While the color photos and captivating headlines always turn my head at the bookstore, I usually know better than to pick up a true crime book.  I went against my better judgment when I decided to read Stolen in the Night: The True Story of a Family's Murder, a Kidnapping and the Child Who Survived by Gary C. King and I really wish I wouldn’t have.

Stolen in the Night is the story about Joseph Edward Duncan, a sexual psychopath, and how he kidnapped two children in Idaho and brutally murdered the rest of their family.  The story itself is as shocking and disturbing as it’s advertised to be.  However, the presentation of that story could be much better. 

This is where I blame true crime novels in general.  They typically read like a long, drawn-out newscast.  Sure, there are plenty of details, but not necessarily the details readers are craving to learn.  For example, it doesn’t really matter to me what the chief investigator of a case had for breakfast.  In a fictionalized story, this minute detail might help develop the character and could be seen as a necessary contribution, but in a book like this, it’s merely thrown in amongst other facts to take up space.  On top of that, there is usually no flair to the writing.  The words are informative, yet stale, and the reader ends up feeling like he’s just finished a news article or blurb from a textbook.  I have to say that in this area, Gary C. King excelled.  His writing was not as poor as some of the other true crime authors I have read.  He did his best to use vivid vocabulary here and there, which made it possible for me to finish the book instead of throwing it away after the first one hundred pages. 

My recommendations about this book vary based on your purpose.  If you simply want to learn what happened with this psychopath and the kids he kidnapped, but don’t want to wade through a bunch of irrelevant information, I would simply find a news article about the crime.  It’ll be easier to read, give you all the information you want, and take up a whole lot less of your time!  If you enjoy knowing every intricate detail of every conversation, theory, and investigation, then you might enjoy this book.  Like I said previously, its biggest fault is that it’s written for the true crime genre.  Gary C. King has talent, but as a reader, I think it could be put to much better use than writing glorified news reports.