Customer Reviews

Laci Peterson The Whole Story: Laci, Scott, and Amber’s Deadly Love Triangle

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This book cracked me up. It's a really bad book, but it's a WONDERFUL bad book in the sense that "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" is a wonderful bad movie. The author, who lived near the Petersons, took part in some of the searches for Laci, and seemed to use the searches as a way to meet women (similar to that wonderful bad movie "Sherman's March"). The author succumbs to the temptation to tell outrageous stories from his life that he somehow thinks are related to the case, and the ridiculousness and inappositeness of the stories is hysterical. I don't think the author intended to be funny, which makes it even funnier. That's why I'm glad I bought and read this book; I hadn't laughed so hard in ages. Brad Knight seems to be very sincere about the whole thing, even though the result is not at all what he intended. He also shares his wild theories about the case, such as why Scott seemed to prefer Amber over Laci -- because Amber had "two" ovaries instead of one, as Laci did. And yes, he put the "two" in quotation marks, for reasons I cannot fathom. So if you're a die-hard fanatic about anything related to the Peterson case (as I am, I'm almost ashamed to say) and are in a wacky mood, you'll probably enjoy this vanity book precisely because of its laughable shortcomings.

I have read all the books on the market that covered this case.
Brad Knight's is the worst of them all. This book is loaded with factual errors and nonsense, but what was most troubling was his obvious contempt for single women with children. That mindset is archaic, egotistical, politically incorrect and derisive to the point of disgust. As for the errors, where was the publisher's fact checker, on vacation? By the time I was halfway through it, I kept a pencil and highlighter in my hand for the duration of the read. Here are some of my findings:

page 31: the author states that Laci told her friend Heather in December, 2002 that she was disappointed that she and Scott couldn't make it to Heather's Xmas party because of his work, and it was the last time Heather spoke to her friend. However, in reality, Laci did make it to the party sans Scott and to boot, the media showed photos OVER and OVER again of Laci at the party by herself. One book even juxtaposed the photo of the solitary Laci with the photo of Scott and Amber at another party the same night.

page 74: asserts that a woman of "lesser moral fiber" than Amber could have crossed to the "dark side" and not gone to the police. Yet, on page 181 he opines of Amber's "loose morals", even going so far as to say if it wasn't for her loose morals, Laci would be alive today! Pinning Laci's murder on Amber's conscience! More later on his disgusting characterization of Amber and her societal role as a single woman with a child.

page 118: discusses meeting some young girls at a Laci search and how he got one of their phone numbers. The book is supposed to be about the Laci story, we could do without the little personal asides throughout, such as this one where he boasts of getting a phone number..what's clearer is that he used a search and rescue effort to pick up chicks! And refer to the little aside on the bottom of page 138, his perverted curiousity of this woman. Again, we could have done without a window into his soft-porn thoughts.

page 120: one of two references to his bafflement that the police seized the white Dodge pickup Scott bought when he traded in the Landrover. It was common sense for those of us who watched the Larry King and Greta V coverage (including the author), that they took it in order to install the GPS tracking device for surveillance purposes. But even if that wasn't known, why is he questioning the cops using the truck, as he thought, to look for evidence. Why shouldn't they? It's not far fetched that Scott could have stored/hid something in there as soon as he got it, something that could be evidence in the case.

page 121: assumes that the police think the UPS driver should have known not to deliver a package in Laci's name to her home. DUH, I don't think the cops are that dense. If you have any clue as to how a delivery service works, and as a business owner that the author claims to be, there is no excuse not to, obviously there are policies that packages must be delivered to the shipping address on record unless the delivery service is told otherwise. And obviously, Scott didn't have the wine of the month membership stopped. No doubt the driver was under company orders to "attempt delivery". What was UPS supposed to do? Decide for themselves to return it, not ship it or ship to an alternate address? Hello, not a decision they are empowered to make.

page 143: states that Sharon Rocha called Scott to ask him to come to Richmond to identify the bodies, and goes on to paraphrase a phone conversation between them. This is innacurate. Sharon had not spoken to Scott for several weeks prior to the discover of the bodies. When she did call him after hearing the news, she left a message asking him to call her, which he did not do. The only conversation that Sharon actually had with a Peterson during this week was one she had with his mother soon after the discovery.

page 148: states that with the news of the discovery of the bodies, police immediately began tracking Scott's whereabouts..that's misleading..in fact, the police had been tracking him all along, what they did at that point was pinpoint his location to get men near him in order to pick him up at a moment's notice when the positive ID came in.

page 201: "turns up missing" Do I really have to point out the oxymoron?

