Buried Mistakes

This true-crime saga suggests a good magazine story bloated into a disorganized, overwritten book. Freelance journalist Kaplan has not written a whodunit--it's fairly obvious from the narrative that John Short has killed his wife Candy--but a reconstruction of the murder investigations, as well as the lives of John, Candy and George Brejack, who broke the case. John, a wife-beating, egotistical lout with a short fuse, has the gall to help his father-in-law ``discover'' the body and bamboozle inept police investigators. He leaves town to start a new life, but six years later Brejack doggedly reopens the case. A blustery ex-cop given a second chance as a prosecutor's investigator, Brejack massages witnesses, deconstructs Short's alibi and assembles the case that eventually convicts the killer. While the description of Brejack's tactics is compelling, the endless novelistic detail and dialogue, including the look into Brejack's past, wears thin. While Kaplan has derived most material from interviews (especially with Brejack), police records and court transcripts, his author's note points out that some scenes have been ``dramatically recreated'' and that ``portions of the criminal investigation have been combined or reconfigured.'' Photos not seen by PW. (July)