This is an interesting story if you are into police procedure and personal obsession, but there is so much left out that you really wonder about everything that is left out.

The primary focus of the story is on Scott Richardson, the Colorado detective who made a nearly 3-year career out of finding enough evidence to convict Tom Luther, s psychopath who would befriend women only to savagely beat and sexually abuse them, usually ending up in the death of the women. Richardson's focus was on the murder of Cher Elder, a woman who was last seen with Luther, presumed dead, but no body.

Unfortunately, although Richardson was ultimately successful, the story almost becomes anti-climactic, as Luther would already be in prison for murder in West Virginia, and facing at least two more murder charges there (for which he would be found guilty). The Colorado case, then, becomes somewhat less than consequential.

It perhaps would have been more up front of author Steve Jackson to have presented this as just a part of the whole story of Tom Luther, or to present it as focussing on the work of Scott Richardson, but its limited scope does not do justice to the whole story of Luther, who really was a monster.

The book does do a fairly nice job of examining trial procedures in such cases, and the difficulty of prosecutors to secure justice for the victims of heinous crimes and their families. ( )