Hunting Charles Manson

The Quest for Justice in the Days of Helter Skelter

Non-Fiction - True Crime
336 Pages
Reviewed on 03/20/2022
Buy on Amazon

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Philip John Zozzaro for Readers' Favorite

In August 1969, a pair of savage murders stunned Los Angeles and the world. The Tate-LaBianca murders left seven dead and an entire city consumed by fear and paranoia. Lis Wiehl sets out to examine the events in Hunting Charles Manson: The Quest for Justice in the Days of Helter-Skelter. Despite an initial bungling of the police investigation, evidence would lead to the arrest of Charles Manson and various followers. The questions that followed in the wake of the murders were varied, including the motive for these senseless murders. How did Manson sway so many to commit acts sometimes against their better nature, and how many more murders were this group responsible for? Charles Manson died in 2017 while serving a life sentence for his crimes. The answers to his Svengali-like hold and his true involvement in the Tate-LaBianca murders may be forever buried with the man.

Finding Charles Manson is an excellent addition to the body of work chronicling the Manson Family murders. Lis Wiehl (Hunting the Unabomber) brings her no-nonsense prosecutorial approach to the one-time billed “Crime of the Century”, dissecting the eyewitness testimony and evidence in a concise way, but never sparing the humanity involved. The timeline of and around the murders is examined in fine detail, along with the chaos that consumed the multiple trials that followed. The book doesn’t engage in a retread of the past but lays out the case along with the credible alternative theories that had surfaced during and after the trials. Her work, delivered in a near-flawless manner, would have served either side well during the time of the trials.