Customer Reviews

Murder in Italy: The Shocking Slaying of a British Student, the Accused American Girl, and an International Scandal

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If you read only one book on the Meredith Kercher Murder make it this one. The case itself is not the complex, nuanced conundrum requiring specialized investigative skills that some would have you believe.. On the contrary, the case is as straight forward as it seems. Meredith returned home unexpectedly and walked in on Rudy Guede, a young ner-do-well, in the act of committing a burglary. Things spun out of control and Meredith was killed. Stabbed and sexually molested by Rudy Guede.

Candace Dempsey does an excellent job of walking the reader through the events leading up to the murder, the event itself and the investigation. She's engaging yet sticks to the facts as they're known and avoids the sort of lurid voyeuristic fantasizing that's plagued the story as presented by the tabloids since day one.

This is not a scary, tense who-dunnit.. It's obvious to any rational person 'who-dunnit'. It's a sad story of a pretty, intelligent British student murdered senselessly.. a clash of cultures.. and an intelligent but naive young Seattle neo-hippy who tried to be helpful to the police but only managed to get herself and her boyfriend sucked through the looking glass of the Perugian justice system.

Read this book and understand why so many people; from politicians, to journalists.. judges, lawyers, scientists, engineers, doctors, career law enforcement officers, academics and many more have put their good names and reputations on the line to stand up and proclaim Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito's innocence.

Before I sat to read the book "Murder in Italy" by Candace Dempsey, I had vague knowledge, at best, of the Amanda Knox case. About a year ago, I'd watched an hour-long special on the case on TV-one of these news magazine shows. I don't even remember which show. The special, aired after Knox, her boyfriend and another man were found guilty of murdering her roommate, said that Knox claimed she was treated unfairly and that her trial was a sham. I did not give her claims much thought, attributing them to things all guilty people say. She probably WAS guilty, I thought. After all, I reasoned, a court would not have found her guilty.

Wrong.

Yesterday, I started "Murder in Italy" and had a hard time putting it down. I'm ashamed for the quick conclusion I leaped to a year ago. Not only is it possible Amanda is innocent, it's quite very likely positively wholeheartedly true that she IS innocent. First up, the Italian justice system is very different from the American system. Jurors are allowed to talk to one another, watch coverage about the case on TV and read media and news reports. Jurors are allowed to sleep in court. There does not seem to be a presumption of "presumed innocent until proven guilty."

Amanda's trial was a dazzling array of character assassination, wild guesses and scandal. The prosecution had NOTHING tying her to the crime. No blood evidence, no DNA, no nothing. The book is well worth reading to see how events spiraled out of control.

Knox's case is under appeal right now, and I hope justice is eventually served.

The police and prosecutors made so many missteps I don't know where to start. But here's a huge one. They wiretapped (without permission) Amanda's phones and her conversations in police rooms, including conversations between only her and one of the suspects. If anything incriminating would be said, it would be then. Nothing was said. However, soooo conveniently, the police did not record their interviews with Amanda herself. So, her confession and her allegations of police brutality-not on tape. I have to say that this book has kind of scared me off from visiting Italy, lest I accidentally get caught in the country's "in"justice system.

- Q. Kelly
Author of Strange Bedfellows

The Amanda Knox murder trial in Perugia, Italy instantly captured the fancy of the media and its millions of followers. Thus spawned a total of eight books with more to come. Since an Italian court reversed her conviction in October (2011), interest in the case has again piqued. Now this: to add fuel to an already heated scenario, Italian prosecutors will attempt to reinstate the original murder conviction (as of February 2012).

In that field of eight contenders, Candace Dempsey's "A Murder in Italy" has been the hands-down front runner from Day One--in every sense, a winner. Dempsey covered the trial in Perugia in person. She also was present in court when the conviction was overturned. I nominate her to be the author of the sequel to her meticulously researched, beautifully written "A Murder in Italy."

Who better to present the post-trial continuation of a typically Italian (read: convoluted) scenario in an unbiased, impeccably researched, clearly stated manner than Candace Dempsey? I hope that Penguin, her publisher will take my vote into consideration when bidding for the rights to a frighteningly captivating story.

This book is a fairly thorough overview of the Amanda Knox et. al. case. If I had one complaint it would be the imbalance in coverage of the personalities involved vs the evidence in the case, but that is a reflection of my background as a forensic sientist. One thing is certain, if you have an analytical mind and prefer facts over fancy, you will be very concerned that justice was not served in this case, and that two young, innocent people are almost certainly sitting in an Italian jail having been convicted of a crime they did not commit. To make things even more troubling, the Italian jurists handling this case saw fit to hand out sentences to the two innocents which are twice long as that given the actual murderer to whom all the useful evidence clearly points. I don't think you will find another book about this case as well written and as thorough as this one.

The entire investigative process that Amanda Knox encountered in Italy after the murder of her friend was hardly investigative. One of the chief investigators was quoted as basically saying that they looked at her and had all the evidence they needed. They never gave Amanda the chance to be innocent and Candace Dempsey explains this thoroughly in Murder In Italy. This book truly explains every aspect of the prosecution's case against Amanda Knox and that it was never substantiated by evidence, it was just well argued by a sadistic, persuasive, and corrupt prosecutor, Judge Mignini. His far fetched theories of the murder were attractive and entertaining. Jurors were most likely enthralled and entertained by his story and it may have sounded plausible and even sane at the time. However, Amanda Knox was always innocent and she is now free. I hope that she enjoys her freedom and moves on with her life. Read this book if you have any doubt as to whether or not Amanda Knox is innocent.

