Customer Reviews

In the Name of Satan

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

 

 

I'm afraid I have to agree with the majority this time... I'm a true-crime buff, and I found this book to be somewhere between 'mediocre' and 'disappointing'. While the story was interesting, it was not very well written, and it was definitely lacking in depth. The reader is left wondering what really happened the night of the murder, because the killing itself is barely touched upon. Also, I did not get any sense of "getting to know" the characters -- not any of them. The last third of the book was downright boring, and the reader is left with many questions. I wouldn't recommend this book.

While reading this true crime book, I couldn't decide if I was reading about an actual crime or being given a textbook lesson on satanism and how teens become involved in the occult.

Information about the crime itself was interesting, but provided little detail about what actually occured. Readers were given a summarized account of what occured on the night of Elyse Pahler's murder. The rest of the book was devoted to the deceased's friends and their thoughts; the teenager murderers legal wranglings; and in depth information about the occult. I found the latter two accounts to be extremely repeatitive and boring.

Lastly, why was this book written before Royce Casey's sentenced was issued? The one defendant who stood to be punished the harshest despite that he solved an unsolvable crime for police. Guess I'll have to search Google for that information.

I have never written a review before but I feel like it is my civic duty in this case, so no one else will buy this book. I agree with the rest of the reviews. It is a story that had alot of potential but it was unorganized, poorly written and extremely repetitive, did I mention poorly written? I am a true crime buff too, and the only crime here was that I bought this book and wasted hours of my life that I will never get back. ...

There is another review posted that I am glad to see said exactly what I thought about this book. I had heard about this story, and being a true crime fanatic I looked forward to reading the full account. Just like the other reviewer says, this book gets real boring and I ended up just skipping whole pages and chapters. The details of the murder itself are barely touched upon, but the book plods on and on about nothing. I read tons of true crime and am almost never unhappy with a book, but this is a real dog!

All in all, I enjoyed reading this book. The reason I enjoyed this book was because of the subject matter and the facts that I learned about the murder. The writing style was not complex at all, and much of the book seems to be repeated at least a few times. While I was reading it, I felt like I would get the same information much quicker if I were to read a one page outline of the information. Do not read this book for the writing style, but if you're interested in the subject matter, it is a quick read and fairly interesting.

The author obviously had zero access to any information on this case. There is no explanation of what happened to the girl, just that she was killed and four boys were accused of killing her for Satan.

That's it. No background information is given on anyone in the book and the quotes from the dead girl's two best friends are contrived and cliché. We learn nothing about the murdered girl or those accused.

Worse is the extremely poor writing of the author who at one point uses the word "precluded" instead of "preceded."

There are literally chunks and chunks of text that are repeated verbatim throughout the book. It's as if it was written before any information about the crime became available. I was left wondering what was the point?

Wow. Never before have I been so angry after finishing a book. It has as its subject an intersting case but seems to have been written by someone in grade school. The same limited information is repeated over and over and over again-- some paragraphs were even repeated verbatim throughout different chapters. I'd spoil it by giving away the ending, but there isnt one. If you see this book the only rational thing to do is burn it.

for the trees wasted to print this book. It was horribly written and an insult to decent Satanists everywhere. During the 2 or 3 days it took me to finish it, as I moaned about the awefulness, I had my boyfriend ask me more than once "Why don't you just stop reading it?" Indeed, why didn't I. My only consolation is that I didn't pay for it.

I grew up in the town where this murder took place and went to school with the people involved. I had met one of the killers a couple of times as our mothers were good friends. All the boys pleaded guilty and therefore there was no trial. I think that is why there is such a dearth of information on this case -- no trial means no public transcripts of the prosecution's explanation of what happened. I only read a few pages of this book. I do not agree with the way it described the town I live in, the high school I attended, or the murder itself. This author goes for sensationalism rather than fact. I had considered buying this book to learn more details of the murder, but I can tell you after a quick skim that you will learn more from a few google searches than you will from this book.

Well, the story is a good one: three teenagers in a death metal band kill a fellow classmate, presumably to "see what it's like." However, the writing style is geared to thirteen-year-olds. The text is replete with one-or-two-sentence paragraphs, and is stuffed with inane quotes from friends of the victim like, "We really miss her." Or lawyers will inform us that "everybody deserves a fair trial." Things like that.

No effort is made to understand how kids could do something like this. All in all, a poor effort.