In the wake of the Kennedy assassination, as America was losing its 1950s innocence and beginning to confront the darker recesses of human behavior, another heinous crime brought the nation’s changing culture into grim focus. In the middle of the night on a dark New York City street, young Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death, her cries for help falling on deaf ears. If any story could be said to “go viral” in those pre-Internet, pre-24/7-cable-news-cycle days, Genovese’s murder captured the world’s attention to an astonishing degree. Headlines of her neighbors’ indifference were as dramatic as those heralding the crime itself. Touted in death as the innocent girl-next-door, Genovese actually wasn’t anything like the portrait painted in fawning newspaper stories, nor was the outrageous apathy of countless witnesses as coldhearted or ubiquitous as the press luridly described. On the fiftieth anniversary of the murder, Cook revisits that tumultuous era and an unspeakable crime that became synonymous with urban indolence and dispassion. --Carol Haggas
Review
“Gripping.” (Amy Finnerty - New York Times)
“Provocative.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“Cook is [an] adept storyteller. His peppy knowing style calls to mind pop-culture products from the time of the murder…he is firmly and persuasively in the revisionist camp.” (The New Yorker)
“Cook debunks the whole parable of the 38 Bad Samaritans and puts forth the real story of what happened.” (AARP)
“Provocative… As much about the alchemy of journalism as urban pathology.” (Edward Kosner - The Wall Street Journal)
“An engrossing true-crime tour de force.” (Kirkus Reviews)
“As much social history as true crime, this is an insightful probe into the notorious case.” (Publishers Weekly)
“Kevin Cook rips the cover off an enduring urban myth. He’s done a first-rate reporting job, one that delivers the truth at last about an infamous murder that came to define an age.” (Kevin Baker, author of The Big Crowd and Paradise Alley)
“Kevin Cook is raising big questions.” (NPR)
“Cook’s restoration helps make Kitty human, not merely iconographic.” (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
“A fully-realized portrait of Kitty… Readers won’t forget that she was a person, not a player in an anecdote.” (Michael Washburn - Boston Sunday Globe)
“Smart…suspenseful. [Cook’s] reporting…is rich and deep.” (Tampa Bay Times)
“[I]mpressive…” (Jordan Michael Smith - Christian Science Monitor)
“Well written and often gripping.” (The Times (London))
“A grim and fascinating history and discussion of the "bystander effect"…this book asks hard questions of human nature.” (Diva)
“Cook’s take on events is intelligent, superbly researched and truly unsettling, making this one of the best true crime books I’ve read in the last few years.” (The Sunday Herald (UK))