NetGalley ARC | Blood in the Water: The Untold Story of a Family Tragedy

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐⭐

I vaguely recall hearing about this case, and maybe in the hands of a better writer, I would have liked it more? I think at this point Sherman and I are just not vibing. He does not write in a compelling way. This book was such a chore to get through. I could not even finish his Cape Cod Killer book, and A Murder in Hollywood only kept me going because it involved one of my favorite eras in Hollywood history.

Nathan Carman and his mom went out fishing, and a week later he was found in a lifeboat with his mother gone. He spun a story about how the boat sank and she drowned. Yet he was in pretty great shape for being lost at sea for a week in the North Atlantic.

A few years earlier, Nathan's extremely rich grandfather was murdered in his home, which made Nathan's mom extremely rich as a result. It's easy to see the conclusions that the investigators came to.

The family is weird, I don't know how else to say it. Maybe you just become a big weirdo when you have a lot of money, I don't know. The only person who was not weird was Nathan's grandmother, but her death occurred pretty early in the account. The grandpa who was murdered (likely by Nathan) was icky, and the mom who drowned (murdered actually, likely by Nathan)...I'm not sure how to describe. She was super attached to Nathan even though he wanted nothing to do with her and it really reminded me of the Sandy Hook killer and his mom.

As horrible as it sounds, I did not care about anything that was happening in this book. And I don't think it is the story itself, but Sherman's writing. It's just not good.At times it is awkward and just kind of  clunky. There's a lot of filler that ended up just being distracting and not necessary to the story.

This was my first in-depth look at the case, and it was disappointing. If you are already know a lot about it, you can skip the book. If you don't, then I am torn on recommending it. His writing is simply not good, but I am not sure there are other books out there on the subject.