BOOK REVIEW: Delivered From Evil

Title: Delivered From Evil


Author: Ron Franscell

Publisher: Fair Winds

RRP: $39.99

ISBN: 9781592334407

Release Date: March 2011



Description:



This collection of true stories of mass murders, told from the harrowing perspective of the sole survivor, takes

the reader on a pulsepounding trip through the murky intersection of pure evil and the potency of the human

spirit. A 12-year-old boy cowers in his closet while a lunatic killer slaughters his family . . . a nursing student unwittingly opens her home to the serial killer on her front porch . . . an 11-year-old girl drifts alone at sea on a flimsy cork raft for almost four days after a mass murderer kills her vacationing family aboard a chartered yacht . . . a brave firefighter suddenly finds himself in the crosshairs of a racist sniper almost nine stories above the ground . . .

And, astonishingly, they all survived.

From Howard Unruh’s 1949 shooting rampage through a quiet New Jersey neighborhood to Louisiana serial killer Derrick Todd Lee’s reign of terror in 2002, the corpses piled up and few lived to tell the horror.

Now, award-winning journalist Ron Franscell explores the wounded hearts and minds of the ordinary people these monsters couldn’t kill. His mesmerizing accounts crackle with gritty details that put the reader in the midst of the carnage—and offer a front-row seat on the complex, painful process of surviving the rest of their haunted lives.

In intimate, gripping prose, Franscell takes the reader on a pulse-pounding dash through the murky intersection of pure evil and the potency of the human spirit. This journey into the darkest corners of the American crime-scape is a penetrating work of literary journalism by a writer hailed as one of the most powerful new voices in true crime.

Review:

Unlike many other books about true crime and killers, this book is written about those who survived and lived to tell the horrific tale of the unspeakable crimes. The recount of these survivors stories and how close they came to being another victim on a serial killer’s list is harrowing and very moving. It is hard to understand how these victims could live a normal life after having lived through such an event.

The authors writing brings the intensity and emotions of the events to the forefront and are very confrontational, making this book unsuitable for those who are easily upset or disturbed.