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Read Echoes In The Darkness (1987)

Echoes in the Darkness (1987)

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Rating
3.74 of 5 Votes: 4
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ISBN
0553269321 (ISBN13: 9780553269321)
Language
English
Publisher
bantam

Echoes In The Darkness (1987) - Plot & Excerpts

Fiction could not be stranger than this true crime tale of the "Main Line Murders". It is so convoluted that it will have you shaking your head when you are finished.....it is the naivete and basic stupidity of the persons involved that is so hard to believe. The story can't be summarized in a review but basically it involved Jay Smith, a high school principal and one of his teachers, Bill Bradfield. Smith is an odd character and gets arrested for theft at a local Sears store and Bradfield gets the idea that Smith is going to kill one of the teachers at the high school for mysterious reasons. He tells a small group of "acolytes" who hang on his every word that Smith is a hit man, or is with the CIA, or is a sexual pervert, etc. etc. He tells so many lies about Smith and their relationship that when, indeed, the teacher is found dead and her two children are missing (they were never found), he is suddenly involved up to his neck and ends up being tried as an accessory to the murder and sentenced to life in prison. The state then begins to look at Smith, bring him to trial, and sentence him to death on what I thought was the flimsiest of evidence. The back story here is that Wambaugh was truly convinced that Smith was the killer and there were accusations of collusion between the author and the police swirling around this prosecution and death sentence. The book was written in 1987 and much happened after that time. Smith spent seven years on death row when his sentence was overturned and he was freed. Bradfield was not so lucky and died in prison. I will leave it to the next reader to decide if Jay Smith was guilty of murder but I will say that I certainly have a reasonable doubt.

This guy just has a way with words that I like - slightly sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek, too clever by half. 'The Onion Field' was probably the first true-crime book I read, and it launched me on a lifetime of true-crime reading. Although this book is somewhat out of date, it's worth reading for the details about each person's life and activities - sometimes unbelievable. The chronicle of Bradfield's downhill spiral and the credulous people he took with him is amazing. It's discomfiting to see apparently intelligent, normal people go down the rabbit hole with him, and to wonder, just on the edge of your mind, if you might have been sucked in, too.

What do You think about Echoes In The Darkness (1987)?

Wambaugh's novel about the real-life murder of Susan Reinert, an English teacher in the Upper Merion school district of PA is intriquing to read. The case was current, as I followd it in the newspapers,and far too-close-for comfort. I found it to be somewhat compelling, with many,inexplicable loose ends, several bizzare characters, and stranger motives To this day, I am uncertain whether or not the facts were revealed and if the real perpetrators had been arrested; in fact, there are many missing pieces in this incredibly odd and terrying case.
—Skye Skye

Well it's time to revisit a book from my past. I've been thinking a lot about high school lately since a new co-worker and I went to the same school. I attended the school that this book is about and knew the teachers and principal involved. I was in 9th grade (Jr. High) when the murders took place and in high school when the investigation and trial were in progress. My siblings were in high school before all this happened and they could tell you some wild stories about the main characters. One of my sisters had the principal suspect for English and thought he was wonderful. All my siblings said the principal Jay C. Smith (or as they called him Jesus Christ) was a very strange man. There were so many stories that flew around about devil cults and bodies buried in back yards..it was surreal. None of the teachers at the school would discuss anything and I think there is a lot that went on that never came to light. So now I want to revisit this story and refresh my memory. I am going to reread this book and another called Engaged to Murder. I had difficulty tracking that one down since it was not as widely known but if I remember correctly it has less bias than the Wambaugh book. We'll see how much I remember!
—Kathy Fimognari

I read to page 148 before putting this book aside and finding no motivation for picking it back up. It wasn't bad, really - the case itself was interesting enough, and the book was at least semi-enjoyable; however, the writing style was very odd IMO. The author's constant use of italicized words was distracting and made it hard to take this account of a true-crime murder case seriously. Examples:p.63: "And to all of little faith, he said there might be a possibility of opening yet another store in Philadelphia, and a third in Exton Mall."p.78: "It was a case of mistaken identity. So it was probably the lookalike, whoever he is, who did the other one too."Every single page has at least one, if not three, four, five uses of italics to emphasize seemingly random words. Like I said, distracting!!!I would like to know what happened in the last half of the book, but since finishing it seems like a tedious process, I'm just going to call it quits on this one.
—Kelly

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