I couldn't put this book down. It was fascinating and well written. I am now convinced that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent.

I have been following this case since the beginning in 2007. In this case justice wasn't only a farse for Amanda and her boyfriend. It was also an outrage to Miranda's family. It seemed that everyone from the police to the prosecutor (who was in my opinion a bit loose in his shoes), was out to get her because she was an american and also they had no idea what they were doing. I couldn't be happier that She and her boyfriend were cleared of all charges. This is a tragic story of lies and betrayal on the part of the media and law enforcement. All of my prayers go to these brave souls. I hope there is something I could do for them. I am personally waiting for Amanda to write a book about her side of the story. Excellent book. Highly recommend.

An extremely well researched and very thorough and informative book about this very tragic murder case. I learned a lot from this book not only about this particular murder case but also about the current Italian judicial system in Perugia (which seems to have more in common with the justice system of King Henry the 8th's reign (during the middle ages) than it does with other modern 1st world countries).

Amanda and Raffaele are obviously innocent and I hope that both will free some time very soon.

Candace Dempsey's "Murder in Italy" is characterized by great attention to detail. This, in the hands of a lesser writer, might easily be cloying, at least for a reader like me, who usually dislikes crime stories, fictional or non-fictional. But Ms. Dempsey tells her story with skill, and infuses the slightest minutiae with significance, so that we get thoroughly familiar with the characters in this true crime drama. We get to know Amanda as a girl who loves life. She loves sports and music, and she loves nature; she even packed her mountain climbing gear when she went to Perugia. We learn that she is a gentle soul who does yoga, dislikes violence and always released the fish she caught. Meredith, dignified but friendly, studious but fun-loving, is depicted with sympathy, and I have found no hint of the "disparagement" of Meredith alleged by some reviewers.
The story moves quickly to the murder itself, seen through the reactions of Amanda and her friend Raffaele, the roommates, and the police. Ms. Dempsey does not dwell on the exact description of the gruesome wounds, but neither does she shrink from it. There was a lot of blood, she reports, indicating that Meredith had fought hard for her life, and we can almost see the great gaping wound that led to death.
Ms Dempsey's account proceeds, step by step, through the police investigations, the interrogations, the court decisions, and the verdict and its aftermath with the same faithfulness to the facts that marked her descriptions of clothing, food and drink, or the local bar scene. One might at times be tempted to see these detailed descriptions of things and events as if they were clues generously sprinkled through the pages of a who-dunnit novel. But that is not Ms Dempsey's point. There is in fact no mystery as to who murdered Meredith Kercher.

The real tension in the story involves the way Amanda and Raffaele are transformed, in the eyes of police and a gullible public, into monsters- but especially Amanda. Investigators with overactive imaginations were too ready to misinterpret the slightest gesture, the most innocent comments, as having deep and sinister significance. However, the media, with their relentless pursuit of sensationalism, are at least as much to blame for the flight from reality as the police and prosecutors. Amanda's social networking sites are invaded and ravaged, her school essays are published and re-interpreted as clues to her supposed murderous tendencies, her emails and letters are pilfered and their meaning distorted, and the fabrications never stop until the public is overwhelmed with the misinformation to the extent that the real Amanda has disappeared behind the mountain of lies.
What is striking about Ms. Dempsey's account is, as I said, that attention to detail from beginning to end. Ms. Dempsey wants to show us the facts which help us understand the reality behind the media-driven distortions. "Murder in Italy" appeared at roughly the same time as the 427-page motivation report which has become a sort of bible to those who believe the prosecution arguments. However, unlike that document, Ms. Dempsey's book does not deal with speculation. Those detailed accounts of hers are backed up with documentation, and she documents not only the facts that let us see the real Amanda Knox, but she documents the specific ways in which the false images were created and fed to a public eager for sensational stories about violent, attractive, sex-hungry women. Why some find such images so appealing is something for the psychologists to explore.
In my review, I have merely tried to point out a few issues which I thought worth emphasizing, in an attempt to supplement the excellent work of previous reviewers. However, no review is a substitute for reading the book. Ms. Dempsey has not only given us an extremely useful account of the events of the case, she has also revealed to us the perils of an out-of-control media industry that cares only for profit, and cares nothing for truth.

Amanda "Foxy Knoxy" Knox is a middle-class Seattle native serving time for a crime she may not have committed. Enter the world of the Italian legal system, and how Amanda and her boyfriend, Raffaele, were sucked into jail without much fairness. Dempsey takes the time to craft Amanda, Raffaele, Meredith, and their associates' experiences before the murder. The descriptions of Perugia are crystal-clear - you can see the town, the shops, the cafes, smell the hashish, and feel what the locals feel. Then comes the night when Meredith is murdered, and you feel the a minutae of the anguish her family and friends feel. You want justice for the killer. Who is the killer? Italy believes three young people committed this vicious crime - Amanda, Raffaele, and Rudy. As Dempsey shows, Rudy probably acted alone. Yes, Amanda did act a little strange after the murder, but her strangeness makes a little more sense when Dempsey puts it into context.

Dempsey carefully researched Perugian and Italian culture- the double standards, the religiousity, the new generation. Understanding the culture of Italy helps one understand the backlash against Amanda.

This book got me intrigued with Amanda's defense. I started doing more research about her innocence? Guilt? I wanted to see what both sides were saying. This is a well-written true crime book - intelligent, edited, intriguing. Definitely worth having in your personal library.