Customer Reviews

A Perfect Husband

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I didn't finish reading this book. I stopped when she began referencing another crime (Rae Carruth's murder trial) and got most of the "facts" of that case incorrect. She jumps from one time period to another and back again. I noticed this in another book of hers that I read. I'll never waste another dime on anything she writes.

There is a much better book concerning this murder ( and the first murder ) committed by Michael Peterson. It is "Written in Blood" by Diane Fanning, and it is by far the superior book. Much less confusing, much less meandering, Fanning's book manages to span the time frame between two similar crimes of women associated with Peterson.

Much more horrifying is the fact that the children of his first victim in Germany became his wards, and remained in his custody, loving him, the murderer of their mother.

I suggest that anyone confused or put off by this author's style pick up a copy of "Written in Blood." Everything is more cohesive and the spine prickles much more pronounced.

There will be no doubt in your mind that Peterson committed both murders. Evidently the courts agree with Diane Fanning, too, as Michael Peterson's final appeal against his life sentence was denied in 2007.

If you followed the trial...you will enjoy the book but you might not learn a lot of new information. I found the writing style to be amateurish and felt that the author over-dramatized a lot of the content simply for effect but it is a one stop shop to get the story from start to finish.

To provide a perfunctory summary of Aphrodite Jones' A PERFECT HUSBAND, author Michael Peterson is accused of beating his wife, Kathleen, to death in Durham, NC, and then staging a fall down a flight of stairs. We later learn that Michael may have been involved 15 years earlier in a similar incident, that he is bisexual, and blah blah blah.

It really doesn't matter because no story, no matter how interesting - and this one is - could stand up to the trashy incompetence of Jones' writing. This book exhibits all the hallmarks of the worst of the genre. Some of many possible examples:

1. In what is likely an attempt to meet a required number of pages, Jones regularly repeats material. On page 245 she writes that "Caitlin's attorney, Jay Trehy, reported..." On 246 she writes "...attorney Jay Trehy had knocked..." On 247 she writes that "Caitlin and her attorney, Jay Trehy, were conducting an investigation..." Presumably Jones felt the need to emphasize that in the space of these three pages of narrative, Caitlin had not changed attorneys.

And on page 56 we learn that, "...Kathleen had insisted that Caitlin remain close to her biological dad." Two sentences later, Jones writes that, "regardless of her new family with Michael, she wanted Caitlin to remain close to her biological father."

It's almost as if Jones does not read what she is writing. Which would actually be sensible.

2. Jones does no in depth research into the personalities, backgrounds, or psyches of the principal players in the story. Instead she substitutes superficial banalities to describe characters and events. Kathleen's sisters had "hearts of gold." A cab driver, totally peripheral to the story but who is asked to do a favor is described as "the kind stranger."

"Barbara", a babysitter 15 years earlier in Germany, "after a weekend of fun would appear chipper every Monday morning, ready for a week of full time work." "Liz went all out, as did her friends, preparing mouth watering appetizers and extraordinary desserts."

And, describing a wedding that took place 23 years before Jones wrote this book, Jones tells us that "George and Liz glowed...The pair looked stunning and shared vows that people believed could never be broken." What people?

Jones has no way of knowing any of this, and as such A PERFECT HUSBAND is not true crime but is rather its superficial cousin, fictionalized crime/soap opera. Jones' writing about people and events of which she has at best minimal knowledge, results in the saccharine non-information shown above. Rather than illuminating, the descriptions render the subjects two dimensional and clichéd. There is really no information provided.

3. None of the principal characters in this book are ever annoyed, irritated, sad, or surprised. They are all horrified, mortified, beside themselves, agonized, devastated, and, in what must have been the granddaddy of out of control emotion, "completely and utterly devastated".

And let's not forget the tears. The characters in A PERFECT HUSBAND are perpetually weeping, teary, teary eyed. Sometimes they can even be found sobbing uncontrollably.

But the king of this book's emotions is SHOCK! Everyone in this story seems to be continually somewhere on the shock continuum, whether entering it, in its throes, or coming out of it. It gets to the point where not even the residents of the region who have been following the case in the media but who otherwise have no personal ties to it are exempt. On page 251 we learn that "The public was shocked..."by a medical examiner's report. And on 220, "...folks in the Triangle region were shocked to learn that the Petersons had let so many charges pile up."

