Saturday, November 30, 2013

Bitter Blood by Jerry Bledsoe

I read this true-crime account of murder and mayhem several years ago, so I don't remember a lot of details. What I do remember is the intense feelings that gripped me as I read the book. I felt shocked, enraged, and on edge, as though I was clenching my hands into fists the entire time I read the book. Come to think of it, I probably was! North Carolina journalist Jerry Bledsoe packs the book with his well-researched facts, but it reads like a terrifying suspense novel -- the horrific actions unfolding with each page. Hard to believe it's a true story. Read this book to honor the souls who were murdered -- but only if you have a strong stomach.

Here's the summary from Publishers Weekly, back in 1989:

"This book recreates a complex case that claimed nine lives, one of the more shocking crimes of recent years. [...] The murders began with the shootings of Lynch's ex-mother-in-law and ex--sister-in-law in Kentucky, and continued with the slayings of her parents and grandmother in North Carolina. What connected the killings was the bitter divorce between Susie and her husband Tom, and the impending custody battle for their children, particularly since it became increasingly clear that Susie regarded the boys as pawns in a power struggle. The deaths that she prepared for her two sons, and which inadvertently killed her and Klenner as well, provide a dramatic climax to this account of families too blind to realize that well-bred folk can be dangerous. Bledsoe wrote an award-winning series about the case in 1985 in the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record."