First, some light housekeeping. Two days ago I sent my agent the new novel. An editor nearly acquired the last, and they’ll be first to get this one. If they pass, I get to go on the submission ferris wheel again. It’s a terrible ride; you barely move and always vomit. I’ll keep you posted.
Now, back to business.
Over the last few years I’ve had friends ask why I write novels. Why haven’t I written about the cases I worked as a New York City homicide detective? They’d make great books, they say. Maybe. Here’s why my work remains off-limits.
First, I find most true crime to be highly sensationalized, salacious accounts of real tragedies that impacted actual humans. My work shaped this perspective. I’ve informed mothers their sons were dead. Watched and rewatched security videos of teens bleeding out. Attended funerals and scoped candle-lit vigils. Sat by as shooters born into terrible situations broke down in windowless rooms. Violence shatters lives every day in this country. Broadly speaking, I don’t care for the genre, and that’d likely show in my writing.
Second, readers of true crime—predominantly women, mostly white—just don’t care about the cases I investigated. Despite accounting for the vast majority of our nation’s violent crime, urban gunplay doesn’t get the attention it should. There’s a natural attraction to stories about people that resemble us. That’s why so many episodes of 20/20, Dateline, [Latest Streaming True Crime Doc] focus on young, white women. Don’t believe me? Talk to Jonathan Green, who wrote an astounding story of one Bronx gang’s crack empire and downfall in 2018’s SEX MONEY MURDER. It’s a tremendous, harrowing read, but wasn’t—to my knowledge—a sales hit. On top of that, traditional publishing isn’t buying stories about Black and brown men ended by violence told by the white detective who investigated it.
Which brings me to my third—and biggest—reason.
On a recent road trip my wife and I started listening to the audio version of Helter Skelter, by Vincent Buglisoi and Curt Gentry. The title comes from the Beatles reference painted in human blood at one of the scenes. Originally published in 1974, it remains the best-selling true crime book in history, having moved over 7 million copies. It is a hyper-detailed account of the Tate/LaBianca (and Gary Allen Hinman) murders, Charles Manson, his Family, and the fear and panic that gripped Los Angeles and signaled the end of the 1960s. We’re only about halfway through, so this isn’t a proper review. But I do have some thoughts.
The first part covers—in graphic detail—the massacre at 10050 Cielo Drive (the Sharon Tate/Roman Polanski home) and the next night’s killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. The second focuses on the LAPD/LASO investigation (I have some notes). For miles we drove in silence; I laid off the gas to stretch our road time and keep listening. Manson is such a presence in our cultural headspace, but there was so much I didn’t know about him, the Family, the crimes, or the investigation. I was entranced.
Somewhere outside Montreal, part three began: The Investigation. At this point, the author enters the chat. If you don’t know, Vincent Bugliosi was the Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney responsible for prosecuting Manson and the Family. He had access to every note, photo, transcript, player, witness, killer, accomplice, detective, and cop. Which makes him the guy to tell this story.
Problem is, Bugliosi knew that, too.
The first two parts feel detached; an observer noting wound patterns and blood spatter. The reader is drawn through the scenes and their aftermaths and the ensuing confusion. That clinical tone shifts once Bugliosi becomes a character. His drive and “reluctant” heroism takes center stage; Bugliosi is the overworked civil servant driven by an ethical lawyer’s desire to see justice done, whatever that may entail, no matter the cost. Bugliosi comments on his unshakable ethics, his strict adherence to rule of law, and attention to detail. That last bit is especially relevant because LAPD Robbery Homicide comes off as an office of drooling idiots. Many of their investigatory decisions remain, at best, baffling. I know I had forty years of best practices on them, but the separate LaBianca and Tate investigative teams didn’t share evidence—even after getting tips indicating the killings were related!
But back to Bugliosi.
We all present the best version of ourselves; social media is built on this draw. But somewhere in Vermont my wife said, “This guy really loves himself.” And that’s the problem with participants in momentous events writing about those events. There’s no perspective, no distance. I might think I’m writing an even-handed account of my two-year, fifteen-defendant, multiple-murder, federally-prosecuted RICO investigation that climaxed in a nine-week trial interrupted by Superstorm Sandy and a blacked-out Lower Manhattan, but I’m not. Humanity gets in the way. We want to be the hero; the picture we draw will always be shaded to our best side. Bugliosi’s certainly was. He went onto a career in private practice and wrote books about Bill Clinton, OJ Simpson, George W. Bush, the JFK assassination, and the Bush/Gore Supreme Court decision. That’s a hell of a run.
Maybe I’m jealous. In sixteen years as an investigator I handled thousands of cases, tens of shootings, more than twenty murders, police-involved shootings, murder-suicides, and unexplained child deaths. But I never caught an innocent white woman sliced to ribbons and dumped trailside. Michael Connelly isn’t sitting in a diner discussing the Wonderland massacre with me. My victims were poor and urban and representative of problems this country seems unwilling to acknowledge, much less confront. They just don’t merit our interest.
But Charlie Manson will always draw eyeballs. Credit Vincent Bugliosi for seeing the future, and writing himself a starring role.