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ARC for review.

I saw Paradise Lost just after it came out and was appalled and fascinated by the case. I continued to follow the West Memphis 3 through websites, additional documentaries, two books (including the excellent Devil's Knot - if you are interested in the story or like great true crime definitely read it) and lots of articles, so I was definitely interested in this book. I say all this only to say that I knew a fair amount about Echols and even a bit about wife Lorri Davis before I started and I'm guessing the publishers were hoping for readers like me because the book has almost no background on the couple or the crime, which was a misjudgment, I think - the editors should have spent a few pages giving a brief recap of the crime, the trial, the twenty year fight to get the WM3 released and the ultimate result. A bit of this is included chronologically, but it's not enough. What we get is a jump right into the letters between Echols and Davis, and not even the first ones (perhaps they were lost), so we don't get much insight into Davis's life before reaching out to Echols (although apparently she grew up in a town not far from me).

So we have a collection of letters and a very few explanatory paragraphs (and those could have used some editing. I also wish that the publisher used different typefaces for the two authors, or made it more clear who was writing each letter, since sometimes there's no salutation and occasionally there will be multiple letters from the same writer one after another.). Nearly half the book is made up of letters from the first year the two corresponded (1996) so, like most of us, once they were able to speak on the phone their correspondence dropped off. It's still quite interesting, more from the standpoint of watching two people fall in love through letters (another reason it's a shame there's not more background because the book would likely be popular among people trying to determine how to navigate a relationship with someone who is incarcerated...though he speaks very little about day to day prison life.)

As a follower of Echols and his story I enjoyed this, but I wish it had slightly wider appeal.