Sleep, My Child, Forever

In SLEEP, MY CHILD, FOREVER (SMCF) John Coston presents the story of Ellen Boehm, a St. Louis, MO, mother who smothered her two sons to death and made a failed attempt to electrocute her daughter in the bathtub. Coston does not delve deeply into Boehm's psychology, but he does provide sufficient information about her childhood and early married life for the reader to understand what subsequently happened in her life. Boehm was overweight, unattractive, and - after her husband left her shortly before the birth of her third child - financially strapped, emotionally distressed, worn out by the day to day demands of being a single working mother, and lonely. Ellen was also a WWF groupie who traveled around the Midwest following the pro-wrestling circuit and fantasizing that the wrestlers were sexually interested in her. There is a lot of interesting narrative about Ellen's interactions with her friends and with men in this part of the book. Losing control of herself, Ellen unintentionally killed her youngest son, David, in a fit of exhaustion and despair. But after she received a small insurance settlement from her job, she began taking out absurdly large policies on her other two kids, and ended up intentionally killing her middle child, Steven. The remainder of the book deals mainly with the efforts of a St. Louis PD homocide team which, two years after the second murder, arrested Ellen. Coston does not write particularly well, but neither is his writing actively irritating or over the top. Except for his semi hero-worship of Det. Sergeant Joe Burgoon, his style is basically journalistic. Coston avoids melodrama, bias, and he has attempted here to write a decent book. For the most part he succeeds. The book does contain some rather strange errors though. Coston seems to have had an inordinate problem dealing with St. Louis geography. He refers to Interstate 55 as "The Ozark Expressway". It has never been called that and in fact goes nowhere near the Ozarks. He has Ellen driving south on Meramec St. and north on Market St. Had Ellen actually done this, she would have driven into buildings, since both streets run east and west. And, amazingly to me, Coston refers to the St. Louis Gateway Arch, a national monument, as the Busch Arch. I have lived in St. Louis for 40 years; it is not named that; and I have NEVER heard anyone call it that. These things might not make too much difference to someone who is not from the area, but they are also things which are VERY easily checked. I found these errors irritating and feel that they call into some question the veracity of the rest of the book. Additionally, there is a detective named Daryl Cordia whose picture clearly shows him to be of the male persuasion, but Coston refers to Cordia sometimes as "he" and sometimes as "she" randomly throughout the book. I don't think I've ever seen that before and can only say, "Nice editing." But In spite of these complaints, I enjoyed reading SMCF. While it is mostly pl

The book is good, but the crime was so sick and demented that I had to quit reading it.

Sleep My Child Forever by John Coston is a very thrilling book to read. It kept my on my feet all through out the book. I did not once want to put it down. The starting of the book was very catching.The writer put very good details all through out the book on what happend. John puts himself in the position in which the character would have been in. He has a lot of thoughts which is very good. So you could relate somehow on what the character was feeling that time. So I would have to say that it was a excellent book to read.

This book is the most thrilling true crime novel I have ever read, I couldn't put it down. Within the first 24 hours of owning the book I read at least two-hundred pages, so if you love true crimes the way I do you will love this book!