Sex Crimes

I started reading this book to fill in some time while I couldnt sleep last night. Now having the day off read the whole book. I literally couldnt put it down. I had to know what happened and what was going to happen. This is a great book. Very interesting and it keeps you guessing on the edge of your seat!!!!! I'd like recommend this book to everyone!!! It was well worth my day!!!!!!!!!!!!

The story of Christine Chandler, thirty-eight year-old lawyer, graduate of Harvard, a woman whose conspicuousness and facade of clear-minded control keeps everyone, even friends, from discovering her destructive love affair with a much younger man. Scott DeSalvo, twenty-six years-old, is a magazine photographer, indolent, ignorant, and "raised on MTV". However, Scott also has a temper and when things do not go Scott's way, his anger transforms into passionate rage. The relationship was initially based on the mutual, unemotional grounds of fulfilling sexual needs in both parties. Yet merely ten months after she meets him, Christine is facing charges with a horrible crime of mutilation, an act so repugnant she is now known as the "Boston Fury" and attracting national renown.We hear the novel in the aftermath of the assault as Christine, who pleads guilty to her actions, is attempting to gather wisps of memory together to assist her prominent feminist defense attorney. She chronicles the aberrating events that led from a one-night stand to a sadomasochistic gratification to a murderous and insane jealousy. The book gives information punctuated with the depositions and testimonies of her aghast friends and colleagues, cold and unsympathetic parents, and the articles and transcripts of talk shows and tabloid magazines, who are having a field-day with the story of a woman who had it all, but whose emotional melt-down froze to an icy rage.This book was a wonderful read. I enjoyed the wry and offbeat humor of Shute's Christine and could recognize her style emulating that of previous works without repeating. Although this book can be provocative due to its sexual deviance, you can really empathize and appreciate this tale of a woman who bears the knowledge that she has committed a crime, yet leaves the reader wondering if she is ever really guilty of it at all.Sex Crimes is the second novel of author Jenefer Shute, ensuring that after her substantial debut with Life-Size, she is more than just a one-night stand of an author. I look forward to reading much more of her future writing.

I look for fine craftsmanship with the English language...fine descriptive powers, and also for fine insights into the human psyche. I also happen to like books that (this does sound idiotic) are not that long, given my time/energy constraints. This book has all of the above, and while anything but graphic or gratuitous in the handling of the sex topic...the last thing it is is steamy...the subtext of sexual obsession certainly keeps it more interesting than a review of an IRS manual. Especially if you've been there in relationships where conversation wasn't the focus but falling together in a frenzy of body heat again again WAS the issue, this book hits home. Good stuff.

Normally I hate mystery novels -- mostly because their authors draw character too crudely and exaggerate for emphasis. But this novel is different. Like Donna Tartt's "The Secret History," it's a mystery driven by character rather than plot -- yet the mystery is still so gripping that you can't put it down. Although the central events of the story are pretty simple, I'm rereading it now because the story -- though much more plausible than most mysteries -- remains elusive.Another book I would compare it to is Susanna Moore's "In the Cut." Like that book, it has sensationalistic elements, but like "In the Cut," it treats these elements with intelligence and detachment.Finally, it also reminded me of Kathryn Harrison's "Exposure" in its experimentation with a painful narrative about obsession from different "sources", including clinical reports, news stories, and other "official" sources.

I finished this book in an afternoon. I continued reading to find out why she murdered her "one night stand" only to find out that was exactly what the book was about... The why's she kept asking herself. Why would a successful person sink to the depths this woman sank to and continue to dive for more until reaching the darkness of murder. Why did she keep going back to him. She had no answers and kept asking herself the same question and ended up facing murder charges. I'd read it again except I don't think she or I will find the answers