page 210: provides an excerpt of a cultural anthropologist's assertion that the Laci murder was racially motivated, pointing to Laci's half "Hispanic" background. In this theory, Scott murdered Laci to destroy the 1/4 "Hispanic" baby he helped create because he preferred the white caucasion Amber. If the author had done his homework, he would have hopefully realized that this whole theory is moot because Laci's father's family was Portuguese, and as far as I know Portuguese are not Hispanic. They may be considered latin, or their language is derived from latin, but the people are not Hispanic. Further, the author suggests Scott was upset upon hearing about Laci's ancestry at a late stage in their courtship. How on earth does the author know at what point in their courtship Scott found out Laci's ancestry? If the author got this info from a source, he sure didn't say it. If Scott was upset by it, then why did he marry her if it was such a problem? Forget Scott "finding out" late in the courtship. Any joe schmoe would have recognized that there was some type of latin persuasion in her family tree if not from her looks, than from the pronounced vowel that serves as the last letter of her maiden name. Also, Scott and his mother had similar features as Laci..they were all three olive skinned, dark eyed and raven haired. Who's not to say there isn't a latin persuasion in Scott? Further, on page 213, he allows for the anthropologist's assertion that race was the reason Dennis Rocha let the caucasion Ron Grantski do all the talking. Apparently the author and the anthroplogist believe that to have kept Laci's disappearance at the forefront of news, you need to have a white caucasion spokesperson..the author assumes that was a Rocha family strategy. Talk about narrow scope. The anthropoligist may live in a racial fishbowl, but the author, if he was responsible, should have put forth that there are many possible explanations for Dennis having stayed in the background. Perhaps he felt he wasn't a confident public speaker, though the times I heard him speak, his words packed a very powerful, concise punch. Perhaps his grief was so overwhelmingly private to him he didn't want people watching it all of the time. To find a sociological explanation, the author should have looked deeper than the color of Dennis' skin. For instance, why not look at the type of man he was and his lifestyle. It was obvious from any cursory research on the family that Dennis was a farm man and spent his entire life tending to his farm. It could be said that Dennis was a simple man (and I do not mean in terms of intellect) but rather, that he lead a simple life, far from the busy, technology saturated corporate life of a more urban environment. The dairy farm was his life, not the hustle and bustle of a media drenched society. He'd probably never even seen a TV camera let alone have had to address one in his life. And finally, if the author had so many intimate, close-to-the-family but private sources, why didn't he just ask one of them for an explanation?

page 228: refers to Sharon as Ron Grantski's wife. Um, we didn't have to wait for evidence at the trial to know that Sharon and Ron were not married...the author could have clued himself in by his own hundreds of references to Sharon ROCHA and MRS. Rocha throughout the book. Or perhaps this offends his high level moral standard he sets for women.

page 270: refers to OJ, Nicole and Ron as a comparative love triangle to Scott, Laci and Amber. This is innacurate. It was not proven that Nicole and Ron had a romance and the speculation that OJ murdered Ron out of jealousy was ultimately superceded by the more sensible theory that Ron was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.

page 318: lays out this whole long-winded perspective on why Sharon shouldn't have filed the wrongful death suit as early as she did, only later to realize that the law at the time had a one year statute of limitation from the time of the murder. If he ultimately knew this, why were we subjected to his 5 page armchair legal strategies? (all of which throughout this book must have been extremely offensive to any lawyer-readers, because they actually went to law school)

page 306: first reference to many cases of mis-spelling defense attorney/Greta panel-regular Geoffrey Feiger's name. He even claimed to love Greta's show, but he must not bother to read the big words on the screen ever, they always spell Geoff's name with a G.

And lastly, only fellow macho egoists would appreciate his opinions on pages 222-223 of Amber's life situation and how HE, big man, would have picked a woman with a "clean slate" without THAT (italicized in the book) kind of mileage. Oh it's mileage is it, to bear a child? That inference is disgusting and misogynistic. And his juxtaposition of a young woman with no children versus a woman with a child from a previous relationship who owned her own home..how he would certainly choose the young woman with nothing, but many guys would choose the latter, believing the home-ownership value outweighs the child from a previous relationship! Gee Brad, I guess nobody looks inside a person huh? The marital worth of a woman is based on outer, tangible elments, no man can go deeper than the surface it seems, to love a woman for their character and heart. Decent men out there with depth of character should be very offended by this book. And for all its unschooled legal ramblings, this book really just made a good "case" for women to stay single.

I never even finished this book! I have read most of the books about the Laci Peterson case, and this was one I bought before the others, such as Catherine Crier's or Sharon Rocha's, which I must say are the two best books written about the case, especially Sharon Rocha's, which I finished in three days, during my college midterms! Anyway, when I bought this book and started reading it, I got lost and bored with all the author's personal stories, which he somehow tried to relate to the case. I even tried skipping over his personal jarble to get to the actual parts about the Laci Peterson case, but that was hard also, so I just put the book away! In my opinion it would've been an okay book, if the author hadn't included all the personal stories and references about himself. I wouldn't suggest wasting your money on this one!

This book was not only disappointing but also fustrating to read. I found the entire book to be about the Brad Knight story rather than the Laci Petterson story. Every other sentence was regarding "what he would do" if he was on the case.
When finally torturing myself to read the rest of the book, I had to shut it and throw it away after he acted as the Prosecutor & the Defense attorney, stating what he would have done in the situation. Following this chapter I learned that there was a Volume II, and I immediately tossed the unfinished book into the garbage and vowed never to read another Brad Knight novel.I think Brad lived his life through this story. It was never about anyone BUT him.

