Robin M. (robinm) reviewed Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod on + 57 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Reads like "First Year Creative Writing Students Gone Wild!" Please! Here are a few examples of how she tries to use colors to foreshadow or heighten suspense...remember, this is NOT a poetry book:
"...I sidestepped a little mess on the sidewalk, a broken jar of jelly. I stared at the sugary tumble...Its blood-red pectin stained a deep scallop on the fresh-swept paving stone..I tasted it. Sweet with a sharp aftertaste." (MAYBE GLASS???)
Then later:
(The author finds unexplained blood dots in her home)"Climbing roses drop their blooms and circle like briers. Headstones, in so many sunken cemeteries in Truro, shift and tilt and rise up from nowhere with the first frost heaves. Or blood appears without explanation. These jewel spots remind us of Christa." ????
The book probably would have been a lot better if the author had not been trying so hard to make her prose the main attraction. I have to say that there were lot of interesting details about the case that I am sure would have been hard for other authors to pry out of the principles. This book got the local DA in a LOT of trouble for his comments and the decidedly tawdry details he supplied the author (who is a native of Truro).
"...I sidestepped a little mess on the sidewalk, a broken jar of jelly. I stared at the sugary tumble...Its blood-red pectin stained a deep scallop on the fresh-swept paving stone..I tasted it. Sweet with a sharp aftertaste." (MAYBE GLASS???)
Then later:
(The author finds unexplained blood dots in her home)"Climbing roses drop their blooms and circle like briers. Headstones, in so many sunken cemeteries in Truro, shift and tilt and rise up from nowhere with the first frost heaves. Or blood appears without explanation. These jewel spots remind us of Christa." ????
The book probably would have been a lot better if the author had not been trying so hard to make her prose the main attraction. I have to say that there were lot of interesting details about the case that I am sure would have been hard for other authors to pry out of the principles. This book got the local DA in a LOT of trouble for his comments and the decidedly tawdry details he supplied the author (who is a native of Truro).
Patricia H. reviewed Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod on + 83 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This is a true story and was researched and presented in a manner that made you feel as though you were there as part of the investigation... you came away understanding in part why a beautiful and talented woman chose to leave behind a world of "glitter" to live a quiet, simple life in a remote town on Cape Cod.
June A. (pertdoe) reviewed Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod on + 191 more book reviews
I did not like this book. The story was disjointed and very hard to follow. A murder of an unmarried mother on Cape Cod. I have read other books of hers and they were good. I don't know what happened with this one.
Diane C. (DEC) reviewed Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod on + 134 more book reviews
A literary investigation of a story that riveted the nation. How an accomplished world-traveled fashion writer who had retreated to a simpler life as a single mother on Cape Cod became the victim of a brutal, still unsolved murder.
Storm C. (greenwitchlady) reviewed Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod on + 53 more book reviews
At times hard to get into. Can also be depressing when you think of her and herfamily how they got along and such.
Nanette B. (naners) reviewed Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod on + 16 more book reviews
This is a really different true-crime book. It is the story of the murder of Cristina Worthington, an heiress, the crime is still unsolved. It tells about the people and does not have boring trial coverage.
Jeanne M. (ReaderByTheSea) reviewed Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod on + 49 more book reviews
good;current issue book on the life and murder of Christa Worthington, fashion designer
Patty T. (Lantana) reviewed Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod on + 12 more book reviews
Well, I enjoyed it! A sad story, but it could happen to anyone!
Susan W. (scaddybo) reviewed Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod on + 130 more book reviews
This book ended with the killer still on the run but if you've heard the news in the last couple of months you'll realize that the killer has been caught and it was a TOTAL shock! I will include a printout with the book so you will know who the real killer is.
Rochelle V. reviewed Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod on + 9 more book reviews
This is a true story of a still-unsolved murder that happened on Cape Cod. Christa Worthington's life had changed from living in the high society of New York to a more relaxed life in Cape Cod when she was brutally murdered.
Karen U. (editorgrrl) reviewed Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod on + 255 more book reviews
The killer was one of more than three dozen local men forced to give DNA samples, yet he wasn't identified and arrested until April 2005.
From Booklist
*Starred Review*
When Christa Worthington, an accomplished fashion writer and single mother, was found murdered in a remote Cape Cod town, national media became fascinated with the life and tragic end of a woman who appeared to have everything. Flook, a newer resident to the same small town, follows the investigation into the still unsolved murder of a woman who drifted from a life of high fashion and old WASP money to chasing a local fisherman heartthrob, the father of her child, in the hopes that he would divorce his wife. Drawing on interviews with family, friends, and former lovers, as well as investigators and murder suspects, Flook brings Worthington to life, detailing her vibrancy, character flaws, and obsessions. The Vassar graduate, disappointed with her career, found herself in her 40s, back home in Cape Cod, nursing a dying mother, expecting a child, and reviving a hatred for her philandering father, who had taken up with a much younger woman who was addicted to heroin. Flook also offers a searing look at the seaside town peopled with the rich, famous, and quirky, as well as the blue-collar, obscure, and edgy, in this intimate look at the allure of secrets, sex, and murder.
