CBR 15 Bingo – Edibles: Fritz, Susie and her sons are on mind-boggling amounts of vitamin pills, which they are observed taking by the handful to the bemusement and horror of their friends and family.
No one can think of a reason why anyone would kill Delores and Janie Lynch in such a cold-blooded manner. But when their in-laws are murdered barely a year later, the police suspect that the motive for the deaths might be found among the ranks of the family.
Bitter Blood is one of the classics of the true crime genre and lives up to everything that’s promised in its subtitle. While I had heard about the case on a podcast before, it was some years ago so the details of the story had mostly faded away. As such, every twist and turn struck me across the face full force.
The story is already a fascinating and alarming one, but the author heightened the story with the atmosphere that he created. There is a sense of impending doom that gripped on me as I read this book, to the point that it was sometimes tough to read towards the end. There’s no catharsis to be found here, no hero figure to latch onto and no justice, so we are left with an appropriately bleak feeling that is surprisingly missing in much true crime.
I did think that Bledsoe spent a little too much time discussing the histories and the overwhelming respectability of the families involved though. Obviously that component is an important feature of Susie and Fritz’s backgrounds, but I didn’t know if we needed to know the minutiae of each Sharp sibling’s education and career to get the gist of things. A lot of the first few parts of the book could have been easily cut.
