Dead in the Water

An “intimate” account of a double murder by a man once suspected as being the Golden State Killer (O, the Oprah Magazine,“20 Best True Crime Books”). In 1978, two tortured corpses—hooded, bound, and weighted down with engine parts—were found in the sea off Guatemala. Junior doctor Chris Farmer and his girlfriend, Peta Frampton, were still clinging to life when they were thrown from the yacht they’d been crewing. Here is the gripping account of how Chris’s family worked alongside police, the FBI, and Interpol to gather evidence against the boat’s Californian skipper, Silas Duane Boston. Almost four decades later, in 2015, Chris’s sister, Penny, used Facebook to track down Boston. Following the detailed, haunting testimony of his own two sons—who also implicated their father in a string of other killings—Boston was finally arrested and charged with two counts of maritime murder. A story of homicide on the high seas, Dead in the Water is also a tale of a family’s fortitude and diligence in tracking down a monster. “A real-life page turner more intriguing than anything on Netflix.”—Mail on Sunday “A heartbreaking tale of familial love and a sister’s hunt for justice. There are numerous twists and turns which would be disturbing if they were woven between the pages of a novel let alone as part of a true story.”—The Tattooed Book