2009-10-20

lightreads: a partial image of a etymology tree for the Indo-European word 'leuk done in white neon on black'; in the lower left is (Default)
2009-10-20 11:08 pm

Fire Lover

Fire Lover: A True Story Fire Lover: A True Story by Joseph Wambaugh


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Two or three times a year I temporarily lose my memory and let my perennial fascination with profiling steer me down the dark, dark road of true crime. It's amazing that I can forget how [exploitative of violence/sexist/racist/judgmental/badly written:] [delete as applicable:] true crime can be, but two or three times a year I'm like oh my God, WTF, what am I doing.

This one wasn't that bad – it was just kind of boring, with a few off-tone rants about the propensity evidence rules in criminal trials, which, granted, look utterly insane to a non-lawyer. (And, uh, you know, to some of us lawyers too). Not an ounce of interesting psychological analysis to be found, except of the shallow/reductionist variety, surprise surprise.

Right, now I'm good for the next six months, hopefully.

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