Cold Kill
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Average rating3
15
Ratings2
Average rating3
Olsen has another winner in his account of the 1984 double murder of Texas lawyer James Campbell and his wife Virginia by their daughter Cindy and her lover, David West. It is a somewhat unusual true-crime study, not because the case was broken by a private detective rather than the police and not because the final disposition of the case is not included, but, rather, because of its searching psychological depiction of the killers. The analysis of the daughter suggests that she was a classic sociopath, a pathological liar incapable of any emotion or thought that did not involve her self-interest, unique in a close and loving family. The lover was far more complex, a weak man, an ex-Marine, who desperately wanted to appear strong, a man chivalrous toward women and uniformly unsuccessful with them. Their story makes for shattering reading.
Reviews with the most likes.
There was way too much internal dialogue—beyond the pale. This was a true crime book, not a novel. I cannot believe that David West was able to report that much of his inner life to Jack Olsen. Were it not for Kevin Pierce's superb narration of the audiobook, I would have bailed.
Plus, the book was supposed to be about the killer couple, not about the male of the couple and the wacky but well-meaning PI that caught him. So very odd.
