"We started out wondering who killed Hazel Drew; we wound up just as immersed in another, even more rudimentary mystery: Who was Hazel Drew?"
(Photo of Hazel Drew and Laura Palmer, fictional character from the television series "Twin Peaks.")
I hadn't read a true-crime mystery in quite a while and chose it from among the Amazon First Reads selections. I got through it but didn't really enjoy it. For one thing, I had to endure pages of "Dramatis Personae," as the authors introduce all the people involved in this icy-cold case, over 100 years old---the victim, Hazel Drew, the detectives, doctors, family, employers, friends, townsfolk, the press. As the story is told, they end up repeating many of these descriptions. There are SO many characters it is difficult to remember who's who.
I must admit the authors did an amazing amount of research, apparently 5 years' worth. It started when David Bushman heard an interview with Mark Frost, cocreator of the TV series, "Twin Peaks." After hearing about the inspiration for the series, Bushman became compelled to delve into the 100-year-old unsolved mystery of the murder of Hazel Drew. Frost has even written the Foreword for the book. Unfortunately, I was completely unfamiliar with "Twin Peaks" so many comparisons of Hazel's death to the fictional one of Laura Palmer were lost on me. Perhaps, if I had seen the show I would have gotten more out of the book.
The reader is forced to make it almost to the end of the book to find out WHO murdered Hazel Drew, in the opinion of Bushman and Givens. Obviously, the book held my interest since I finished it; there were parts I found interesting, but many were tiresome. I am rating it a 2.
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