track down a black man, Roy Smith, who cleaned the victim's house that day and left a receipt with his name on the kitchen counter. Smith is hastily convicted of the Belmont murder, but the terror of the Strangler continues.
On the day of the murder, Albert DeSalvo—the man who would eventually confess in lurid detail to the Strangler's crimes—is also in Belmont, working as a carpenter at the Jungers' home. In this spare, powerful narrative, Sebastian Junger chronicles three lives that collide—and ultimately are destroyed—in the vortex of one of the first and most controversial serial murder cases in America. .
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Amazon.com Review
Imagine how strange and frightening it would be to see a picture of yourself, not quite a year old, with your mother and two men, one of whom is a confessed serial killer. This is what happened to Sebastian Junger, and only a small part of what he recounts in A Death in Belmont. The quiet suburb of Belmont, Massacuusetts, is in the grip of fear. The Boston Strangler murders have taken place nearby, and now there is another shocking sex crime, right in Belmont. The victim is Bessie Goldberg, a middle-aged woman who had hired a cleaning man to help out around the house on that fall day in 1963. He is a black man named Roy Smith. He did the appointed chores, collected his money and left a receipt on the kitchen table. Neighbors will say that he looked furtive when he walked down the street, that he was in a hurry, that he stopped to buy cigarettes, that he looked over his shoulder. They didn't see a black man in Belmont very often, so, of course, they noticed him. So the story went, and on these slender threads, and his own checkered history, Roy Smith is convicted of the Belmont murder and sent to prison. On the day of the murder, Albert DeSalvo, an Italian-American handyman, is also in Belmont, working as a carpenter in the Junger home, where the picture is taken. Two years after his work for the Jungers, he confesses in vivid detail to the crimes of which the Boston Strangler is accused, and sent to prison, where he is stabbed to death by an inmate. But he never confesses to the Bessie Goldberg murder. Could he have left the Junger home, committed the murder a few blocks away and calmly returned to finish his day's work? Could Roy Smith really have been the guilty party, even though his sentence was commuted after De Salvo confessed? In the grand tradition of his bestselling The Perfect Storm, Junger tells a terrific story, lining up all the elements, asking all the pertinent questions, digging into the backgrounds of both men, retelling his mother's very strange encounter with Albert when she is home alone with Sebastian. He then asks the larger questions: Was Roy Smith convicted summarily because he was black? Was Albert De Salvo really the Boston Strangler? Junger cannot answer all the questions, as no one can. Without DNA, there is no way to be certain of which of the two men might have committed the rape and murder of Bessie Goldberg, or if neither of them is guilty. While it is frustrating not to know for sure, the story is fascinating, reads like a tautly plotted mystery thriller, and Junger's close connection is downright creepy. --Valerie Ryan
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Customer Reviews
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Personal book, but flawed research
Rating  (3)
Date: 2010-05-04
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I find the book interesting, but frustrating.
Junger questions about whether it is possible that DeSalvo falsely confessed to being the Boston Strangler, yet never once refers in the text or in his short afterword, to any of the body of reseach on false confessions.
He tries to analyze Roy Smith's statement to police, referring to Inbau and Reid's Criminal Interrogation and Confessions as "a classic law enforcement manual" (which it is), but again without apparently reading any of the numerous critiques of the method's assumptions and conclusions. Indeed, Junger refers without attribution to "controlled studies" claiming that police can tell liars from truth-tellers with 72 to 86% accuracy. (p. 239) Other studies, such as those by Kassin show that trained investigators are largely inaccurate. See Kassin, On the psychology of confession: Does innocence put innocents at risk?, 60 AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST 215 (2005); Kassin & Fong, "I'm Innocent!: Effects of training on judgments of truth and deception in the interrogation room, 23 LAW & HUMAN BEHAVIOR 499 (1999); Kassin, Goldstein, & Savitsky, Behavioral confirmation in the interrogation room: On
the dangers of presuming guilt, 27 LAW & HUMAN BEHAVIOR 187 (2003).
At another point, Junger questions whether Bottomly intentionally or inadvertently cued DeSalvo in adminstering a photographic lineup of victims. (p. 227) Junger seems to dismiss this theory out of hand, again, without any reference to research into non-blind identifications and concerns raised about inadvertent cues given to witnesses acting in good-faith by investigators who know which images are distractions and which are suspects (or in this case victims).
