Susan's Reviews > Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest

True crime writing and I have a complicated history, I am fascinated but somehow also extra creeped out, in a way fiction just doesn't achieve. I think it harks back to the first true crime book I read many a year ago. Let me explain briefly, when my kids were little ones I signed them up for the library summer reading program right along with swimming lessons. To keep my brain from turning to oatmeal during this stage of my life I read. I read a lot. Said little ones learned to bring me a book mark if they really wanted my attention. And during the summer reading program I gave myself a little extra push and attempted to stretch my mind by reading according to the same requirements, which were at that library in that time a certain number of fiction books, a certain number of non fiction books, attending several programs and such. So, I was casting about one day for a non fiction read and a co-worker suggested I try a true crime book, she herself found them addictive. So, I randomly grabbed one and commenced to read after the little darlings were in bed. My random choice was terrifying. It took place in my neighborhood, the criminal stalked women by showing them real estate, the wrong guy was imprisoned so the crimes went on and I was reading all this while my husband was going to school full time and working full time at night. It was a hot summer but I closed and locked all the windows and sweat myself into a tizzy.

I borrowed this from my mother on a weekend visit and while Starvation Heights didn't work my imagination quite the same way it was well written, well researched and engaging. The first half was a little more engaging for me, the run up to the actual case the book is based on. What a sad and awful way to die. The second half is about the court case, interesting but less gripping somehow. Whether or not the "doctor" or fasting cure homeopathic practitioner Linda Hazzard killed her patients on purpose or was just a quack totally committed to her "cure" or blindingly negligent it seems plain to me that she did indeed kill her patients and it certainly looks as if she set about to profit financially from these tragic deaths. I wish there had been pictures but there were quite a few to be found online. Harrowing story.