I have lived in a number of places in America and have never personally witnessed this phenomenon, but it appears that the populace in the greater Durham, NC, area has an unusual propensity toward shock. Maybe it's the water.

An unofficial count reveals at least 14 instances of the use of the words "shock" or "shocked". Jones apparently doesn't realize that continued extreme emotion results in no emotion. Or maybe she doesn't care. Devastation, shock, or whatever, becomes mundane if it's a constant and therefore not shocking or devastating. But Jones is really not attempting to provide us with any accurate sense of the way people experience emotions. She is again writing soap opera.

4. There is a lot of silliness and just bad writing in this book. On 306, Jones writes that when the sealed-off stairwell where Kathleen's body had been found was reopened, "no one could have anticipated the mystic vapor that would exude from behind the plywood." Well, I guess not.

On 80, Jones reports "There were two black dresses on sale, stunning dresses really," and that in the end "Kathleen opted to buy both." And in the next paragraph, "Yet suddenly here (Caitlin) was wearing that very dress that her mom so dearly loved. It wasn't black, actually, more midnight blue..." What color was that dress? And if it was in fact midnight blue, was it just a fit of whimsy that led Jones to initially call it black?

In an interesting mangling of a cliché, Jones writes "Up until then, any bad news Caitlin had ever heard had been followed by a silver lining."

And on page 131, "As she looked to the sky, Caitlin kept asking her mother for guidance, but she wasn't getting any signs."

5. And, for someone who calls herself a writer, Jones misuses basic English vocabulary to an amazing extent. She writes that a fireplace tool "had been omnipresent in the Peterson home." I might have expected omnipresence from the aforementioned mystic vapor, but not from a tool.

She reports that Michael's defense team "sat in the courtroom, looking somewhat glib." I don't believe you can actually look glib.

We learn that the "jurors seemed mystified by Dr. Lee's grace, by his easy smile." Mystified? That would seem an inappropriate emotion unless Dr. Lee had a reputation of being graceless and unpleasant. Perhaps she means enchanted.

And, astoundingly, Jones does not know the past tense of the verb "weep". My 15 year old has known for at least 8 years that it is wept. Jones believes it is "weeped". And it appears this way at least three times in A PERFECT HUSBAND. An example from page 122 which also illustrates the embarrassingly bad writing: "He simply cried, curled up on the floor and cried and weeped and weeped."

Interestingly, I noticed that on the acknowledgement page, one of the people Jones thanks is her editor. She doesn't say why.

A PERFECT HUSBAND embodies the worst of this genre. It is sloppy, incompetent, superficial, illiterate, and unintelligent. It would seem to be awfully difficult to write a book this bad, but Aphrodite Jones has pulled it off.

A book about the murder of Kathleen Peterson, for which her husband was found guilty at trial. Rather than give us a dispassionate history of events and personalities, Jones stumbles along with a badly constructed narrative, which consists of poor prose and doubtful value judgments. Not only is Michael Peterson held to be the devil incarnate, but also his legal team, who weren't found to be guilty of anything. The team for the prosecution, however, are perfect in every way and en route for canonization. Jones peppers this book with quite awful clangers - Kathleen Peterson "stayed locked away for months, just crying.." and in the next sentence "busier than ever with work"; "her infidelity wasn't all his fault" a web-site was "highly pornographic" yet only "quite offensive". I found it hard to keep a grip on moving forward to trial and the series of events as Jones stumbles back and forth in time. We do get a chance to review how poorly the Petersons managed their money, or rather lack of it, with hints about theft, forgery of wills, and harrassment. However, there was no real explanation of how a strong woman like Ms. Peterson had such bad judgment that she had to resort to living off credit cards. I had no confidence that all the facts were being presented, only those to fit Jones's angry treatise and rant about Michael Peterson. He'd be just as guilty had she included all the facts, and the story would have been more interesting. This case deserves better than this poorly written, poorly constructed trash. We deserve better. This is People magazine level writing, not the New York Times.

