This week for the Fiction Friday feature, I’m reviewing the Audible Original, The Demon Next Door by Bryan Burrough. This non-fiction true crime work was released in 2019. It is 2 hours and 45 minutes in length and read by Steve White. The following overview is provided from Audible: Best-selling author Bryan Burrough recently made a shocking discovery: The small town of Temple, Texas, where he grew up, harbored a dark secret. One of his high school classmates, Danny Corwin, was a vicious serial killer, who raped and mutilated six women, killing three. Yet the town denied all early signs of the radical evil growing within Corwin. What led the local media to ignore his early crimes? Why did the local Presbyterian Church try to shield him from prison? Why had local law enforcement been unable to solve his murders? Burrough is widely admired as a master storyteller, and this chilling tale raises important questions of whether serial killers can be recognized before they kill or rehabilitated after they do. It is also a story of Texas politics and power that led the good citizens of the town of Temple to enable a demon who was their worst nightmare. This title contains mature themes, including physical and sexual violence, that some listeners may find unsettling.
This work is a great example of how broken the American justice system is. If there hadn’t been the victim blaming of the 70s, maybe others would have been saved from the pain and suffering. If there had been better psychiatric knowledge maybe things would have been different. This story reminds me that there is still work to be done on our justice system and mental health care. I play through the what-ifs in this case. This work is well-written and compelling. There are so many lessons to be learned from this story. Things that communities need to be aware of to avoid repeating the same mistakes. I would love to say that things like this aren’t happening to this day but that would be a lie. This history lesson is for us to learn from and evolve. I highly recommend this book to those who like the true crime genre.
I give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Next week for the Fiction Friday feature, I’m reviewing the Stephen King novel, Firestarter. Until then read on; Nerd out!