The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns

The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns Edited by Mitzi Szereto

The Best New True Crime Stories Small Towns
Edited by Mitzi Szereto
 
This is another collection of true crime stores put together by Mitzi Szereto.  Each story is by a different author making the flow and pace of the book different with each new crime you explore.  The personality and personal experiences come through in each of the author’s chronicle the crimes of these individual very small towns.
 
And they are small towns.  These are the towns that people joke about and say, “Don’t blink as you drive through or you’ll miss it.”  (I live near a number of those towns.)  And for some reason, people seem to think that the worst crimes or even just crime in general only happens in heavily populated, dense metropolises that are always buzzing with high diversity levels and every kind of business you can imagine open all the time, etc.  Nobody ever thinks these kinds of things happen in a nice and quiet small town where everybody knows everybody.  The kind of town that most families have someone that enters the “Famous Annual Best Squash Pie Contest” or something like that.  The celebrate the first crop of the town and make Town Hall announcements of marriage instead of printings in newspapers or declarations online.
 
But the truth is, wherever there are human beings there will be crime and there will be crime of all sorts and on all levels.
 
In this particular book, which is a sister book to The Best New True Crime Stories: Serial Killers, we explore the crimes that left such kinds of small towns in a trembling wake after being terrorized by certain circumstances.  Although this book was well written and I found it interesting, it wasn’t as satisfying or as captivating as the serial killer book.  Some of stories came off as bland and at least one was more about the author himself than the actual crime committed or the town.
 
I had really been looking forward to this book after the serial killer edition had been such a success in my eyes, but once through this one I felt a little disappointed and let down.  I think I also expected a different level of crime maybe.  These just didn’t strike me as crimes so horrid and fascinating to be put under the heading of The Best New True Crime Stories.  I think that title gives a very high expectation and for this particular book it fell just a tad flat for me.
 
RATINGS
3.5/5 Stars