This book alternates between reams of unnecessary facts (the history of areas to which the family moved) and a biased, anti-Julie commentary. There were also times when I wondered how the author could "know" certain things, for example, if Julie and Beau Schenecker were alone in the car when she shot him, how could anyone know what Beau was thinking and feeling just before his mother killed him?

The impression I was left with - which started even from the sub title of the book - was that of a narrative based on a judgement already made: that Julie is a Bad Person. But, despite the pro-Parker (husband) slant to the book, one is left with certain questions, such as, knowing how damaged and unstable his wife was, how could Colonel Schenecker have left his children in her care?

Ultimately, this is a shallow and subjective account of a terrible tragedy. Instead of wasting space on recounting unnecessary detail and an overt judgement of Julie Schenecker as "a cold blooded killer of her children", a more interesting perspective would have been a deeper exploration of the clearly damaged psyche of a lost soul.

The ancient Greek tragedy Medea written by Euripides is a far more compassionate and deep portrayal of why a woman would be driven to kill her children. ( )

While reading this I was truly upset that no one paid attention to the red flags that were waving. I could see them from just reading. I am truly irate at the husband who knew his wife was mentally unstable and had to have some inkling that she was harboring unreasonable resentment towards her children, yet left them alone with her. She had been hospitalized many times before and just weeks before this incident. Why would you leave her alone with kids? Anyways the book was an okay read. It was bland in places as it didn't really go inside the story. It read as someone on the outside getting their knowledge from a newspaper. ( )