Customer Reviews

The Co-ed Call Girl Murder

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

THE CO-ED CALL GIRL MURDER is a true crime retelling of the life and death of Tina Biggar, college student by day and call girl by night, who was murdered by a delusional john.

The authors, Fannie Weinstein and Melinda Wilson, try mightily to cast Tina as the prototypical midwestern All-American Girl, and a previous reviewer and friend of Tina's laments her death in moving tones. Still, it becomes clear that Tina Biggar was in part a very troubled young woman with serious issues relating to her self-esteem, self-worth, and body image (at 5' 7'' she weighed 150 lbs.). Offsetting this, she was personable, pretty, intelligent and diligent. Had she mastered her demons she would have excelled at life. She certainly had the potential.

Weinstein and Wilson all but gloss over her unexpected teenage pregnancy and early relationship with an abusive boyfriend, but it is easy to imagine that Tina suffered a great deal of emotional travail from these experiences, especially coming as she did from a staunchly Catholic "military brat" family. All of this is said in respect to Tina, who certainly did not deserve to be murdered.

It is easy to see that some of Weinstein's and Wilson's insights ring all too true. At the time of her death, Tina was living a sordid double life, keeping her identity as a call girl from her family and her live-in boyfriend. Weinstein and Wilson cast the boyfriend as somewhat of a goodhearted boob, repeatedly making silly comments, being arrested (and rearrested) for alcohol offenses, occasionally straying during the several emotionally stressful periods in their relationship, and being generally clueless when it came to Tina's wants and needs.

It's clear that Tina could be immature, vindictive and unforgiving when provoked. She repaid her boyfriend's infidelities with her own (ultimately becoming a call girl), and was emotionally distant and neglectful---even psychologically abusive. Perhaps she was, in truth, punishing herself for some self-perceived flaw. All-American Girls do not generally choose prostitution as a job; nor do they cling to men who are clearly losers at life's game.

Yet, Tina remained overlong with her first abusive boyfriend, maintained a personal friendship with her killer outside of her call girl role, and kept up a relationship with her long-suffering boyfriend even as she berated and belittled him. She carried on as an escort for far longer than she should have. She innocently gave the benefit of every doubt to a man with a mysterious past who eventually killed her. Tina Biggar did not make "a terrible mistake"---she made a lengthy series of them, which in the aggregate led to her death. Tina deserves our compassion, never our scorn.

THE CO-ED CALL GIRL MURDER is a sad story of a promising life cut short under horrible circumstances.

This book was written with an easy to follow timeline. The characters come to life and seem real; the reader can feel sympathy for each of them, even those one doesn't expect to. Little is said about the actual murder itself because, of the only two people that were there, the victim is dead and the killer keeps changing his story. So the reader is left not knowing how Tina really died, but it doesn't seem so important by the end of the book. What matters is that she is gone from this world; I feel it would've taken away from the story to sensationalize on the gory aspects. All in all, this book is definitely worth reading.

The Coed Call Girl Murder, written by Fannie Weinstein and Melinda Wilson, is your basic murder story involving 23 year old Tina Biggar and her double life as a prositute. Both Weinstein and Wilson equally contribute theit talents to create a well told story. They use excellent descriptive detail in specific parts such as when police break into Ken Tranchida's appartment and find him "bleeding like a stuck pig" (239). Another example is when Mr. Tranchida states that he wanted to be a general, Weinstein and Wilson describe this as, "...he said with a shy smile, sounding like an eight-year old boy daydreaming about his toy soldiers" (282). Despite this wonderful characteristic of the authors' writing style, Weinstein and Wilson have a habit of changing point of views, alternating from third person limited and third person omniscient. Also, Weinstein and Wilson seemed to draw out their version of the story, causing it to be monotonous and dull. At the same time, Weinstein and Wilson do keep readers attention by adding their opinion of the situations to give the novel that extra umph. This novel would seemingly be enjoyable for mature teenagers and adult readers who are interested in true crime and are entralled with man's inhumanity to another of one's kind.

The writer effectively used foreshadowing to keep me in suspense chapter after chapter. Hard to feel much sympathy for the victim who led a dangerous secret life, and continued to use people. Word of advice: don't look at the pictures until you reach them reading.

I saw this on Court TV then bought the book - I do that a lot- it's a good book and I like to read deeper into the stories I see on TV. It's a shame - unfortunately, my husband is a cop, and says this is just one of a thousand of stories like this - wrong place, wrong time.

While I found this book to be extremely interesting and able to keep me so interested that I read it within two days, I have to disagree with the point-of-view writing of the authors.

From the beginning it is very apparent that the writers want to, understandably, grant the wishes of Bill Biggar whose daughter Tina Biggar is the "escort" murdered in this book by her "client" (read "john") Kenneth Tranchida.

Throughout the book, the authors hint strongly at a young woman suffering from manic depression (better now known as being Bipolar); who spent money as fast as she could earn it, had a love/hate relationship with her boyfriend, Todd, and was obviously sexually premiscious at an early age as evidenced by her pregnancy at the age of fifteen. Yet, the book is filled with insinuations that Tina was simply "a good girl gone astray." Like her parents and friends, even the authors enable Tina in death by making excuses for her and glossing over the actual facts.

Irregardless of the foregoing, it still makes for interesting reading. In the area of true crime, it's a must read.

I attended Oakland University for my freshman year in college. I was curious to read this book and it did not disappoint. Couldn't put it down! Good read!

This small town college girl really surprised me and this book is a real page turner only took me a few days to finish in between work and sleep. There are many people in the world that can't be trusted and this killer was one. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time and money isn't everything are the moral of this story. Again Gregg Olsen has written a winner.

Tina Biggar was a fighter. Right up until the moment she died. This book gave me sympathy for her, even though escorts are often condemned. But she didn't deserve to die. This account is compassionate, well-written, riveting, and I highly recommend it.

I was a friend of Tina Biggar. I was shopping one day, after her murder, when I was shocked to see this book covering the checkout shelves. I decided to read it to see what they had to say about the generous, intelligent, sweet girl that I had known. Well, sad to say, I was disappointed. Mrs. Weinstein, and Mrs. Wilson advertise themselves as being truthful, but I was horrified by some of the things that they had to say about Tina. Tina was a good girl that made a terrible mistake, and I understand that. Unfortunatly, Mrs. Weinstein and Mrs. Wilson never knew Tina, and instead of writing the truth, they took what they knew and twisted it into a book that would sell. I think they forget that there are people out there that knew Tina, and loved her. They failed to ask us about what she was like.