8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
nlnbuff83, April 25, 2005
This review is from: Secrets Never Lie: The Death of Sara Tokars--A Southern Tragedy of Money, Murder, and Innocence Betrayed (Mass Market Paperback)
I went to junior high school with Fred Tokars and to senior high school with Sara Ambrusko in Amherst, NY. I knew Fred slightly better however it was only an occasional conversation usually about music. He hung out with a different crowd of friends than I. I do however, remember him as a bit arrogant and somewhat of a "know it all" who would talk to you when he needed information about something. At other times he could walk right by you like he didn't know you. So, the personality traits were already in motion. Sara, on the other hand, was very kind and had a very sweet personality. Somehow I could not really see them together. I guess that Fred did a good job of "putting on a different face" when they dated. After I read about what had happened I was in shock. However, when I started to think about it and especially after I read the book, I could definately see how it happened. I did not know Fred's mother Phyllis but get the impression that she felt her son could do no wrong and maybe that was the start of Fred's problems. It is so hard to understand how someone could be so cold hearted and such a manipulator. I don't know what caused the rift between he and his older sister. I found the book to be well written however it did drag on in some places. It was hard to keep up with the cast of characters and I found myself always looking back to see who was who. I hope that the boys are doing well and that one of Sara's sisters has them. I heard that Sara's father passed away a couple of years ago and I always felt so badly for what the Ambrusko family was put through. I believe that life in prison for Fred is much harder for him to take than the death penalty would have been. I am sure he is still convinced in his mind that he did nothing wrong. It is a very sad story.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Murder in Atlanta's Night Club Set, January 13, 2004
This review is from: Secrets Never Lie: The Death of Sara Tokars--A Southern Tragedy of Money, Murder, and Innocence Betrayed (Mass Market Paperback)
There is a certain type of true crime book that spends a great deal of space making the victim look perfect so the villain looks even blacker. I think this is a ploy that shortchanges the victim and the readers. The author spends so much time telling us how perfect the victim was that she seems more a plaster csst than a real woman who suffered and died.
There was potentially a very powerful story there: the struggle of the family's quest for vengeance (sort of an Old Testament eye for an eye thing) against the defense team who was trying to save the accused from the death penalty with equal passion. Of course the author spends too much time beatifying one side and demonizing the other to write a really good book. I found myself feeling somewhat queasy about some of the actions on both sides. And as someone else complained, there's no explantion as to how these people arrived at the place that led to the tragedy.
Finally, I would like someone to tell me that the title means. Secrets don't lie and they don't tell the truth. They just are-- and sometimes when they are revealed they cause problems for someone.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Secrets Actually DO Lie. It's Secretions That Never Lie., July 24, 2010
This review is from: Secrets Never Lie: The Death of Sara Tokars--A Southern Tragedy of Money, Murder, and Innocence Betrayed (Mass Market Paperback)
R. Robin McDonald's true crime work, SECRETS NEVER LIE, is the highly interesting story of Fred Tokars, a ruthless and politically striving greedhead. Tokars was concerned with one thing - making money - and he didn't let the inconvenient fact that he had a wife and two sons who needed his emotional support, love, and affection hinder that pursuit. The boys became an afterthought, and his wife, Sara, became a threat when she discovered the depth and breadth of Fred's illegal activities, which consisted of money laundering for drug dealers. As the marriage became more troubled and Fred became aware of the extent of Sara's knowledge of his criminality, he decided he couldn't afford to allow her to continue living. So he hired an amateur hit man, Eddie Lawrence, who subcontracted the job to another amateur hit man and went to the extreme of telling Lawrence that, while he didn't want his sons hurt, it was okay to kill their mother in front of them as "they'll get over it."
SECRETS is not really strict true crime, as there is enough omniscient embellishment to slide it into the realm of "true crime-fiction". A few examples:
1. "Sara's voice had a holiday lilt when she called her parents..." (Whatever that may be.)
2. "Soon, Ricky drifted into a dreamless sleep."
3. "That afternoon, as she and her children hung the first ornaments, Sara's anticipation was as breathless as that of her boys."
McDonald doesn't know these things, but has simply made them up to advance the
story in an interesting fashion. And accepting this for what it is, the first ¾ of the book is fast paced and often a good read. But even early on there are hints of the maudlin and melodramatic morass into which the book's final ¼ devolves in its unfortunate slide to the unpleasant category of "true crime-soap opera".
Chief among the reasons for this is McDonald's propensity for using irritating, often nonsensical, and always ridiculous similes as well as other attempts at "creative writing":
1. "Fred's struggle to govern her stiffened like a salt-soaked rope in the sun."
2. "...a certain independence began to surface like small green shoots on a wind-blistered plain."
3. "...long before night had calcified into an empty dawn."
4. "He was now ten, a serious young man with a heart as wide as the ballfields on which he excelled as a pitcher..."
And my personal favorite:
5. "Silver coveted the wealth of and access to the corrupt but charming men he circled like a queasy moth."
That's right! A queasy moth! I don't think most, if any, of us would know a queasy moth if it puked all over us, but the thought is bizarro enough to be semi-brilliantly Salvador Dali-esque, particularly if the queasy moth had lighted on a sun-drenched salt-soaked rope on a green-shooted, wind-blistered plain.
This is bad writing, folks, and I don't understand why so many true crime writers apparently feel otherwise, especially ones like McDonald who show the ability to write well enough to put together an compelling narrative without sinking to what amounts to 11th grade writing.
McDonald is not remotely even handed in SECRETS, falling totally into the Ambrusko (Sara's) family's camp. This may make sense, as even if half of the vilification she heaps on Fred is true, he is despicable; but the Ambruskos are presented immediately and continually as one-dimensional saints. Sara, as well as her sisters and parents, are without a doubt the brightest, kindest, most loving, and most loyal of all the stars in the firmament. And that's ALL they are. Sara is one of the most important players in the story, but all we are given is a cardboard cutout. NO ONE is that wonderful, that perfect, that totally without even a minor fault all the time,
The last ¼ of SECRETS is devoted to trials and hearings, and Fred's federal trial is well written and interesting. But after that, SECRETS bogs down in a molasses-like slog of mawkish repetition How many times was I supposed to read about the Ambrusko sisters attending every trial and hearing, cringing at the continual attacks on the family by defense lawyers, dressing alike and holding hands to provide each other the strength they wish they'd provided Sara, running tear stricken for the courtroom doors, until I became over-treacled to a point approaching queasy moth status. This is not to in any way diminish the real feelings of anguish and loss the Ambruskos must have felt, but the writing is bad soap opera and bad reading.
SECRETS NEVER LIE gets 3 stars for the highly readable and fast-paced true crime- fiction segments, at least those segments that are written in an adult manner.
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