McDonald received praise for his memoir, My Father's Gun
, about his family of cops, but he seems out of his element with this true-crime account of the murder of Beth Lochtefeld, a successful, outgoing woman who, at 44, was anxious to find a mate and settle down. In McDonald's account, Lochtefeld's desperation made her overlook the faults of Tom Toolan, a suave but seriously troubled man. After Lochtefeld tried to break off with Toolan, she turned up dead in her Nantucket home. In an awkwardly constructed narrative, McDonald further confuses matters by suddenly shifting voices, from omniscient narrator who seems to know Lochtefeld's and Toolan's thoughts (though his sources are unclear) to journalist ("Sources say"). Nor does he get beneath the surface of Toolan, an alcoholic with a self-destructive streak who had lost his Wall Street job and been caught trying to steal an $80,000 sculpture from an art gallery. McDonald further tangles his narrative by ending it shortly after the 2004 murder, without providing details of what happened after Toolan's arrest. (He has pled not guilty and has yet to stand trial.) 8 pages of b&w photos. (June)
