REVIEW: #19 A Cold-Blooded Business

Synopsis: (Taken from Inside Flap)

In 1959, Olathe, Kansas was made famous by the murder of the Clutter family and Truman Capote’s ground-breaking book on the Crime, In Cold Blood. But fewer know that Olathe achieved notoriety again in 1982, when a member of Olathe’s growing Evangelical Christian population, a gentle man named David Harmon, was bludgeoned to death while sleeping – the force of the blows crushing his face beyond recognition.

Suspicion quickly fell on David’s wife, Melinda, and his best friend, Mark, student body president of the local bible college. However, the long arms of the church defended the two and no charges were pressed. The case was declared as dead as David Harmon.

Two decades later, two Olathe policemen revived the cold case making starling revelations that reopened old wounds and chasms within the Olathe community – but also the two well-heeled towns in which Melinda and Mark resided. David’s former wife and friend were now living separate, successful, law-abiding lives. Melinda lived in suburban Ohio, a devoted wife and mother of two. Mark had become a Harvard MBA, a high-paid corporate mover, a family man, and a respected community member in a wealthy suburb of New York City. Some twenty years after the brutal murders, each received the dreaded knock of justice on the door.

A Cold-Blooded Business provides facinating character studies of Melinda and Mark, killers who seemingly returned to  normalcy after one blood-splattered night of violence. A fast-moving true crime narrative, A Cold-Blooded Business is a chilling exploration into the darkest depths of the human psyche.

Review:

A thorough depiction of the Bible-Belt murder of the 80′s in Olathe, Kansas; a murder that was brutal in force and supported heavily in community denial. New York Times reporter, Marek Fauchs, supplies us with a detailed account of two God-fearing, Jesus-Preaching Nazerines and the story of love, betrayal, and murder in a small town.

A Cold-Blooded Business gives an incredible background detail on all major person(s) involved in the death of well-liked Bankman, David Harmon.  Through detailed investigative reporting we get to know the facade that is David Harmon’s wife, Melinda Harmon(Raisch). The daughter of a well-known Top-Gun in the Evangelistic Nazarene religion.  Being referred to as a “Princess”, Melinda (for the most part) remained untoucheable to investigators and reporters. How dare they accuse Melinda Harmon of murdering her husband! Just the thought was enough to drive the community into a tight-mouthed, hushed lips reaction. Surely someone who has been such an honorable citizen of the religious community couldn’t possibly have participated in an act so evil.

A Cold-Blooded Business captures the close-minded thought processes of this fundamentalist religion and their lack of moral accountability in regards to this murder investigation. Religious officials and community members did their part in protecting their own, even though they will prove to be guilty. Their lack of acceptance and help in regards to the 1982 murder of David Harmon only hindered closure and allowed these two murderers to live normal, successful, happy lives for two decades before they were brought to justice.

Being a fan of true crime, I enjoyed this detailed account of a murder that I never knew happened in a small town that I never heard of prior to opening this novel. Although this book was hard to follow at some points (not ideally organized as it seemed roughly edited) I thought it was written very well over-all, with incredible knowledge of the life and trials revolving around Harmon’s murder.