These issues, unfortuantely, raise questions about Junger's research and conclusions in other areas. His connection to the case, and his belief in Smith's innocence and DeSalvo's guilt, is interesting, but not as strong as it might have been with better research.
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one of the best
Rating  (5)
Date: 2010-04-26
Unbelievable
Boston Strangler
Work programs for poor people
Southern guy in the North
Convicted on Nov. 22, 1963 in Boston of murder
Dukakis 's work release program and the convict
Work done on author's house
Picture at your own house of the Boston Strangler
And they are all casually mixed in this brew
Stephen King could not make this up.
I listened to the audio tape
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Ultimately failing to accomplish much of anything
Rating  (2)
Date: 2010-04-03
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
According to this book, Sebastian Junger's mother was a very fortunate woman. Left alone with Albert Desalvo, a handy man doing some work at her house, she walked away unscathed. Not everyone left alone with the alleged Boston Strangler was thought to be so lucky. Junger uses this episode and some slim conjecture to create this oddly constructed book. Using such disparate odds and ends as the trial of a man named Roy Smith who was convicted of a"Boston Strangler" style crime to what ends up being a book trying to be a commentary on law enforcement, the justice sytstem the media, and race relations in the 1960's. Smith's trial has evidence that moves from airtight to what Junger perceives is a less than convincing circumstances and Junger uses this to relate the Smith's trial and conviction, without enough evidence to support his position, to Albert Desalvo's. It is a meandering sort of book, bouncing between Smith's trial and life story to a look at the various murders attributed to Desalvo. An examination of Desalvo's life; while also investigating the nature of serial killers and the aftermath of Desalvo's arrest and Smith's conviction are also all part of the mix. With this lack of focus, the book has an undefined feel; as if Junger just decided to write about what intrigued him at that time and then attempted to tie it all together by the end. An effort I found he was unsuccessful at. The book has its compelling sections, but as a whole it is a failed effort.
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A fascinating, in-depth look at the Boston Strangler murders
Rating  (4)
Date: 2010-03-15
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
On March 11, 1963, a woman by the name of Bessie Goldberg was murdered in the surburban town of Belmont, outside Boston, Mass. "A Death in Belmont" examines her death, along with flashbacks and asides about the U.S. justice system, U.S. law, and related crimes. Sebastian Junger, the author, has a personal interest in the subject matter of this non-fiction book. He lived in the same neighborhood of Belmont as Bessie Goldberg when she was murdered and possibly even met the real Boston Strangler in his own house.
Junger not only gives the reader an account of the Boston Strangler's grisly murders from police and newspaper reports, but he also draws from his personal life and times, having grown up during that time and area. He then mixes in U.S. and world history events such as the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Vietnam War, giving us a sense of the pulse of the nation while the murders were occuring. He uses all of this information to weave together a story of sorts that jumps around piecing together "the big picture" for the reader.
I enjoyed that the book wasn't just all about the Boston Strangler murders. Junger used the cases of the Boston Strangler as an outline, but then gave us a history of the city of Boston (and Belmont), included an education about legal terms and trial proceedings to help us understand what was going on with the investigations and trials, and let us peek into his childhood memories.
Before reading "A Death in Belmont," I had heard of the Boston Strangler, but didn't really have much knowledge of the crimes and resulting trials because all of the murders occurred before I was born. Junger's book was an eye-opener, and the ongoing mystery of the crimes parallels those of Jack the Ripper.
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Falls short of high standards
Rating (3)
Date: 2010-02-14
A good procedural is something of a guilty pleasure for me, and it always adds something when the author has a personal interest (see Robert Drewe's The Shark Net for example). And Junger does set the scene well - he describes the fear generated in Boston by the Strangler in the early 60s very well. He describes the arrest and trial of Roy Smith in relation to the Belmont murder well, and tries to be as neutral as possible given the evidence rules in place at the time and the fact that most of the protagonists are now dead.
But then - it sort of peters out. The fact is, noone is really sure what happened that day in Belmont. Junger doesn't really add any new evidence. What indeed can he add? He has his opinion as to what happened, and its one that I probably share, but really its just his opinion. I was left somewhat frustrated by the lack of anything significantly new being added to the evidence and even more frustrated by the pop psychologist attempt to "explain" the motivations and psyche of the putative Boston Strangler, De Salvo. A character has complex of De Salvo needs a more serous treatment of his warped motivations than this.
In short, a book that falls short of the admittedly high standards it aspires to
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