Customer Reviews

The Prom Night Murders: A Devoted American Family, their Troubled Son, and a Ghastly Crime (St. Martin's True Crime Library)

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

 

 

I agrre with this being an excellent book...a complete page-turner. And yes, the reviewer who wrote that the story leaves you wondering is right. I really think there was more to the story than the police found out and possibly the wrong person was convicted. Very mysterious goings-on in Florida that cannot be ignored.. How was the author supposed to solve the puzzle when the police disregarded all the dark implications of the Florida link? Too many police/prosecutors want the easy solution and a case cleared, regardless of the wrong person being incarcerated.

I have read at least 100 true crime stories as an adult. Most are good, some are duds and a few are outstanding. This was outstanding. The story is fascinating - and horribly tragic. It really is a whodunnit. Other reviews suggest parts of the book leave the reader without unanswered questions and unsatisfied curiosities. However, that IS part of the story. The police never did investigate EVERYTHING so there aren't answers to everything. This is one of those cases where your own consicence will tug at you as you read it. I rarely leave reviews for books however this story moved me to do so and it is one of the few books I've ever said are must-reads. Hope this helped and I hope you like the book if you invest the time in reading it.

The premise of the story, the plotline and characters, sounded interesting from the cover, but the book never delivers. I am sure the characters were interesting but the author never really lets the reader get to know them. They are all one-dimensional at best. Even the main character, Jeff Pelley, is not developed enough to really hold the reader's interest in my opinion. I am sure there was a great story there, but the author spent too much time telling the facts and paperwork, not enough time on the people, who they really were and what made them tick, what lead them to this tragedy. Too bad.

While this true crime book about the murder of an Indiana family seemed thoroughly researched, the author didn't really give me a sense of what kind of people the victims and the accused actually were. Too many pages were devoted to the legalities involved. Though the authorities waited years to charge Jeff Pelley with killing his family, they'd suspected him from the beginning. The long wait before an arrest led to a weakening of the state's case and legal battles followed. Many pages of the book were devoted to a rehashing of the legal points in excruciating detail, and I found myself skipping over these boring parts to get to the result. As for the victims themselves, I never felt I got to know them. It was pretty much names, ages, and then they were murdered. Bob Pelley was presented in the most detail with some of his background given, though not enough to give me a real feeling for his character. The author said very little about the two little girls who fell victim to the savage killing or about their mother, Dawn. Even Jeff Pelley, the accused, wasn't thoroughly explored as a person.
I wanted to read about people and ended up with a book that was more about legal points and an alternative, but weak theory about who might have really killed the family.

This one of the best true crime books I have read in a long time. It is well written, it reads like a mystery novel. The reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is I felt that the author could have told more of the victims. Ann Rule and Carlton Stowers are great about letting the reader know what the victim was like so that you get a true sense of the loss. I found this book to be sad. I almost didn't buy it because I try to avoid True Crime books involving children. In the end, there was no great sense of justice. I am not sure if I am totally convinced that the convicted person commited the crime. There is a lot of questions that were not answered and the evidence was not overwhelming in my opinion. If I had been on the jury I'm not possitive I could convict. If he did do the crime it is still sad, I feel bad for his wife and little boy and of course his sister. I recommend this book. I had a hard time putting it down.

I am a big fan of the true crime genre, and can easily read several books a week. However, this book meandered about with no real focus.

A large chunk of the book was dedicated to courtroom arguments regarding Indiana's statute on bail and release of the defendant. Most of this could have been left out without harming the story. I am reading true crime stories for the human element involved, not for the legal wranglings involved in obtaining bail.

