Surprisingly, given Winslow’s career writing crime fiction, there’s nothing novelistic about the way this memoir unfolds. The detectives and prosecutors who emerge as significant supporting characters are given scant descriptions. Settings are all but invisible. Instead, the focus is on the finer points of law enforcement procedure, with every excruciating moment of the process painstakingly recounted. While much of this is bureaucratic, even tedious, Winslow attempts to inject drama with explosive bits of dialogue and many short, declarative stand-alone sentences, a device repeated to diminishing effect ... [a] meticulously constructed and ultimately terrifying memoir.
After compiling a record of Fryar’s arrests and incarcerations, she suspects detectives had kept this information from her; she becomes enraged and driven for more answers. These passages are suspenseful, fast-paced and full of legal complications, like an episode of Law & Order: SVU. But unfortunately, after learning that the trial is postponed, Winslow becomes strangely vindictive — not toward Fryar, but toward Georgia [another victim] ... There’s an odd jealousy of Georgia that makes much of the book uncomfortable to read ... Winslow deserves our sympathy and respect, especially given that Arthur Fryar is a free man today. But regardless of her honesty, Winslow’s self-focus is alienating.
The problem is that tenacity and everyday life make less compelling reading than action. Ms. Winslow does make some trenchant remarks about the human condition. But mostly, she details her interactions with the justice system, with select friends, and with her husband and children back home in England. These accounts aren’t boring — especially when she describes Pittsburgh — but they seem to have no direction, no point beyond the fact that they happened to her ... But mostly, she details her interactions with the justice system, with select friends, and with her husband and children back home in England. These accounts aren’t boring — especially when she describes Pittsburgh — but they seem to have no direction, no point beyond the fact that they happened to her.
