Book Review "Evidence of Love"

True Crime Book Review
Pic of the Day

---

Quote of the Day Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. -- Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, D.C.

TIDBITS GRILLING TIPS When using charcoal, douse the coals with the least amount of starter fluid as possible to light the fire. If starter fluid is unavailable, try using regular salad oil. Wad a sheet of newspaper and pile the coals over it, then douse the coals with the salad oil. Light the paper as you would using normal starter fluid. For direct cooking on a charcoal grill, make sure there is enough charcoal to extend in a single layer 1 to 2 inches beyond the area of the food on the grill. Pour briquettes into the grill to determine the quantity, then stack into a pyramid for lighting. For indirect cooking, food is placed over a drip pan and the briquettes are banked either to one or both sides of the pan. When roasting or grilling with a BBQ pit closed, open a can of beer and place the beer over the hottest part of the fire. The beer will boil and super saturate the air inside the pit with water vapor, beer flavors and alcohol. This will help in keeping the roasting meats moist, while adding flavor to the meat. Whenever barbecuing, use tongs to turn the meat. A fork should never be used as it will punch holes in the meat and allow the natural juices to escape, causing the meat to lose flavor and become chewy. When grilling meats, it is usually best to turn the meat only once. When grilling meat to a medium or greater doneness, use the lid to assist in cooking. This will decrease the cooking time by applying heat to all sides of the meat at once. Tomato and/or sugar based BBQ sauces should be added only at the end of the grilling process, since these products will burn easily and are seldom considered an internal meat flavoring.

Web Site Worth the Visit Turn on your sound and be ready to laugh. Here's yet another pathetic version of the infamous song "YMCA". It's awful. "YMCA" Sung NOT by the Village People

 

"Evidence of Love" by John Bloom and Jim Atkinson

"Evidence of Love" is a riveting true crime book about a killing that occurred in the mid-80's in the outskirts of Dallas, Texas.

At several points I had to check the book's publishing data to make sure I wasn't reading fiction so unbelievable was this tale of housewives, Texas churches and murder. But not to fear, the book details a true story and the authors, both Texas newspaper reporters who collaborated to compile the story of Candy Montgomery, her husband Pat, Betty Gore and her husband, Allen.

The authors did a pretty good job of it too. Unlike many true crime novels, this story was written as if the reader had no recollection or knowledge of the crime story being told and there were surprises scattered throughout the book. A true crime book is rarely written in this manner as so many true crime details are well-known by the reader. Indeed I had never heard of this particularly strange crime and would suggest that the story was probably more of a local Texas tale than a true crime of national proportions. Also, the killing occurred at a time when the wild and wooly Internet was not yet a vehicle for newsgroups and/or bloggers to speculate on these types of crimes or were 24-hour cable news channels yet a TV establishment in most American households.

This true crime tale read like fiction in that at various points throughout the book, shocking truths and strange twists were inserted, exactly at the point when the reader thought he/she had it figured out.

I could not put this book down.

For if ever there were two couples so very, very odd while appearing for all the world to be so perfectly normal, it would be the Montgomerys and the Gores of Collin County, Texas.

Then there was the Methodist church and the strange preachers combined with weirdly devoted parishioners and oddball church-sanctioned "marriage counseling" that added to the reader's perception that this book HAD to be fiction; surely churches and normal people don't behave like this.

Betty Gore was discovered dead in her home's laundry room. She had been killed by an axe. Whoever murdered Betty Gore wielded that axe so forcefully and with so much anger that her left eye had sunk deep into her skull and could not be seen on her dead body. Many of the axe blows that killed Betty Gore were applied AFTER she was dead. Someone hated and despised Betty Gore, this was obvious by the heinousness of the crime.

The last person to see Betty Gore alive was Candy Montgomery. Candy had dropped by Betty's house to pick up a swimsuit for Betty's daughter who was spending that evening with the Montgomerys. Betty Gore's baby was alone in her crib and spent that entire day sobbing for her mother. Who lay hacked to death in the home's laundry room.

The authors dived into the story of Betty Gore and Candy Montgomery as is typical of this genre. Backgrounds of people involved in true crime cases are often relevant to their lives after childhood. While the history of both of these women was interesting and good reading, frankly I found nothing at all odd about the women and their past. Betty is depicting as being "cold and aloof" while Candy is depicted as vibrant and a risk-taker. So, I thought. These descriptions describe a lot of people and few of them end up hacked to death by an axe.

The church background as involves this story is especially important as the reader slowly discovers that there's just something damn odd about a church that plays such a major part in normal family life. The devoted parishioners of Lucas Methodist church were so involved in church activities that it seemed to swallow their families whole. I had always considered the Methodist church to be against such things as marital infidelity yet the oddball female preacher who ministered at the Lucas Methodist church merely cluck-clucked when a parishioner not only confessed to seeking a string of extra-marital affairs, but actually listened to the details with little comment.

Betty Gore's murder was determined to be an act of self-defense.

Chew on that sentence a bit then try to understand that a woman brutally murdered by an axe, hacked to death then hacked more after she was dead, was self-defense. Yet that was the verdict.

The authors almost, but not quite, convince the reader by providing background of Texas, churches and bored housewives, that this verdict is understandable.

I thought the verdict totally unbelievable and yet it is true.

Read the book.

More Book Reviews HERE