The Dartmouth Murders by Eric FrancisMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
On January 27, 2001 an expected dinner guest walked into the eerily quiet home of Dartmouth professors Half and Suzanne Zantop. To her horror she discovered their bodies lying in pools of blood in their study, which was torn apart as though a storm had ripped through it. This book describes the crime from this step forward. The investigation that for more than two weeks went nowhere, but covered a great number of leads and avenues. The backgrounds of the Zantops, the Dartmouth community, the Etna community in which the murders occurred are thoroughly exposed and studied.
Then, a break, the knives used to brutally savage their bodies were no where to be found but the two sheaths that came with them were left at the scene. With the dogged pursuit of sales records, at last the investigation narrowed to two teen-aged boys in the nearby town of Chelsea, Vt. Upon interviewing them and taking boots and fingerprints it was determined that they were prime suspects. Realizing police were closing in on them the boys made a run for it--but returned home within days. But still feeling threatened they once more ran off, this time making it all the way to Indiana, hoping to reach California. The remainder of the book covers the investigation into the boys, their backgrounds and the police tracking that led to their arrest and incarceration. The book ends at that point--with the trial of one of them in the offing and the testimony of the other against him and a plea deal as a result.
Living between the two locations, having taught in Chelsea, though not at the time of the murders, this book was of particular interest to me. It did not fail to detail exactly what happened at the time, at least so far as the public was informed as these things progressed. As good as any novel about murder and its solution. If you like mystery you will like this, though the fact that it is not fiction will be horrifying.
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