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Title details for A Deadly Secret by Matt Birkbeck - Available

A Deadly Secret

The Bizarre and Chilling Story of Robert Durst

by Matt Birkbeck
David H. Lawrence XVII
Audiobook
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The recent arrest in New Orleans and the HBO documentary The Jinx have put Robert Durst back in the headlines. Here, from the first reporter to access Durst’s NYPD files, is the authoritative account of a decades-long criminal odyssey—the very book found in Durst’s own apartment when it was searched by police.
 
When medical student Kathie Durst vanished in 1982, she was married to Robert Durst, son of a New York real estate magnate. Kathie’s friends had reason to implicate her husband. They told police that Kathie lived in terror of Robert, and that she had uncovered incriminating financial evidence about him. But Durst’s secrets went even deeper. For decades, Kathie’s disappearance remained a mystery.
Then in 2001, Durst, an heir to an empire valued at two billion dollars, was arrested for shoplifting in Pennsylvania. When the police brought him in, they discovered that he was a suspect in the murder of Texas drifter Morris Black, whose dismembered remains were found floating in Galveston Bay, and that Durst was also wanted for questioning in the killing of his friend, Susan Burman, in Los Angeles.
 
Based on interviews with family, friends, and acquaintances of Durst, law enforcement, and others involved in the case, A Deadly Secret is a cross-country odyssey of stolen IDs and multiple identities that raises baffling questions about one of the country’s most prominent families—and one of its most elusive suspected killers. 
 

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 21, 2015

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780147523365
      • File size: 281374 KB
      • Duration: 09:46:11

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 29, 2002
      People
      magazine reporter Birkbeck offers little insight in this muddied look at Robert Durst, the eccentric New York real estate heir suspected in the 1982 disappearance of his troubled wife, the former Kathie McCormack. Although investigators had circumstantial evidence against him, including statements about long-term physical and mental abuse, Durst was never indicted. In 1999, after receiving new information, the New York State Police opened a new investigation into the case. Durst proved elusive until he was arrested in Galveston, Tex., for murdering his neighbor. After making bail, he disappeared, and police determined he'd impersonated a deaf-mute woman in order to rent apartments there and in New Orleans before finally being apprehended in Pennsylvania for shoplifting. Durst goes on trial in Texas in September, but the investigation into Kathie's disappearance remains stalled. Birkbeck is attuned to the subtle conflicts among the Durst family, Kathie's family and the police and district attorney's office, which scuttled the original inquiry. But Birkbeck's breathless prose ("Kathie was clearly on a downward spiral, a 747 that had lost its engines") almost buries these moments of clarity. He relies on unnecessary digression (such as Westchester DA Jeanine Pirro's troubles); tinny recreated dialogue; and nasty portrayals. He paints the NYPD detectives as boors, the Dursts as coldhearted robber barons and Kathie's supporters as trashy hangers-on. This voyeuristic true-crime may "dish the dirt" on Durst, but it makes for prurient reading. (Sept. 3)Forecast:Durst's September murder trial may temporarily boost sales, but true crime's discriminating readers will be disappointed by this.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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