18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Quick and Dirty, September 6, 2002
This review is from: Everybody's Best Friend: The True Story of a Marriage That Ended In Murder (St. Martin's True Crime Library) (Mass Market Paperback)
Because I live almost in the Rabinowitz's backyard, and because I am of the same religious persuasion as the murderer and his wife, I was obsessed with this horrible crime when it occurred, and read just about everything I could get my hands on, including the newspaper articles cited in this book. Many of us who live in the area experienced this crime on a visceral level--it became personal.
Therefore, I welcomed the slant of this book, which is the heretofore untold story of the inner workings of the case--how police, prosecutors, and the media overturned the slimy rock under which Craig Rabinowitz lived his sorry life. I found it absolutely fascinating, and read the entire book in one quick sitting, barely able to turn the pages fast enough, even though I know quite well what happened in the end.
There are, however, many problems with this book, several of which have been pounced upon by other reviewers. Yes, it's an obvious rush-to-the-publisher mishmash of facts and suppositions. It looked to me as if the author gave himself a quick (and inaccurate, in many cases) lesson on Philadelphia and environs, an equally quick introduction to Judaism, and a day on the Net downloading newspaper articles about the case. There are some ridiculous errors about Philadelphia, one being the name of the suburban railroad, which the author refers to as the Pennsylvania Railroad. That name hasn't been in use for almost 30 years; the local railroad in question is run by a much-maligned but still beloved company that is known to everybody within a 25-mile radius of Center City. The author further states that Merion, where the murder took place, is so terribly exclusive that it doesn't even have a train stop. Wrong...the train stops in Merion, and not all of Merion is wealthy or exclusive, although it is predominantly upscale. The author's description of the Delaware River as viewed from Penn's Landing made me wonder if there is another river somewhere that I might have missed?
The same obtains for the quick, presumptive statements on Judaism; there is a yiddish word for mothers-in-law cited in the text, but it's misspelled and misrepresented. Had I written the book, I would have cut way down on the ethnic information. Yes, Jewish people bury their dead as soon as possible, not because they aren't embalmed, but because of respect for the dead and the desire to return dust to dust. For that reason, yes, autopsies are frowned upon, but of course they are conducted if needed. And so forth.
AND...I agree that the "haunting photos" are a joke. Not only are just about all of them shots of the legal teams and police, but they are stock photos, not even candids from the trial or its aftermath. Sheesh, people, do not lie to me! That did make me furious. On the other hand, I have to say that the desire by some reviewers to get comments and aftermath from the close friends of the Rabinowitz family belies these people's very real, and so stated in the book, intense desire for privacy. These people have never granted any interviews of which I am aware, and I don't blame them. It's not easy to live with the fact that your best friend murdered his wife and bilked your family out of a small fortune. As for Rabinowitz's childhood, who cares? I get so sick of books that claim that because so-and-so's puppy died, he grew up to be a mass murderer.
The simple fact was--and is--that Craig Rabinowitz was the worst kind of sleaze, and that he got caught. Thank God. Had the author only waited a bit to complete his research, I think he might have written a truly good book. This one isn't bad if you want a quick and dirty read. But don't expect Ann Rule.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Dull Let Down, January 27, 2002
This review is from: Everybody's Best Friend: The True Story of a Marriage That Ended In Murder (St. Martin's True Crime Library) (Mass Market Paperback)
The Rabinowitz murder was a featured case on the Discovery Channel's show The New Detectives. It was a fascinating forensic study but this book fails to show that. Instead, it offers long (HUGE) passages of dialouge. Dialouge that the author can not really know happened word for word. We don't need to read 3 pages of conversation when one paragraph of describing the convesation would have done the job.
The character of Craig Rabinowitz is completely unexamined. We know nothing of his childhood. His father's name is mentioned only twice and his mother does not make an appearance in the book until it halfway over. This man was obsessed with hookers and strippers. He was an accomplished con man who stole from his wife, his mother, his friends and acquaintances and was getting away with it. The book never tries to explain Craig it just wacks the reader with more boring diaglouge.
The character of Stephanie is also barely written about. What made such a bright, hardworking young woman love a fat, lazy lout?
The book reads like a slapdash-get-it-to-the-market-and-make-a-fast-buck job and left me feeling cheated.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
pass on this book, September 30, 2004
This review is from: Everybody's Best Friend: The True Story of a Marriage That Ended In Murder (St. Martin's True Crime Library) (Mass Market Paperback)
If you love true crime, then this book will bore you.
The writer couldn't generate any interest in the character or the story. This book was completely focused on the investigation not the story behind the crime...which gets old real fast. The endless back and forth chatter of the lawyers and the investigators was hard to read. I actually stopped reading this book, which I never do.
Terrible!
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