"Grips you by the throat from beginning to end."—*Cleveland Plain Dealer*
ALONE WITH HER NEW HUSBAND on a tiny Pacific atoll, a young woman, combing the beach, finds an odd aluminum container washed up out of the lagoon, and beside it on the sand something glitters: a gold tooth in a scorched human skull. The investigation that follows uncovers an extraordinarily complex and puzzling true-crime story. Only Vincent Bugliosi, who recounted his successful prosecution of mass murderer Charles Manson in the bestseller Helter Skelter, was able to draw together the hundreds of conflicting details of the mystery and reconstruct what really happened when four people found hell in a tropical paradise. And the Sea Will Tell reconstructs the events and subsequent trial of a riveting true murder mystery, and probes into the dark heart of a serpentine scenario of death.
Amazon.com Review
And the Sea Will Tell spins a riveting story--a story that could have been the backbone for a classic novel by Herman Melville or Joseph Conrad. Two couples--one wealthy and married, the other an ex-con and his hippie girlfriend-- separately set sail for a remote South Pacific island, each hoping to play "Adam and Eve" in paradise. Instead of getting away from it all, they take it with them-- their pasts and prejudices, and the petty battles over status and material goods that arise from their different social classes. Only two people out of the original four live through the experience. One of them has the extraordinary good luck to be defended in court by master attorney Vincent Bugliosi (author of Helter Skelter). As the Los Angeles Times writes, "The book succeeds on all counts. The final pages are some of the most suspenseful in trial literature."
From Publishers Weekly
In 1974, wealthy Californians Mac and Muff Graham sailed to Palmyra Island, 1000 miles south of Hawaii, in their boat the Sea Wind . Buck Walker and Jennifer Jenkins arrived soon after on the same atoll, fleeing drug charges in Hawaii. Several months later, Walker and Jenkins returned to Hawaii in the Sea Wind , claiming that the Grahams were presumed dead when the dinghy in which they had gone fishing was washed ashore unmanned. However, in 1980, vacationers on Palmyra found bones soon identified as those of Muff Graham, who was determined to have been shot. Walker and Jenkins were charged with murder: in separate San Francisco trials, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and she was acquitted. Writing with Henderson ( Empire of Deceit) , Bugliosi ( Helter Skelter ), who served as Jenkins's attorney, offers a case history which could have been a true-crime classic if not for the 250 tedious pages devoted to his client's 23-day trial. Photos not seen by PW. Literary Guild main selection. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Description:
"Grips you by the throat from beginning to end."—*Cleveland Plain Dealer*
ALONE WITH HER NEW HUSBAND on a tiny Pacific atoll, a young woman, combing the beach, finds an odd aluminum container washed up out of the lagoon, and beside it on the sand something glitters: a gold tooth in a scorched human skull. The investigation that follows uncovers an extraordinarily complex and puzzling true-crime story. Only Vincent Bugliosi, who recounted his successful prosecution of mass murderer Charles Manson in the bestseller Helter Skelter, was able to draw together the hundreds of conflicting details of the mystery and reconstruct what really happened when four people found hell in a tropical paradise. And the Sea Will Tell reconstructs the events and subsequent trial of a riveting true murder mystery, and probes into the dark heart of a serpentine scenario of death.
Amazon.com Review
And the Sea Will Tell spins a riveting story--a story that could have been the backbone for a classic novel by Herman Melville or Joseph Conrad. Two couples--one wealthy and married, the other an ex-con and his hippie girlfriend-- separately set sail for a remote South Pacific island, each hoping to play "Adam and Eve" in paradise. Instead of getting away from it all, they take it with them-- their pasts and prejudices, and the petty battles over status and material goods that arise from their different social classes. Only two people out of the original four live through the experience. One of them has the extraordinary good luck to be defended in court by master attorney Vincent Bugliosi (author of Helter Skelter). As the Los Angeles Times writes, "The book succeeds on all counts. The final pages are some of the most suspenseful in trial literature."
From Publishers Weekly
In 1974, wealthy Californians Mac and Muff Graham sailed to Palmyra Island, 1000 miles south of Hawaii, in their boat the Sea Wind . Buck Walker and Jennifer Jenkins arrived soon after on the same atoll, fleeing drug charges in Hawaii. Several months later, Walker and Jenkins returned to Hawaii in the Sea Wind , claiming that the Grahams were presumed dead when the dinghy in which they had gone fishing was washed ashore unmanned. However, in 1980, vacationers on Palmyra found bones soon identified as those of Muff Graham, who was determined to have been shot. Walker and Jenkins were charged with murder: in separate San Francisco trials, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and she was acquitted. Writing with Henderson ( Empire of Deceit) , Bugliosi ( Helter Skelter ), who served as Jenkins's attorney, offers a case history which could have been a true-crime classic if not for the 250 tedious pages devoted to his client's 23-day trial. Photos not seen by PW. Literary Guild main selection.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.