From Publishers Weekly
In January 2002, 46-year-old fashion writer Crista Worthington was found stabbed to death on the floor of her cottage in Truro, Mass. Her curly-haired toddler, Ava, was nestled by her side. The murder traumatized Worthington's idyllic Cape Cod community and captured the attention of the national media. Here, Truro resident Flook (My Sister Life: The Story of My Sister's Disappearance) attempts to make literary sense of the tragic, downward spiral of Worthington. An attractive former Vassar girl and scion of a prominent local family, she left a glamorous career in New York (she also worked for WWD in Paris) to have an affair with a ruggedly handsome but very married fisherman and have his child. Flook, despite her lively writing, cannot solve the crime. "No one can understand the arc of the victim's life until her killer is ID'ed," writes Flook herself. Flook turns to terse Michael O'Keefe, the assistant district attorney responsible for the Worthington case, for insight and what can only be called local macho resonance. But his noncommittal investigative shop talk can't take the place of the truth. Most disappointing, the victim herself emerges as neither sympathetic nor compelling, a spoiled little rich girl who seems to care little for anyone except her daughter and herself. "The more we look at her, the uglier she gets," O'Keefe says of Worthington. Although Flook fleshes out various suspects, including Tony Jackett, the father of Worthington's child, and Tim Arnold, the spurned-lover-turned-friend who found Worthington's body. Flook seems to favor Arnold as the murderer, but who knows? This work will leave most readers with a sense of sadness and not much else.
From Booklist
*Starred Review*
When Christa Worthington, an accomplished fashion writer and single mother, was found murdered in a remote Cape Cod town, national media became fascinated with the life and tragic end of a woman who appeared to have everything. Flook, a newer resident to the same small town, follows the investigation into the still unsolved murder of a woman who drifted from a life of high fashion and old WASP money to chasing a local fisherman heartthrob, the father of her child, in the hopes that he would divorce his wife. Drawing on interviews with family, friends, and former lovers, as well as investigators and murder suspects, Flook brings Worthington to life, detailing her vibrancy, character flaws, and obsessions. The Vassar graduate, disappointed with her career, found herself in her 40s, back home in Cape Cod, nursing a dying mother, expecting a child, and reviving a hatred for her philandering father, who had taken up with a much younger woman who was addicted to heroin. Flook also offers a searing look at the seaside town peopled with the rich, famous, and quirky, as well as the blue-collar, obscure, and edgy, in this intimate look at the allure of secrets, sex, and murder.
From Publishers Weekly
In January 2002, 46-year-old fashion writer Crista Worthington was found stabbed to death on the floor of her cottage in Truro, Mass. Her curly-haired toddler, Ava, was nestled by her side. The murder traumatized Worthington's idyllic Cape Cod community and captured the attention of the national media. Here, Truro resident Flook (My Sister Life: The Story of My Sister's Disappearance) attempts to make literary sense of the tragic, downward spiral of Worthington. An attractive former Vassar girl and scion of a prominent local family, she left a glamorous career in New York (she also worked for WWD in Paris) to have an affair with a ruggedly handsome but very married fisherman and have his child. Flook, despite her lively writing, cannot solve the crime. "No one can understand the arc of the victim's life until her killer is ID'ed," writes Flook herself. Flook turns to terse Michael O'Keefe, the assistant district attorney responsible for the Worthington case, for insight and what can only be called local macho resonance. But his noncommittal investigative shop talk can't take the place of the truth. Most disappointing, the victim herself emerges as neither sympathetic nor compelling, a spoiled little rich girl who seems to care little for anyone except her daughter and herself. "The more we look at her, the uglier she gets," O'Keefe says of Worthington. Although Flook fleshes out various suspects, including Tony Jackett, the father of Worthington's child, and Tim Arnold, the spurned-lover-turned-friend who found Worthington's body. Flook seems to favor Arnold as the murderer, but who knows? This work will leave most readers with a sense of sadness and not much else.
Mary S. (mscottcgp) -
The true-crime story of how a world-traveled fashion writer who had retreated to a simpler life as a single mother on Cape Cod became the victim of a brutal,still unsolved murder
This book has a little tiny fold on the lower right corner.
