The Boston Stranglers: The Public Conviction of Albert Desalvo and the True Story of Eleven Shocking Murders (Library Edition) [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Susan Kelly (Author), Lorna Raver (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1433256797 | ISBN-13: 978-1433256790 | Edition: Unabridged

When DeSalvo confessed to being the notorious Boston Strangler, he became an overnight celebritybut it was all a hoax. Susan Kelly reveals the true DeSalvo, a pathological liar, and the true suspects of the Boston stranglings.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Between June 1962 and January 1964, 11 women were found murdered in the greater Boston area, most by strangulation. In 1965, construction worker Albert DeSalvo, already in custody on charges of breaking and entering, armed robbery, unnatural acts and rape, all unrelated to the slayings, confessed that he was the Boston Strangler. Yet in his lengthy confession, he was unable to provide correct details of the crimes. After other lawyers had given up the case, onto the scene came flamboyant attorney F. Lee Bailey. DeSalvo, however, was tried on the prior offenses, found guilty in 1967 and sentenced to life; he was fatally stabbed in his cell in 1973. In beginning her prodigious research for this volume, Kelly (The Gemini Man) talked to local police officers, most of whom were convinced that DeSalvo was not the killer. She offers logical conjectures about some of the other suspects, proceeding on the assumption that several slayers were involved. DeSalvo was never convicted of being the Strangler and all this took place 30 years ago, making one wonder if there is an audience for this book. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From AudioFile

Susan Kelly's thesis is that there was not just one Boston Strangler, but several. She asserts that Albert DeSalvo, already in prison for burglary and sex crimes, confessed to all the murders for the notoriety and the money that would come from a book. There was no physical evidence tying DeSalvo to the killings, and, while there were several other possible suspects, city officials and police were determined to calm a frantic public by quickly naming a killer. Lorna Raver brings an intelligent energy to this nonfiction account. Raver's narration is engrossing as Kelly lays out the gruesome particulars of each of the 13 murders alleged to be the Strangler's. However, as with many true-crime books, too many tedious details detract from the book's forward momentum. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.; Unabridged edition (July 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1433256797
• ISBN-13: 978-1433256790
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 6.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,382,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth at Last, August 8, 2000

By 

S. Lewis "Sash" (Belgique) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Boston Stranglers (Hardcover)

I have just acquired a copy of this book from a second-hand bookseller, and am astonished to find that it's out of print and there has apparently never been a paperback edition. I followed the Strangler case as each new murder was reported in the UK press, and it remains the archetypal horror story for me because it proves conclusively that one isn't safe even (above all) at home. I also read Gerold Frank's account of the affair very soon after it was published in the UK and re-read it last year; I have the "confessions of the Boston Strangler" in French translation.I have never been even half-way convinced that DeSalvo was guilty, and I always doubted that only one killer was involved. (The "psychological explanation" cited by Frank as to why the killer suddenly switched from older to younger women struck me as perfectly ludicrous 30 years ago, and many recent books on profiling have merely strengthened this view).

It would be easy enough to write a book which simply challenged the official solution, but that is not what Susan Kelly does. She provides overwhelming evidence not only to demolish it, but also to explain how and why it came about in the first place. This is a book with an index, a bibliography, acknowledgments which help the reader by indicating the author's sources (most acknowledgments seem only to explain who made the coffee and watered the plants while a book was being written) and careful indications of when exact quotations from transcripts are being used. It assumes no previous knowledge of the case or the "cast", and its procedural details are much clearer than Frank's. Also, Susan Kelly is literate, and she has a dry, ironic sense of humour.

I checked the book's listing in Amazon because I wanted to know what other people thought of it. I had hoped that, unbeknown to me, the Boston Strangler affair had been rewritten and DeSalvo belatedly exonerated. Apparently this is not so. I would be interested to know if anyone (apart perhaps from F. Lee Bailey, Esq.) has challenged Kelly's arguments and, if so, on what basis - though I doubt whether that could be done. If it can't, I hope the book will soon be reissued and properly publicised. It would also be interesting to have someone re-open the only murder case in which DeSalvo was certainly involved - his own.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Susan Kelly's "The Boston Stranglers", April 11, 2002

By 

Josefa M. Wrangham "josie" (Medford, MA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Boston Stranglers (Mass Market Paperback)

I very much enjoyed this extremely well-researched, suspense-filled account of the saga of Albert De Salvo. The writing is marvellous - one forgets that this is non-fiction, as it runs as smoothly as a novel from evidence to evidence and crime to crime. It really reads like a superb piece of detective fiction. I am impressed by the research involved, and by the wealth of detail that never bogs down the reader, but rather keeps us turning pages. The "Update" is particularly interesting, as it combines a suspenseful journey with gruesome detail and real hillarity. This is a standout in the works of true crime.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please Reprint This Book!, April 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Boston Stranglers (Hardcover)

I read this book several years ago--and I am shocked to see it is no longer available. This is the definitive examination of the case: author Kelly looks at all the evidence, the sensationalism, and DeSalvo himself, with a scholar's objective eye. Her conclusions are disturbing and cannot be ignored. If you want to have a genuine sense of the terror in Boston from those days, this is the book. Some publisher ought to put this book out and give it the attention it so deserves.