Weekend picks for book lovers, including James Patterson's book on the NFL's Aaron Hernandez
What should you read this weekend? Paste BN’s picks for book lovers include James Patterson's non-fiction take on Aaron Hernandez, the fallen NFL star who was convicted of murder before he committed suicide in his prison cell.
All-American Murder: The Rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez by James Patterson with Alex Abramovich and Mike Harvkey; Little, Brown, 400 pp.; non-fiction
Best-selling author James Patterson populates his murder-mystery novels with cold-blooded killers, smart detectives and hard-charging attorneys, driven by plots entangled in guns, money and drugs. You’ll find all that in Patterson’s latest. Except this one isn’t fiction.
Billed as “the definitive, never before told account” of the Aaron Hernandez story, All-American is as “ripped from the headlines” as it gets.
Inspired by news accounts that broke the summer of 2013, when police tied the New England Patriots' tight end to a gruesome homicide in North Attleboro, Mass., it digs deep into four years of breaking news culminating in Hernandez’s prison-cell suicide.
All-American Murder starts with a high-school football player who, jogging home on June 17, 2013, finds a body near an industrial park in North Attleboro. Police determine it’s an execution-style homicide.
Incriminating evidence includes bullet casings, sneaker prints, a baseball cap, a smoked blunt. A wallet ID identifies the victim as Odin Lloyd, the boyfriend of Hernandez’s fiancée’s sister. Rental-car keys in Lloyd's pocket link to Hernandez, who lives nearby. Security cameras were rolling.
The book backtracks to Hernandez growing up a Puerto Rican-Italian teen in working-class Bristol, Conn. His father, Dennis, was a respected UConn gridiron legend who kept sons Aaron and D.J. on the straight and narrow. Town cops described Hernandez as “not a bad kid at all.”
But Patterson tells the inside scoop on what went wrong.
Paste BN says ★★★½ out of four. “Patterson fans will be delighted…this disturbing true-crime thriller is another fast and captivating read.”
The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin; Delacorte, 415 pp.; fiction
A fictionalized account of the real friendship between silent film actress Mary Pickford and screenwriter Frances Marion. Along the way, the women are bullied, belittled and even battered by the men who surround them.
Paste BN says ★★★½. A “rich exploration of two Hollywood friends who shaped the movies… Benjamin has a flair for historical fiction about women’s lives.”
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser; Metropolitan Books, 515 pp.; non-fiction
A biography of Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose life (1867-1957) encompassed the Indian Wars and the Dust Bowl, desperate poverty and near-starvation, and grueling wagon travel across difficult terrain.
Paste BN says ★★★★. A “magnificent biography…fascinating.”
The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn; William Morrow, 427 pp.; fiction
This contemporary thriller, inspired by Hitchcock’s Rear Window, is about a shut-in named Anna Fox who believes she witnesses a murder in a nearby Harlem townhouse.
Paste BN says ★★★. “There’s something irresistible about this made-for-the-movies tingler. Finn knows how to pleasurably wind us up.”
Munich by Robert Harris; Knopf, 303 pp.; fiction
Set over four days in late September 1938, Munich unfolds against the backdrop of the Munich Conference, as Neville Chamberlain attempts to prevent Adolf Hitler from invading Czechoslovakia.
Paste BN says ★★★½. “A crackling and intelligent thriller… would make one heck of a movie or TV series.”
Contributing reviewers: Don Oldenburg, Patty Rhule, Emily Gray Tedrowe, Jocelyn McClurg