Hmm...let me start by saying that I am an avid reader and I NEVER not finish a book. However, this book cannot be finished. I have 2 chapters looming over my head.
Praise to anyone who has and big question marks for those who thought it a good read, because it isn't.
The author references himself and his experiences almost more than he does the case. For 3-4 pages he goes on and on about how Ron Grantski (Laci's step-father) reminds him of a shop teacher he had in school and continues to pain the reader by telling a story about what happened once in that class with that teacher, zZzzzZZZzz. And let us not forget to include how he goes into such great detail about how he is SO much like Scott Peterson, the house in the burbs, likes to remodel his own house, and oh so much more. Like half (or more) of America??
Just awful, awful, awful. If I had written it myself wouldn't even turn this manuscript in for an English 101 class.
Resist the temptation and save your money. A Deadly Game by Catherine Crier is WONDERFUL and detailed about every aspect of the investigation. For Laci is a great read for the more personal details of Laci & Scott's life & the case.

The misogynistic and navel-gazing aspects are absolutely valid. But there is more! I cannot imagine a more poorly-written text. I teach college English so I know of what I speak. Poor word choice, horrendous sentence structure, use of informal language, "magical thinking" -- something that belongs only in fiction, use of contractions, and more. Who is Knight? He writes like a third grader! How did such a text find a publisher?

I tried to read this book, I really did. It is so poorly written I can only compare it to an eighth grader's first draft of a term paper he started the night before it was due. No signs of any editing, wrong word usage, run-on sentences, horrible punctuation, etc. I just found a sentence describing the park they searched for Laci that, without doubt, would be a finalist in any bad writing contest. There's no way this author makes a living by writing. He must have paid to have this published. Unbelievable.

This book is absolute rubbish. It is not only badly written but it is full of inaccuracies. This man likes nothing better than to write about himself (as if anyone is interested in him for goodness sake)
He knows less about this case than I do, and I live in England.
If you feel you want this book to add to your library on the Peterson case, then buy it second hand from a jumble sale (or yard sale as you call it in the usa.)
Don't line this greedy mans pocket.

I almost didn't buy this one since I read some of the others on the subject, but there just was something about this one that looked intriguing, so I did and am I glad I did. Despite having kept up with the case, reading or watching the latest material out, I found this one very enjoyable and hard to put down. I also liked the Anne Bird and Amber Frey books as well, and this one, just like those, has much new uncovered information, many new twists angles to view the case in. I particularly liked how the writer organized the facts with the ongoing events, which gave me a much more solid opinion of what I believe actually happened in Scott's mind during both the planning stages and execution of his crime.

If you've read any of the other recent books on the case and liked them as I did, then this is a definite must read.

It doesn't matter what anyone says about this book. If you're interested in the Peterson case, then this is a must read!
I have read all the books on the Laci Peterson case and this one is definitely my favorite. My second favorite is "Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson," which also had some new interesting facts. Knight's book gives the most descriptive version of events. He uncovers many facts not found or mentioned in any of the other books. On pages 39, 40 & 41, the book explains all the details of the burglary that took place across the street from Laci around the time of her disappearance. This was a plethora of facts that I didn't find elsewhere. All the other books only briefly mentioned the burglary. The Knight book had 3 pages on it.
One of my favorite chapters in this book is "The Search." Especially the search of the open space park near Laci's home. One must read this whole chapter to appreciate it, but here's an excerpt: Mag flashlights used by police, waved back & forth through the dense foliage, poking in & out of the heavy underbrush. The thunderous clap of the helicopter propeller was heard soaring up above in the midnight sky, as the powerful beam of its giant searchlight pierced the darkness by probing relentlessly up & down Dry Creek and between many of its gargantuan obstacles....
The book brings to light that the Evelyn Hernandez case did not receive the same amount of publicity or search effort, because of possibly her race. Therefore that investigation was not fueled and solved as was the more prominent Laci case. I thought this showed charitability and kindness of the author to put this issue onto the table.
He gives a a very thorough analysis of DNA evidence in the DNA chapter. For those that are more technically inclined, this is the chapter for you. He explains any grey areas that you might have on this subject matter and how it relates to the case. What does DNA stand for?... (Got to know this if you want to serve on a jury.)
From pages 214 to 222, the book details the neo-nazis-for-hire abduction theory that had come out in the media. This was a very interesting part of the whole case, although most media outlets only covered it briefly. Here Knight has gathered all the facts available and presented them in the best format to compare to the rest of the case. Again, I was rivoted to the book as I got to this part. Earlier in the book, I thoroughly enjoyed the chapter about the affair and how all the wire-tapped conversations were printed between Scott & Amber.
He gave his version of what Geragos should have used for closing arguments. The author came up with such eye-popping hillarious ideas that even Geragos would certainly have used some of them had they been available at the time.
This is a beautifully well-written book. Anyone that has read Vince Bugliosi or Mark Furhman knows that those authors are very pompous, arrogant and macho. By comparison, Brad Knight would be considered humble. However, some might sense a hint of this same type of style and personality in his rendition on the Laci case.
After reading this book, I felt like going to the Laci Peterson home to see it and maybe photo it. I even felt like writing a book, something I didn't feel after reading the others. I've been thoroughly inspired. I hope you will be too.