January Bonus Review: We Keep The Dead Close
It's a great book, until...it isn't, but that shift is worth unpacking too.
the true crime that's worth your time
I apologize for the tardy file! I’d like to blame The Investigation, but I can’t, really. I’ll also note that, while the review below contains spoilers, I will warn you well ahead of time. Thanks so much for supporting Best Evidence, and if you’ve read this one, I’m psyched to discuss it with you! — SDB
The crime
On January 7, 1969, Harvard archaeology grad student Jane Britton missed an important exam. When her boyfriend went to her apartment to investigate, he found her bludgeoned to death. The case went unsolved for five decades.
The story
Forty years later, Becky Cooper — an undergrad at Harvard — heard the story of Britton’s murder, and the possible culpability of a professor who remained tenured at the university, as almost an urban legend. “Though this rumor would prove false, it started an investigation that would consume Cooper’s life for the next ten years,” per the jacket copy, and We Keep The Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence is the story of that investigation. Alllll of it.