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Book Spotlight: Aggravated

3/22/2021

3 Comments

 

AGGRAVATED
BY MICHAEL SIROIS

Publisher: Truth Boots Publishing, LLC
Pages: 389 Pages
Pub Date: December 11, 2020
Categories: True Crime / Criminal Procedural Law

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Description: In 2006, the author's brother, Steve Sirois, was sentenced to serve 35 years in a Texas prison for a horrendous crime, aggravated sexual assault of a child -- a crime Steve swore he didn't commit. After the conviction, Michael started helping Steve write his appeals, but what he saw in the trial transcripts made him question how a jury could have convicted his brother based on that testimony.

Steve's accuser originally gave vague dates for the crime but soon abandoned those dates and even replaced the details of her claims with new ones. There was no forensic evidence, no DNA, no physical evidence of any kind: nothing but his accuser's words. The author wondered if he could prove that her accusations were false. But how?

Using affidavits, court transcripts, and interviews, along with additional evidence from public information requests and other factual data, the book lays out a devastating portrait of an untruthful accuser, an overzealous prosecutor, a jury that made a deal to swap votes in order to gain a conviction, and the series of lies that led to that outcome.

Purchase: Amazon 






Michael Sirois was reading by the age of four and was writing quirky short stories by the third grade. In high school he added acting to his bag of tricks. After graduating from the University of Houston, he taught writing, drama, and technology in the middle school trenches for two decades, but continued to act and write, placing well in competitions like the Writer's Digest Short Story contest and the HBO Project Greenlight series. His first novel, The Jagged Man, was published in 2015, and a two-book series, If a Butterfly, is slated to be published in late-Spring 2021.

After running educational outreach programs at Rice University for seven years, he retired and lives with his wife, Minay, in Spring, Texas, where he is hard at work on a thriller, The Hawthorn's Sting, and a mystery/thriller, Murder Between Friends, hoping to have a first draft of at least one of them by late-2021. Ideas for a few more are also floating around in that scary place called his brain. Stay tuned.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon Author Page

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3 Comments

Review: True Crime Addict

7/6/2016

0 Comments

 
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True Crime Addict
by James Renner

Synopsis

When an eleven year old James Renner fell in love with Amy Mihaljevic, the missing girl seen on posters all over his neighborhood, it was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with true crime. That obsession leads James to a successful career as an investigative journalist. It also gave him PTSD. In 2011, James began researching the strange disappearance of Maura Murray, a UMass student who went missing after wrecking her car in rural New Hampshire in 2004. Over the course of his investigation, he uncovers numerous important and shocking new clues about what may have happened to Maura, but also finds himself in increasingly dangerous situations with little regard for his own well-being. As his quest to find Maura deepens, the case starts taking a toll on his personal life, which begins to spiral out of control. The result is an absorbing dual investigation of the complicated story of the All-American girl who went missing and James's own equally complicated true crime addiction. 
James Renner's True Crime Addict is the story of his spellbinding investigation of the missing person's case of Maura Murray, which has taken on a life of its own for armchair sleuths across the web. In the spirit of David Fincher's Zodiac, it is a fascinating look at a case that has eluded authorities and one man's obsessive quest for the answers.

Review

Then, amidst all the romance novel reviews, there is a true crime review. I'm showing some true colors here, ya'll. I have a masters degree in Clinical Psychology and a life time of interest in true crime involving serial killers, unsolved mysteries, and abnormal psychology. These are the stories that terrify me, but interest me so very much. 

With that said - this book is FANTASTIC. I got it from the library and I hate that I have to give it back. It is just so good. It has so many facets. On one side, it is an investigative piece on a missing person, Maura Murray. You might of heard of her. She's a college student that seems to have vanished after "crashing" her car on the side of a road. I believe it's been 12 years since she's been seen.  And on the other side, it is also a story of the author's further descent into the world he's come to be obsessed with and how it affects his life. 

This was truly a fascinating book. I loved it and finished it within a day. I recommend it to all true crime lovers or even people who simply love a good mystery. 

Below is one of many videos concerning Maura Murray on YouTube. I have no affiliation with this video - let's just call it some bonus content.

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