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Politics. Sociology. True Crime. Nonfiction. HTML:The true story of a cold case, a compulsive liar, and five determined detectives, from the #1 New York Times�??bestselling author and "master journalist" (The Wall Street Journal). On March 29, 1975, sisters Katherine and Sheila Lyons, ages ten and twelve, vanished from a shopping mall in suburban Washington, DC As shock spread, then grief, a massive police effort found nothing. The investigation was shelved, and the mystery endured. Then, in 2013, a cold case squad detective found something he and a generation of detectives had missed. It pointed them toward a man named Lloyd Welch, then serving time for child molestation in Delaware. The acclaimed author of Black Hawk Down and Hue 1968 had been a cub reporter for a Baltimore newspaper at the time of the original disappearance, and covered the frantic first weeks of the story. In The Last Stone, he returns to write its ending. Over months of intense questioning and extensive investigation of Welch's sprawling, sinister Appalachian clan, five skilled detectives learned to sift truth from determined lies. How do you get a compulsive liar with every reason in the world to lie to tell the truth? The Last Stone recounts a masterpiece of criminal interrogation, and delivers a chilling and unprecedented look inside a disturbing criminal mind. "One of our best writers of muscular nonfiction." �??The Denver Post "Deeply unsettling . . . Bowden displays his tenacity as a reporter in his meticulous documentation of the case. But in the story of an unimaginably horrific crime, it's the detectives' unwavering determination to bring Welch to justice that offers a glimmer of hope on a long, dark journey." �??… (more)
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The author focuses almost solely on the interrogation of Lloyd Welch. The problem with this tactic is the constant repetition. Welch is a
The biggest disappointment for me was that the author made little attempt to give the Lyons girls an identity. They were just two girls, interchangeable with any other two girls. I learned nothing about who they were.
The content also doesn't offer us much of a connection with the cops involved in this case. I would have liked to understand what it was like for them to sit through dozens of hours interrogating Lloyd Welch.
A word of caution: This book has a lot of graphic detail about sexual deviancy with children. Lloyd Welch and his entire extended family are portrayed in a way I can't even fathom. Sexual abuse and incest were, apparently, the norm with almost all of these people. I don't think we needed the extent of details in all the situations described.
Overall, this book is notable for the insight into police interrogations, but it lacks insight into the broader aspects.
*I received an advance copy from the publisher.*
Unfortunately, I do
This is the story of the kidnapping of two young girls from a Maryland mall in 1975. At the time of the event, the case remained unsolved. It was one of Bowden's earliest assignments as a reporter. Many years later, a cold case detective team discovered a lead which had been missed. They followed the clues to a man who claims to have witnessed the abduction. The detectives found the man, Lloyd Welch, incarcerated. What followed was two years of interviews/interrogations of Welch, in which his story changed almost daily. The man was such a habitual liar that no one could ever discern the truth from him.
Should have been an interesting read, but in actuality it was quite tedious. Basically just transcripts of the interviews.
We will probably never know the truth of what happened to the two girls, or where their bodies may be. I feel horrible for the family.
This book is boring as hell. If you enjoy reading interview transcripts for hours, especially ones that are repetitive to the point of nearly bringing you to tears, I would highly recommend this book to you. Otherwise, I'd recommend skipping it. The "author" of the story does very little here, except add a little explanation here or there and summarizes a bit. The vast majority of this book is verbatim interview transcripts. Lloyd Welch is a liar and stumbles over himself and his story multiple times, and it was incredibly dull to read him tweak his story just a little bit every time to try to weasel out of trouble.
Great work to the police officers who refused to give up until they brought a measure of justice to Sheila and Kate, but a huge "meh" for this book.
The author was a cub reporter when the disappearance first occurred and I guess, gets the write the last word.
The cold case was assigned to a detective not to far from retirement, apparently quite common, who spent several years getting nowhere and also becoming increasingly despondent at his ineffectiveness until suddenly and out of the blue old evidence appeared, likely had been there all the time, which was a small lead. Other detectives were assigned who essentially dismissed the lead and person of interest but found someone else. Already a convict and convicted of a crime of sexual abuse he would have been 18 at the time of the disappearance.
The remainder of the story is the process of the key detectives, 2 or 3 but mainly one, and their interviews of the suspect in prison. The words are those from recordings and amazing how the lying and manipulative suspect, and the cops, work at their task. Fascinating seems inadequate. The cops got their guy who did plead guilty but so much was unsolved. Guilty of one one of the sisters and no evidence of them of any evidence found. Each of the three detectives have different, and unsatisfied, views of the result. I guess they did what they could and certainly they were scarred by they experience.
One take away is it certainly gave me respect for the key detectives in this. Just them and not their departments though.
Central to this plot is that the prime person of interest and eventual guilty man, and his extended family or clan, were Appalachian "hill billies" and after reading this story, and remember this is non-fiction, I can only imagine what a Stephen King story might have been like - the "Clampetts" meet the unimaginable.
The parents comment at the trial - “I’m tired. I just want to go home”. Christ almighty …
I need some fresh air and now to read some mindless book however, lurid it might be I know is fiction.
Two little girls, 12 and 10, go missing in 1975. In 2018 Lloyd Welch is finally convicted of their murders. It is what happened to those little girls, which Lloyd tells us over and over again,
Mark Bowden structures the majority of THE LAST STONE with actual transcripts of Welch's interviews with police over nearly 2 years. They are repetitive, tedious. And for all that, the whole truth is never learned, just enough to convict him.
In the end, police can only theorize about what actually happened. So that is how Bowden concludes his book, with the various theories. They are all heartbreaking.
This isn't a particularly exciting read, but I think that is very