Ken Kratz

Wow. So much bitter animosity toward the series and viewers, and so little depth. Kratz had the opportunity here to really take readers inside, to make us feel as though we were there with the investigators and prosecutors. There wasn't a 3D sentence to be found in the entire book. The people didn't feel real, and huge chunks of the narrative are missing. Did he even read any good true crime before writing this? He really should have found a ghost writer, because he was obviously in over his head here. I wanted this book to be so much more than it was. If you want to feel like Kratz is sitting at the end of the bar with a drink, complaining about Making a Murderer and apologizing for his transgressions, this is for you.

Great graphic design on the cover, though- really well done.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this e-ARC.… (mais)

Man.... I really really wanted to like this book more. I'll admit to getting caught up in the hype of the Making a Murderer series when it was first released and was outraged at the "conspiracy" and "evidence tampering" that had occurred. Of course, there's always two sides to every story and when I received this ARC from NetGalley, I was excited to get a glimpse of the prosecution's side. Unfortunately, I feel the author's own troubled history takes away from the validity of this book and most of the background described can be found from a simple Google search. Maybe I just built this up in my head too much and was disappointed that there were not the same fireworks that Making a Murderer gave me back in 2015. I do feel fans of the Netflix series should give this a chance though as it's a quick read and does touch upon the latest developments with the Brendan Dassey case.

I do admire the fact that Mr. Kratz worked to overcome his addictions and move on with his life but I can't help but feel that this book was some kind of "stick it to 'em" of the creators of the Netflix series and Mr Kratz seemed oblivious of who his true audience was. His obvious disdain of the series, while understandable, caused him to miss the mark and while this book could have a been a huge opportunity for him to truly show his side, I feel the chapters were just a reflection of his own jumbled thoughts. I wish more effort had been put into organizing the book better and the facts were looked at more in-depth rather than just touched upon and then off it was to the next detail. And while Mr. Kratz talks about Teresa Halbach being overlooked throughout the book, he himself is guilty of this as well, offering only 7 pages of the book entitled "The Victim" that offers no new insight to who the victim was but merely describes the events leading up to her murder. It's hard to believe that a book is "dedicated to her memory" when the author himself seems to have put little effort into remembering her. I think Mr. Kratz would have gotten a better response to his novel if he had taken some more time to focus on this.

Mr. Kratz did do a good job of identifying some of the invisible victims of this crime, including Lieutenant James Lenk and Sergeant Andy Colburn and their families. I do agree with Mr Kratz's opinion that two completely untarnished police officers would not be capable of the amount of corruption, evidence tampering and just pure luck that framing Steven Avery would entail. Teresa Halbach was the true victim of this crime but James Lenk, Andy Colburn, Ken Kratz himself and their respective families are the victims of the relentless media attention this case was given with the release of the Making a Murderer series in 2015.

I think, if I had spent less time after the release of Making a Murderer, researching the facts of the case, I might have liked this book more. Unfortunately, I don't think any new insights were provided by Mr. Kratz.… (mais)