A Date With Death

This book is pretty good. If you are interested in this case the author does a good job. It tells of a brillant med student that is the least likely to become a murderer. He had everything going for him with a georgous fiancee and a great future. He threw it all away because of a dark side no one close to him saw. I would of liked to have seen better pictures in the book but overall its a good read.

This book is an easy read and I was happy to find out a great deal about the case that I did not know. I did not like the pictures; they did not have a whole lot to do with the people involved with the crime.

A killer looks in the mirror. Without warning, the reader is injected with a dose of sociopathy that chills the soul. Your world view is shattered. You think you know the case of The Craigslist Killer? This book will teach you how little any of us know--most especially about ourselves. This is a murder mystery solved swiftly during a time of political necessity. This is a love story. This is a book about politics, corruption, prison, family, sexuality, vice and human yearning--whether for fairy tales, medical degrees, political position or prison booze. There are no clichés. There are only stunning revelations, one after another. Did the political climate at the time contribute to the swift capture and durable cases against Philip Markoff? Why were nearly a dozen law enforcement agencies including the Secret Service involved? What is the relationship between media reports that informed the public and the story as it is told here? How does the story tie in to the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal? Only Michele McPhee can help you resolve these questions. As a former crime reporter that covered everything from murder to mob in Boston and New York, Michele is a true insider who will regale the reader with colorful stories about politics as usual in Boston and Massachusetts. Her access and reputation allow more detail to be provided to the reader, and her proven talent as a writer allows that detail to be delivered in a fashion that provides color to one of the darkest stories of our time. The reader will be mesmerized and entertained by interesting asides about alcoholics anonymous, politics, police procedure, online prostitution and much more. True Crime so often misses the mark on character development. A Date with Death is instead informed of all participants' world views, natures, personalities, coping styles and demons. This is a rare marvel of true crime fiction, one which truly fuses all the fragments of the story together as it was--not as it was told, perceived or individually experienced. Another masterpiece by McPhee.

Michele McPhee pulls no punches in laying out the chronology of events in the unravelling of Phiilip Markoff and the tragedies resulting therefrom. A hard-boiled former crime reporter, a chronicoler of other notorious crime stories and now popular (and populist) talk radio host in Boston, McPhee provides ample context for the central story. She describes vividly the incestuous, self-serving relationships of Boston politics and law enforcement. Much of McPhee's prose is editorial. But, she delivers her opinions unapologetically. Frankly, that is refreshing. It is nicely juxtaposed against the rampant hypocrisy and blurred ethics that riddle the world of Boston public service. Despite having spent much time as a reporter in NYC, McPhee is a well-connected Boston local who knows the rotting corpse from the inside out. So, she comes across as authoratative if somewhat disgusted by what her hometown "hacks" (career public "servants") are capable of. Alas, the book is marred by a rushed feel and a spate of typographical errors (in the Kindle edition). I've seen better editing on sports blog sites. Nonetheless, she conveys well, in the short space she is given, the chilling profile of a sociopath who clearly either wanted to or didnt care about getting caught. The raft of careless clues/evidence left behind by Markoff is almost as amazing as the nonchalance he displayed after committing his crimes. Markoff is not a character one can sympathize with as there is nothing in his past the reader can point to and say "ahh, this is why he did what he did." He is simply wired like so many serial criminals before him, i.e., with the ability to lie with convincing skill and to commit heinous crimes without so much as a blink of remorse. A follow-up edition, post-trial, would make this a better, more complete read. Otherwise, it was entertaining and compelling reading. For lovers of Boston-based crime stories, this ranks up there with the tales Charles Stuart and Whitey Bulger.