Book Reviews of Bitter Blood: A True Story of Southern Family Pride, Madness and Multiple Murder

I nearly couldn't put this down. The story is engrossing and well-written, with extensive background and histories of the people involved. The families involved lost so much, and you cannot help mourning with them. Fritz Klenner was a seriously deluded and extremely manipulative person, and whether she was part of the planning or not, Susie Lynch, a different sort of flawed personality, was a big part of the cause of these tragedies.

In the aftermath, Susie's brother Rob Newsom, a lawyer, said something that will stay with me for a long time: "Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence ... was not designed to handle sociopaths with automatic weapons. The police cannot and do not protect us. They avenge us sometimes, but they don't prevent anything."

excellent

This one will keep you awake! Extremely well written and frightenly true.

Very well written, hard to put the book down.

Very interesting story.

The writer of this novel-like true crime book based it upon his extensive coverage of multiple murders in two prominent southern families for his newspaper. He has done a masterful job of detailing these terrible tragedies. The fact that the murders were committed by beloved family members makes the story all the more poignant. The historical perspective is interesting and the personalities and psychological makeup of the characters are presented through the even-handed interviews with friends and family memers. This is a heart-breaker.

The first bodies found were those of a feisty millionaire widow and her beautiful daughter in their posh Louisville, Kentucky, home. Months later, another wealthy widow and her prominent son and daughter-in-law were found savagely slain in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Mystified police first suspected a professional in the bizarre gangland-style killings that shattered the quiest tranquility of two well-to-do southern communities. But soon a suspicion grew that turned their focus to family. The Sharps. The Newsoms. The Lynches. The only link between the three families was a beautiful and aristocratic young mother named Susie Sharp Newsom Lynch. Could this former child "princess" and fraternity sweetheart have committed such barbarous crimes? And what about her gun-loving first cousin and lover, Fritz Klenner, son of a nationally renowned doctor?