Helltown by Casey Sherman on July 12, 2022
Genres: True Crime / Murder / Serial Killers, Crime, Non-Fiction, True Crime
Pages: 464
Format: eBook
Source: ARC
Before Charles Manson, there was Tony Costa—the serial killer of Cape Cod
1969: The hippie scene is vibrant in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Long-haired teenagers roam the streets, strumming guitars and preaching about peace and love... and Tony Costa is at the center of it all. To a certain group of smitten young women, he is known as Sire—the leader of their counter-culture movement, the charming man who speaks eloquently and hands out hallucinogenic drugs like candy. But beneath his benign persona lies a twisted and uncontrollable rage that threatens to break loose at any moment. Tony Costa is the most dangerous man on Cape Cod, and no one who crosses his path is safe.
When young women begin to disappear, Costa's natural charisma and good looks initially protect him from suspicion. But as the bodies are discovered, the police close in on him as the key suspect. Meanwhile, local writers Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer are locked in a desperate race to secure their legacies as great literary icons—and they both set their sights on Tony Costa and the drug-soaked hippie culture that he embodies as their next promising subject, launching independent investigations that stoke the competitive fires between two of the greatest American writers.
Immersive, unflinching, and shocking, Helltown is a landmark true crime narrative that transports us back to the turbulent late 1960s, reveals the secrets of a notorious serial killer, and unspools the threads connecting Costa, Vonnegut, and Mailer in the seaside city that played host to horrors unlike any ever seen before. New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman has crafted a stunner.
This was a tough one to finish and review. Helltown tells the story of Tony Costa and his gruesome crimes against Christine Gallant, Sydney Monzon, Susan Perry, Patricia Walsh, and Mary Anne Wysocki.
Ultimately, I am not one for fictionalized storytelling in my true crime. I don’t watch true crime shows with re-enactments and I noticed the fictionalized tilt in Helltown right away. The author takes a certain amount of liberty with recreating plausible dialogue and actions between Costa and the victim(s) and that just isn’t for me.
Additionally, the introduction to events contemporary to the time was interesting and relevant but I had to drag myself through sections dedicated to the writers. At least 80% of the sections detailing the lives of Mailer and Vonnegut Jr. were extraneous and could have been left out. It dragged the pacing down significantly and left me irritable and setting the book down.
In the end, if you don’t mind re-enactments and are even the least bit curious about Mailer and Vonnegut, then this may be your jam.
*I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.