This is a compellingly written story of the trial & conviction of Michael Peterson for the murder of his wife Kathleen. I have to admit to reading with amusement the comments submitted to Amazon by Michael Peterson's fans & friends regarding this book. So, what are the odds of 2 women dying in exactly the same way, (with similar pitchfork-like injuries to the skull, as well as numerous other injuries from "falling down a stairway")? Though I cannot give the odds, I would have to believe it woud be close to impossible. And, Oh gee, look what they both have in common: an intimate relationship with Micheal Peterson, and oh yes, he was also the last to see both of them alive. The only thing I didn't get about this book was: Why the death of the mother of Martha & Margaret? Though Michael Peterson took control of the two orphaned girl's lives through his guardianship of them, I did not get the idea that there was a financial gain in it for him. Maybe the death of Elizabeth was a crime of passion (2nd degree murder), but it seemed to have worked so well the first time, that he thought he could get away with it again. This is the first time I have read the books of Aphrodite Jones and her style is different from others I have read: (I couldn't help but be amused at the concept that it was Kathleen's fault that the romance had "slipped away" from her marriage, especially given the fact that her husband was both homosexual & homicidal!) but I wholeheartedly recommend this book to true-crime fans. It is a page-turner.

"He knew his infidelity was not all HER fault..." That sentence, which made me laugh out loud, summarizes the whole book: ridiculous. The author is talking about Kathleen Peterson's first husband, who has the gall to say that his cheating on his wife is not entirely his wife's fault. Gee, what a big man he is. Of course, the guy comes across as the jerk he is, but the problem is that Aphrodite Jones doesn't get it: she takes the guy at face value, as if cheating on his spouse said nothing about him.

Jones also stars out with the description of an ideal evening that is ridiculous considering she believes that Michael Peterson killed his wife on that very evening. She even narrates what was on Kathleen's mind that night--and, unless she's a medium, there was no way for her (or anyone else) to know. The only thing Kathleen Peterson (RIP) was guilty of was a terrible taste in men, and she deserved much better--in her life, in her marriage, and in the book that was written about her. My condolences to her daughter, Caitlin.

I would like to say that this is my first time reading a book by this author. I have to agree with another reader who stated that Jones' writing was amateurish. In fact at times I believe that she was adding a great deal of filler, as she could not possibly know everything that was going through the minds of those who were at the heart of the story. Now, having said that, I would like to add that I don't think this site is appropriate for a discussion of whether or not Peterson is innocent. At any rate, I would only recommend that someone buy this at a discount price or check it out of the library. I am generally not a fan of people who try to capitalize off tragedies and after reading this I stand by that even more firmly. The book was interesting, but don't expect to find a classic. You won't.

I suggest that the dictionary should have a new phrase entitled "You Can't Make This Stuff Up". And I further suggest that Aphrodite' Jones' book A Perfect Husband be used to describe that phrase.

I could not get over the circumstances that surrounded the people in this story - before, during, and after that fateful weekend of December 8-9, 2001. Ms. Jones chronicles some pretty heavy stuff regarding very intense subjects like divorce, domestic violence, sexuality, and murder. She also covers a spectrum of emotions ranging from love to hate, from courage to fear, from honesty to deceit, all in a story that winds and unfolds across both time and geography.

I had to remind myself sometimes that I was reading about actual places and events, and not a fictional story created in the mind of an author sitting at a keyboard. So I couldn't help but turn the pages to see how the people described in the story behaved and reacted to the events that transpired.

You'll read this book and see for yourself that you can't make this stuff up.

If this wasn't a true case where two women died, "A Perfect Husband" could be enjoyably read as a parody of the true crime genre.

This ineptly written book presents the victims as very good & the baddy as very bad. All he's missing is horns & a tail. If he was that awful, what on earth did Kathleen (& presumably Liz, though this aspect is ignored) see in him?

Kathleen wasn't perfect. Nobody is. She was a talented, intelligent woman who didn't deserve to die, & we'd care more for her if she was described in a believable way. She certainly contributed to the unsustainable credit problems & for all the purported closeness to her family was apparently unable to reach out to any of them for help. Her issues with alcohol abuse are glossed over because Michael Peterson's son reported them, & could she really have been completely unaware of her husband's sexual interest in other men?

The author's simplistic way of looking at things & her obvious bias against Peterson are added to the overblown, overheated emotional atmosphere of the book. Everyone carries on like they're in a Tennessee Williams play. A very bad one without the excellent writing.

Jones also apparently has an unusual skill - she can read people's minds! This comes in very useful for her as she's able to describe exactly what Kathleen, Liz, Caitlin & others are thinking & feeling.

Basically the book reads like a script for a daytime TV show. These are real people, & it dishonours the victims & gives us no insight into the very real tragedies of their deaths. We also don't get any sense of why the deaths happened.

Get it from the library if you must read it.