It seemed like a very interesting story from the start, but so much is lacking. So much remains unknown, and there is no sense of closure to the case. A lot of that has to do with the shoddy police investigation, and not the author's work. Is there a Florida connection to the homocides? Did Jeff really have the sophistication and skill necessary to murder his family and dispose of evidence in the span of minutes? Could he have had an accomplice? These questions remain unanswered and the conclusion of the book holds no satisfaction for the reader

I followed this case and the subsequent trial very closely and knew a lot of the details Carlton Smith researched, and yet he surprised me many times. If defense attorney Baum had researched Bob Pelley's past in Florida the way Carlton Smith did, Jeff Pelley might be a free man right now.

In fact, if Alan Baum had done A LOT of things better, Jeff would be free. This book, while not definitively answering the question "Who Killed The Pelleys?", certainly convinces any intelligent reader that there was an absolute BOATLOAD of reasonable doubt that the murderer was Jeff.

If you have a conscience, this book will make you angry.

Smith causes you to ask yourself, How could a 17 year old boy, who never once demonstrated criminal psychopathy, mastermind a crime so perfect and precise as to murder four family members in 20 minutes and leave no trace of evidence? You ask yourself, wouldn't this absolute genius for crime have shown up later in his life? Yet Smith recounts Jeff's lame and incompetent attempt to wrest trust fund money before it was due him.

Smith does a good job of presenting the political climate in town at the time. I live here, and the small-town politics, the small-time incompetence of the police force at the time, are accurately depicted in the book. The pure sensationalism of a 17-year-old boy murdering his family because he was forbidden to go to the prom, somehow captured the whole community. People believed it, not because there was any truth to it, not because there was any evidence, but because it was wow!sensational! and don't people act like that on TV?

After reading this book, you're left with a lot of questions. I hope some of these questions trouble Judge Chamblee, Chris Toth, Mike Dvorak, Frank Shaffer, Brett Hemmerlein, in the night before they sleep. If not, perhaps their consciences are seared.

New York Times Bestselling Author Carlton Smith has a unique way of writing that flows in an easy to read conversational style, albeit at times repeatitive, which is present once again in his lastest publication The Prom Night Murders: A Devoted American Family, their Troubled Son, and a Ghastly Crime (St. Martin's True Crime Library).

Pastor Bob Pelley and his wife Dawn had blended their families just two short years before their murder.

One of Bob's two children was Robert "Jeffrey" Pelley; a high school senior in 1989 who didn't see eye to eye with his father on a wide variety of issues.

Including his punishment for petty theft: he could not drive his date to the high school prom, nor participate in pre or post prom activities, instead being escorted to and from the occasion by his father.

Was it a disciplinary action stern enough to warrant murder? The execution-style killings of his father, stepmother, and two youngest stepsisters?

It was, according to a St. Joseph County, Indiana jury.

Seventeen years later in 2006.

In The Prom Night Murders, Carlton Smith provides his readers with ALL the facts; and while the jury's verdict is in, he leaves readers hanging as to his own opinion - essentially inviting them to reach their own conclusion.

I love a book like this! So seldom is true crime a real "whodunnit," but more of a fanciful version of the facts.

The case of Jeff Pelley as detailed in The Prom Night Murders: A Devoted American Family, their Troubled Son, and a Ghastly Crime (St. Martin's True Crime Library) - a case that spanned almost two decades - will really motivate readers to ponder, "Guilty or not guilty?"

This book only repeats itself over and over through out. I have written a lot of reviews but do not think that I have ever given a book 1 star. I was really dissapointed there is no background. The reader does not know what goes on between the years of the crime and the arrest. This book was just thrown togather with no thought put or research put into it for a quick sale.

Carlton Smith has a nice, conversational writing style that draws the reader into this latter day (1989) Indianna parallel of the 1959 Clutter family murder in Kansas memorialized by Truman Capote In Cold Blood. But Capote tells the whole tale. Smith keeps dangling "meanwhile down in Florida" teasers throughout his book, then never ties it all up.
In the end, this reader was left unsatisfied - unsure even of Smith's thesis. Who really done it? You'll come away unsure. And what was the point of the highly fore-shadowed, but then never explained, map?
Disappointing.
/TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer