The Strangler: A Novel

This is a well written book that captures the reader from the start. Although the theme of the book is about the notorious Boston Strnagler it really focuses on
the lives of three brothers whose lives are connected around the theme. It was written before "Defending Jacob." He knows how to tell a goo story

Though I loved Defending Jacob by William Landay, I wasn't nearly as dazzled with The Strangler. The storyline was not as developed as I would have liked it to be. The potential was there for a great book, but fell short...in my opinion. More development of characters, more action, and greater detail would vastly improve this novel. I liked the book; I didn't love it.

William Landay is a true pro. His book keeps you wanting more and fills your need for an excellent mystery. This ex-attorney knows the law and seems to know how to break it effectively!!! You will love it!

I remember that time of the Boston Strangler in the 60's. The story followed that but from a family perspective of Boston cops and criminals. Who was the criminal? Good natured cop or bad cops and mobsters. Very good.

I really do enjoy William Landay's books. The first book of his that I read was, "Defending Jacob", and after reading that could not imagine how I had missed his work. I am just sorry that he has written only 3 books. Each of his works is totally different and in my opinion not to be missed. "The Strangler", is set in Boston and totally different but just as good as his other work. Can't wait for his next book.

Loved it! Seems I like all the stuff he writes. Very engaging and interesting depiction of Boston in the '60s and the horror that existed for women at that time. Shortly after I read it, new info on Albert DeSalvo came out making the book all the more real for me!

It took me longer than normal to finish this book, but once I got to the last quarter of so of it, the pace picked up. The near-end was full of suspense but the actual end left me wanting closure for some of the characters.

I bought the kindle version of The Strangler and this author is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. The characters are richly developed and the story is centered around three brothers with very different personalities. The Boston strangler, for whom the book is named, is a backdrop for the other things going on in the city. The story builds slowly to an inevitable climax but it did not disappoint. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can't wait to read more by this author.

The "Strangler" was very much the topic of concern when I met my husband in 1963. Had him install extra locks on my apartment door in Lawrence because it was thought at the time that the fifth victim was from the immediate area. The descriptions and feeling of Boston and environs were well defined and characterizations believable. Especially the view of police corruption.

I had read "Defending Jacob" and really enjoyed it. Thus I ordered "The Strangler".
I had a very difficult time following the plot and the plot was not that good. I read a
lot of books. After getting about 70% thru the book I put it aside and couldn't care less how it ended.

Read Landay's more recent books and found them fascinating reads (esp. Defending Jacob), so anticipated this earlier work would be absorbing as well. But found complicated beginning - biographical sketches of several brothers with contrasting personalities undoubtedly groundwork for convoluted plot to follow. Prospect of sorting out and keeping track of these interrupted, episodic, interwoven lives left me frustrated early on and I put the book aside, notwithstanding the intriguing title.

Landay deftly meshes together several storylines, each interesting in its own right, to create a moving drama set in 1960's Boston. Suspense, corruption, family, and human frailty all play critical roles throughout.

The characters are real. Members of the Daley family are flawed, yet uniquely noble. The relationships among the Daleys are complex, yet are simple at the same time. Seemingly bound together with an unbreakable amount of strength for no other reason than that they are family.

The 'Strangler' component of the story, while adding to the plot from a historical nature, actually takes a back seat to the threads centered on family and corruption. I consider that to be a positive. By taking the focus of the plot away from the Strangler, Landay is able to add significant depth to the characters and not let historical facts dictate the direction of the story.

Based on this book, many better known authors can learn a thing or two from Mr. Landay about making characters real. I look forward to reading more of his work.

The problem with THE STRANGLER lies somewhere in the murky terrain of the docudrama mixed in with the tangled lives of a lower middle class Irish family, the Daleys, living in Boston at the time of JFK's assassination, when the so called "Boston Strangler" was making his mark. Somehow there's a lot of loose ends, just like when Upton Sinclair created his "Lanny Budd" novels in the 1940s, sending his fictional hero traipsing into world affairs from Hitler to Stalin to Churchill to Eisenhower; it's like oil and water ("Irish salad dressing," Landay quips here), and one or the other aspect of an interesting premise is always getting cheated. The family of boys, Joe, Ricky and Michael, is almost laughably stereotyped--except it's really the three brothers from THE GODFATHER, their personalities just switched around a little. Credit goes to Landay for attempting to make his female characters on a par with the men. Margaret, the Daley matriarch, makes for a sexy, self-assured older woman who does not quite realize that her new boyfriend might have had a little bit more to do with leaving her a widow than anybody has suspected.

In addition, Margaret finds herself a potential victim of the Strangler.

Like many journalists then and now, Landay argues that here must have been (at least) two Stranglers, for "he" is credited with two different sets of crimes, each with its own MO--a rapist who bizarrely targeted only older women, sometimes grandmas--and what you might call an "ordinary" rapist who went after the college girls. Albert DeSalvo, the man who confessed to all of these crimes, confessed as well to nine hundred other crimes. Did he just want to be famous? Could he have picked up all the details of the murders he confessed to from contemporary newspaper and TV reports, or perhaps from leading questions posed to him by detectives under pressure to come up with a suspect, any suspect?

The Daleys' story involves the Strangler only peripherally, and instead centers on a complex plot of police corruption, mob violence, and urban renewal said to be the dawn of a "new Boston" but really just another scheme to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. This story has been told a million times before, and Landay leaves it threadbare. The "bad guy" in the story is exactly who you suspect from the very page he enters on. It's beyond belief he didn't even try to bring a twist to the storyline, and yet on the other hand, I hesitate to castigate him on coming up with such a strange and unwieldy story, and for fleshing it with some interesting turns of phrase. Strangler suspect Kurt Lindstrom, an amateur actor, has skin, for example, that is "unlined and pinguid."

In 1962 Boston, someone shoots and kills Irish-American police officer Joe Daley, Sr. in an alley while he is on duty. His three sons, Joe the cop, Ricky the thief, and Michael the lawyer grieve the loss of the family patriarch while the widow, their mother Margaret, did her grieving gig for a year and now lives with the late cop's partner, Brendan Conroy.

Her offspring detest Brendan and are angry with their mother for sleeping with the person they hold culpable in their dad's death as they wonder if he set up Joe to walk point into an ambush and why a cop killer has not been caught. However the three sons have their own issues to contend with. To pay off his enormous gambling debt to the mob Joe Jr., works for Vinny "The Animal" Gargano. Gangster Capobianco wants Rickey beaten to a pulp for stealing diamonds from someone who pays the hooligan for protection. Michael, who works in Eminent Domain Division of the Attorney General's Office insists that Albert DeSalvo is not the Strangler, but instead just a lunatic seeking fifteen minutes of fame. When Ricky's girlfriend Amy is murdered with the Strangler' MO while DeSalvo is a guest of the state, the Attorney General claims he did the crime anyway; Michael with the help of his siblings investigates the latest homicide.

Using the Boston Strangler as a key link and reference point, William Landay provides a fascinating look at family bonds cemented by an odd form of honor and even stranger type of justice. The tale also implies that DeSalvo was not the Strangler, but Mr. Landay employs his theory more as an aside in support of his overall theme of unity during a crisis. Suspense thriller fans will appreciate this fine historical thriller.

Harriet Klausner

THE STRANGLER by William Landay was an audiobook listen for me. The reason that I opted for it is because I want to read DEFENDING JACOB but wanted to experience the author's previous works first. For me, the book never really got off the ground. The story wasn't bad but it didn't wow me as it progressed from beginning to end which is what I really want in a reading/listening experience. Not sure if the audiobook narrator helped it or hurt it but if I had to guess then I would lean toward hurt.

So after finishing his first two books, I can now move on to what I was really looking forward to reading - DEFENDING JACOB. Stay tuned...

I was really looking forward to this book since I'd previously read and enjoyed this author's first novel, Mission Flats. That book won Landay, a former Massachusetts prosecutor, the Creasey Memorial Dagger for Best First Crime Novel. Unfortunately, Landay's second novel fails to deliver the same impact.

The Strangler is a novel about three Irish brothers living in Boston in 1963; Joe Daley - the eldest - is a tough cop who gambles too much and ends up working off his debts by helping the mob. Soon, everything he holds dear is threatened. Michael, the middle son, is a lawyer who works in the Attorney General's Office. He toils away in the obscure Eminent Domain Division but is soon transferred to the Boston Strangler Task Force. Ricky is a thief who suffers the most when the Strangler comes calling on his girlfriend.

The novel weaves the story of these three brothers, their deceased father (a cop killed under questionable circumstances), their mother (who may be sleeping with her former husband's murderer), family secrets, a mob war and two people who may be the Boston Strangler. If it sounds like a lot, it is - too much it seems for the author who seems to lose focus on the important aspects of the novel.

The three brothers are so different that the first thing you wonder is how they can possibly be related. Their treatment is also uneven - Joe, arguably the least likeable, is given the greatest emphasis. I would have enjoyed a more thorough handling of the most colorful brother, Ricky.

Even the Boston Strangler is given short shrift. Albert DeSalvo confesses to being the Strangler but the police - or at least Michael - isn't so sure that DeSalvo is the killer. For someone unfamiliar with all the details of the murders, the various inconsistencies that point to why DeSalvo may not have been the Boston Strangler are never flushed out in the book. Despite the title of the book, the Boston Strangler is a bit player in this novel.

In short, this rambling novel lacked the focus and intensity of Landay's earlier work.

Like many, I was drawn to reading this book after reading Landay's Defending Jacob. Unfortunately, this book has little in common with what I liked in Defending Jacob and a lot more that I disliked. I found all three of the main characters to be ungrateful and disrespectful of their parents, their faith, and their wives/lovers. The plot of the book moves slowly in the first half and when one does not like the main characters, what motivates someone to continue reading? After getting about half way through the book, I put it down and am not picking it back up again.

William Landay's sophomore effort is a somewhat different work --- both structurally and topically --- from MISSION FLATS. But his stellar craftsmanship shines through; if anything, THE STRANGLER surpasses its predecessor.

Though a work of fiction, THE STRANGLER is set in the real world of 1963. The nation is reeling from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; for Boston, it is a devastating blow, as the city is already traumatized by a series of rapes and murders committed by a fiend whom the press has dubbed "The Boston Strangler." Landay's novel, however, does not concern itself primarily with those horrific crimes. Rather, the story belongs to the Daley brothers, three different siblings who will touch and be touched by the investigation directly and indirectly.

Michael is an assistant with the Attorney General's office --- content with handling eminent domain cases that are beneath him intellectually --- when he is assigned to a special task force investigating the killings. Joe, following in the footsteps of his late father, is a policeman, but his corruption is such that he cannot appreciate fully the irony of the situation into which he is inexorably sliding. Ricky is an unapologetic burglar, yet it is he who is perhaps the most honest, caring and consistently upright of the brothers.

Surprisingly, it is Ricky who holds the key not only to their father's mysterious death in the line of duty but also to the identity of the Boston Strangler. Yet it is Joe, ethically and morally compromised as the result of his own actions, who is closest to the corruption within Boston and to the crime that haunts the brothers most deeply. Michael --- plagued by migraine headaches and an ambiguous sexuality --- is perhaps the most enigmatic, the weakest of the three, and yet fate will leave it to him to execute a rough and final justice for the offenses visited against the family and the city where they live.

Landay's narrative is at once compelling and propelling. His story moves not so much as a streamlined dialogue but as a series of extended vignettes alternating back and forth among the brothers, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. Early in the book, a basketball game involving the three of them is a metaphor not only of their lives but also for what will occur later. Landay's eerie coda to the events brings the subtle uneasiness of the narrative into sharp focus; what resolution the Daleys brought is at best temporary and at worst illusory.

The result is a brilliantly told story, haunting in its totality. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that THE STRANGLER may well be the crime novel of the year. Highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

I found this novel to be quite disappointing. I had gotten it from the library, eager to read it due to just having finished his latest work, 'Defending Jacob', which was very engaging. I read the generally rave reviews for it here on the store and checked it out, hoping it would be equally well-written.

If I hadn't already read Defending Jacob, I'd never have known that this was written by the same author. The Strangler is totally different, kind of like he had an attitude while writing it. You know, one of those Bostonian types who have that hard edge about them and their language is peppered with plenty of profanity.

Now I realize some people like that kind of thing, but it was off-putting to me. I don't mind occasional cursing or profanity, but not when it's so prevalent in a book I'm trying to get into. And the streetwise attitudes of the characters didn't help MY attitude toward the book, either.

I tried to like this book, I really did. Landay's latest book is so good that I had a hard time putting it down. It was interesting, informative, and kept me guessing as to who the killer was until the very end of the book. If you've read Gone Girl and enjoyed it, Defending Jacob is very similar in character development and in the story itself. I just wish I could say better things about The Strangler.

I found this novel to be a complex, multi-layered story so engaging it cemented Landay as 1 of my must-read authors. The title is not solely a reference to the Boston strangler murders and their perpetrator(s); it represents the strangleholds urban renewal,government officials, and organized crime figures put on the people of Boston, choking communities and ways of life out of existence. That process got more people killed than the strangler(s) took, and Landay's novel shines a light on those dark corners, handling historical details well in portraying events and evoking the moods of the era, with just a few departures from the record to facilitate the story. The book was written prior to the DNA test that convinced most people DeSalvo was the guy, at least as far as victim Mary Sullivan, and I think a lot of the negative reviews are based on people wanting the characters to engage more actively in the whodunnit/who screwed it up investigation of the murders. I think the story Landay tells is much more interesting, but if you're looking for an action-packed ride or even a detailed police procedural, this probably isn't the book for you. This novel is a character study of people struggling with questions of identity, conscience, and behavior choices, all while the city of Boston was doing the same. Landay captures that quest beautifully, with the rich complexity the topic deserves.

The Strangler is in short a remarkable work. It is a mystery in which the suspense is really not that important to the experience. The enjoyment comes from the writing and the character development. I lived in Boston in the years shortly after 1963, the year in which the story starts, and saw the development. The flavor of the City brings back memories. The story actually transported me back to that experience.

The Daley family dynamics shows how families come together. The three sons are all different. All are flawed and yet afe compelling. They are men dealing with issues that in many respects are over their heads. While the sons are the center, Margaret the mother, was probably the most interesting.

Lastly the descriptions were wonderful. I fortunately have never suffered through a migrane, but I could feel it in this book.

In summary this is an outstanding effort.