A Cold Case
by Philip Gourevitch

List Price: $13.00
Our Price: $1.90
You Save: $11.10 (85%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Book Reviews of A Cold Case

Book Review: A look at two sides of justice
Summary: 4 Stars

This book is a quick read, but does answer some very disturbing questions, particularly about the psychology and mindset of a killer. Koehler's murder of Glennon and McGinn was not the first time he had killed someone: in mid-1945, when he was fifteen years old, he had killed his accomplice in theft for backstabbing him. On the side, he engaged in petty and grand theft, eventually landing himself Mob connections until he had to flee New York. Once captured, writes Gourevitch, Koehler never thought of why he was in prison, or why exactly he was being punished: "...he was sitting in prison, and the most striking thing about the tens of thousands of words he produced at Rikers [his prison] is that he never acknowledges why he is there. Glennon? McGinn? Murder? Not a word. Koehler simply glides from New York to California, as if one day he had decided for the sheer goodness of it to renounce a way of life that was hurting him with its falseness and futility. In his telling...he saves himself and gives himself a new life" (p. 147). The psychology of a low-life killer: unrepentant, unremorseful, and unsympathetic to what he did, instead blaming his family, Rosenzweig, and even God for his failings.

Andy Rosenzweig, the man who brought him to justice, is portrayed as a man who is incapable of sitting still as a bystander to any crime, even on the eve of his retirement (of course, even after). This is, of course, for the better; he is a model for others who wear a uniform and don a shining badge and loaded gun in holster. A stagnant case left unsolved for almost three decades suddenly is solved with an arrest; the end result of Rosenzweig's overcoming of obstacles and dead-end leads.

Gourevitch's book is also a wonderful cast of real-life characters from all walks of life, ranging from the people in Koehler's life, namely his wife and girlfriend; Murray Richman, the top-notch defense lawyer who wound up defending Koehler even though the case never went to trial, as a result of a plea bargaining process that landed him in jail, but eligible for parole in the summer of 2003. In reading this book, I kept being reminded of what Arts and Entertainment Network use as their motto for the "Biography" series: "Every life has a story." Gourevitch has picked an ordinary case from a plethora of New York crimes and has proven this motto. Indeed, there is much that one can learn and glean from the "ordinary."

Murder & Mayhem Books

• Books > Subjects > Biographies & Memoirs > True Accounts
• True Crime
• New & Used Textbooks