Book Review - The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg

 

On June 25, 1980 two young women were murdered in an isolated clearing in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. The two women were outsiders who came to town for a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering. For thirteen years, the deaths of Vicki Duran and Nancy Santomero has gone unsolved. People believe it was the local people who committed the crime. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted but, he was released when Joseph Paul Franklin, a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic, claimed responsibility for the murders. As time progressed, the truth  had become more elusive and  investigation stalled causing neighbors to turn against each other.

I love reading true crime novels even though this is a relatively new genre of books for me. However, this book was boring read. I am not even sure how this book was even considered a true crime novel as the author spent more time talking about herself and her experiences than anything else. Prior to beginning the book, she listed out a few facts about the case. I read more than half way through the book and yet, I learned nothing more about the case than what she listed in the introduction. However, I learned that the person who found the bodies went grocery shopping before he found the bodies and the author had a relationship with a local man. I think this book would have been better if the author focused on the case and any history regarding the community and kept her life story out of it.