An Interesting Look at the World of 40 Years Ago | Shallow Grave in Trinity County

Shallow Grave in Trinity County | Shallow Grave in Trinity County | Harry Farrell

books:


	• Shallow Grave in Trinity County Harry Farrell St. Martin's Griffin, 1999 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 14 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Was murder victim Stephanie Bryant, 1955's Polly Klaas?

Author Harry Farrell is an excellent historian, archivist and writer whose familiarity with California's bay area shines in one of the first widely publicized kidnapping/murder of a young girl. Gone missing on her walk home from school, 14-year old Stephanie Bryant's body is found, not by law enforcement or the FBI, but by two reporters from the San Francisco Examiner.

The young girl was taken on April 28, 1955 and Burton Abbott, convicted of her murder, was put to death on March 15, 1957, less then two years after her abduction. A stark contrast to 1993's Richard Allen Davis, the convicted murderer of Polly Klaas who remains on California's death row today.

Farrell expertly sketches the climate of pre-discovery, pre-Miranda justice. He also hauntingly underwrites the conclusion that paints Abbott the killer with enough doubt that the reader is left with questions about whether justice was truly served in the 1950's.

All in all, an excellent read, leaving only picky legal buffs, like this reader, wanting more details about the intricacies of the trial.

for more information click here

An Interesting Look at the World of 40 Years Ago

Harry Farrell, the author of SHALLOW GRAVE IN TRINITY COUNTY, is an excellent writer. This is the first book of his I've read, and he writes it as a journalist/newspaper reporter without injecting his personal opinions, always a positive in my view. Farrell's research is exhaustive and meticulous, and the material resulting from that research is presented coherently, intelligently, and highly professionally.
SHALLOW GRAVE is the story of the kidnapping and murder in 1955 of a 14 year old girl. The book is basically formatted in three sections: the description of the crime, the police investigation, and the trial. While I often find the courtroom/trial sections of true crime books to be opportunities for uninterested writers to pad their books with filler, I can happily report that Farrell is not guilty of this. He is clearly interested enough in his book that his report of the trial is as well written as the rest of the book.
However, while almost necessarily the case, the account of the trial repeats a lot of the information reported in the section on the police investigation, as the witnesses testify as to the same info. which Farrell has already presented in the section concerning the investigation.
This can get tedious, though it is certainly not a deal-breaker. I feel that this section would work better as a series of daily newspaper reports, which of course at the time it was, rather than having it consolidated into a section of a book.
The other disappointment I felt with SHALLOW GRAVE is that, while there was some, there was not ultimately not enough discussion of of the making of the personality of the sociopath Burton Abbott. However, I believe Farrell probably did the best he could with what he had, given that the case was about 45 years old when the book was written.
Another positive I should mention is that the pictures in the book are very good, and that they - along with both Farrell's fine descriptions of the U.S. of the 1950's and his ear for the speech of the time - provide a vivid and fascinating backdrop for the book.
I will certainly be checking out other of Harry Farrell's books.

for more information click here

Shallow Grave in Trinity County

This book is a well written documentary of a fourteen year old girl who was abducted and murdered on her way home from school in Oakland , California in the mid 1950's. It tells of the police investigation and eventual apprehension and trial of the man believed to have been her killer.

The time, place and people in this true story all relate to my experience at that time period when I was living in Berkeley. Strange to say but even after reading the book, I don't remember reading or knowing about the event. I found the story facinating, especially the careflly related investigation and the trial. I was amazed at how the evidence was analized with the tools of the time to make a case against the suspect.

My recommendation is to read the book. It will make you think and wonder about the participants and their motives for a long time.

Jan M.
Now living in Trinity County

for more information click here

Like a Stephen King Horror Story, Only True!

Harry Farrell's work is not only riveting, it is so well written it takes you to the time and place of the crime and its aftermath. Truly horrifying and disturbing and especially so to me as I grew up in the same general area where Stephanie Bryan was kidnapped. A lot of the landmarks and crime scenes in the book are very familiar to me as I used to work in Berkeley and drove the Tunnel Road and Ashby Avenue daily. It brought the horror home for me. The details of Stephanie's kidnap, sexual assault, and cruel, brutal, murder are heart wrenching and sad. This sweet girl was a highly intelligent honor student who avidly enjoyed reading and loved animals. I was truly aggrieved that such a beautiful human being had to die because of the despicable actions of a brutal sociopath who had no feelings or conscience. Burton Abbott's guilt is readily apparent to me and Mr. Farrell clearly and methodically illustrates this.

for more information click here

another page-turner from Harry Farrell

I read Farrell's "Swift Justice" a few years ago, and it haunted me for a long time afterward. When I came across this book, I expected that I would get just as involved with it, and I did. Farrell has a way of including details in a story that make it fascinating, even if you know the outcome (and I agree with the other reviewers who mentioned the give-away photo section). Some of the most interesting aspects of this book involve minor characters, such as the suspect who fears his co-workers' "sex vibrations", the mysterious eyewitness "Melody", and the teenage girl who became obsessed with the accused murderer. These people's own words, which Farrell diligently researched and quoted, give the reader a direct window onto the time period. The book is also full of the kind of scientific information that fans of CSI will enjoy.

[WARNING--SPOILERS FOLLOW] The kidnapping and murder described in the book are so horrible, that I was hoping for the kind of cathartic closure you might get from watching a killer convicted on TV. But Farrell doesn't let the reader off so easy. Though there was ample physical evidence pointing to Barton Abbot, a few little loose threads will leave me forever wondering. And of course, the eternal question of why anyone would commit such a crime is not answered.

As far as the victim's family goes, they are not painted as the sainted martyrs another reviewer complained about. In fact, one of the saddest aspects of the book for me was the parents' refusal to tell their other children what really happened to their sister. "We don't talk about it," the victim's mother said. Years later, her son admitted to Farrell the pain the situation caused him.

Farrell shows how notorious crimes can drag down innocent bystanders: witnesses lost their livelihoods; a mother had to move out of state and change her child's name.

All in all, Farrell has written a book that is not only a gripping true-crime story, but a valuable social history.

for more information click here

1955. California, a postwar dream. Stephanie Bryan, a pretty fourteen-year-old from Berkeley, vanishes while walking home from school one day. Her parents search frantically; her disappearance makes the news; but nothing turns up...for three months.

Then, one summer night a few miles away in the town of Alameda, a young housewife discovers a burial ground of Stephanie Bryan's belongings in her basement, including bobby pins, schoolbooks, eyeglasses, and a wallet. The woman's husband, Burton Abbot, soon becomes the enigmatic center of the nine-month nightmare that follows. Abbot claims innocence, but Stephanie's body is soon found in a makeshift grave not far from Abbot's mountain cabin, hundreds of miles away. Despite the evidence, Abbot stubbornly maintains his innocence throughout the trial, provoking questions that linger four decades later. Through extensive interviews, original research, and an eye-opening review of long-forgotten police files, Harry Farrell has crafted a chilling re-creation of an unforgettable crime--and a dark parable of evil amid the suburban bliss of 1950s America.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

hot