Thus far the 6th book DRILLING IN DISCOVERY is the best reviewed book in the series. Thank you to one and all for your support and feedback! Each positive/constructive review is a huge shot in the arm while I continue to work on the next narrative.
I enjoy statement analysis, and the Discovery Documents are a treasure trove to pick through in search of rough diamonds. The fact that we also have bodycam footage in this case, and so much of it, means we can cross reference so much and find our way to brand new information.
It was fascinating while working on the interrogation aspect, figuring out not only how Chris Watts thinks, but how – via Coder – to talk to him.
Now, on to the latest reviews.
My readers often provide feedback like the reviewer – Rebecca – above that they read a book that took hundreds of hours and several weeks to research and write in one sitting, or in one or two hours. While that’s a compliment perhaps in terms of the compulsive readability of the work, it also means the reader didn’t spend much time referring to the dozens [if not hundreds] of links painstakingly inserted in the narrative. These are an optional extra, of course. They aren’t essential to the narrative but many links, especially in the interrogation, are important to refer to in order to get a really three-dimensional audio-visual-psychological feel for what’s being described.
After reading the book in two hours, and perhaps scrolling liberally through the more congested areas [understandably, if very familiar with the discovery some paragraphs might feel superfluous], the reader then impatiently waits for 2-3 weeks for the next installment.
I do want to encourage readers like Rebecca to pace yourselves, and to spend at least a week reading these books. If you’re reading vast tracts of narrative in one go, a good place to stop and take a breather is at the end of a section.
The more time you spend on each narrative, the more seamlessly the next one will integrate and follow-on, and the information and insights will still be fresh in your mind. Overall it will make the series a more flowing and fulfilling read.
Hope that helps!
Nickvdl, it is well-deserved praise for a very good read. I, too, appreciate your insight delivered in your inimitable thought provoking prose. At least, your style of writing is very unique to me. I enjoy your cerebral approach to any subject you have a passion for sharing. Your books, your blogs, and many of your responses have been enlightening, not just of the “true crime” under particular investigation, but also as they can relate to life in general. This can be a disturbingly complex world to live in at times, but navigating through those complexities using techniques learned through you and your community of readers has been a helpful experience. Thank you.
Thank you, but I don’t feel you’re getting the underlying message of the books. If you’re still resorting to labeling criminals, why are you here trying to understand them? Just call him a monster and let that be your two-second tip of the hat to this case, and be on your way.
As soon as you acknowledge the humanity that lies behind crime and criminality, do you know what happens? You connect yourself to them, and them to you. You begin to fathom the connections between society and crime. I get why people don’t wish to do that, but if we’re interested in fashioning a better world, we’d better begin trying to understand the one we’re in right now. The reality is that we are all monsters and saints at some time in our lives. The reality is that what we are doing to our planet, collectively, right now, is monstrous. To deny this is hypocrisy, but it is in this denial that we ourselves become [or already are] monsters.
Bingo! If I could have articulated what I was trying to say on the blog referenced with a clearer understanding, this would be it. What I could not do, you just did. The whole point was not about labels, it was merely a word that can be used fairly to describe CW. It’s not a diagnosis, a judgement, or condemnation in the sense I was hoping to convey. I’ve stated many times I don’t like labels, do not label, and was not intending that to stick to him as a label…
The reason I’m having this conversation with you is because you’re using a label. Not because you’re not.
To illustrate what I’m getting at [for others listening in], have a look at this video of a cow. One might say a cow is “just an animal” and perhaps you’re right. But if a cow does something you don’t understand, calling a cow “just an animal” is the moron’s approach to veterinary science. Animals, believe it or not, have interiority and distinct personalities just as we do.
https://youtu.be/Mj6ezUbjRHE
Even the creatures we consider monsters have their own inner worlds. This video of a woman who has made it her mission in life to remove hooks from the mouths of sharks, demonstrates that even these savage organisms have interior lives, personalities and moods.
https://twitter.com/dodo/status/1095366924261867522
So this whole thing where we reduce people or creatures to labels, reflects something exceeding shallow about us, and our approach as consumers to packaging things for easy consumption, including the lives and situations of others.
I was not reducing Chris Watts to just a word.
“Once you label me you negate me.” Søren Kierkegaard