He Killed Them: Robert Durst and My Quest for Justice

Former Westchester County District Attorney Pirro, who investigated multimillionaire real-estate heir and suspected murderer Robert Durst for over a decade, had the professional background and personal experience to pen an insightful true crime account. Instead, she's produced an idiosyncratic story that offers plenty of ammo for those who view her as a self-promoter. The success of the recent HBO documentary series The Jinx has made Durst, currently facing murder charges in Los Angeles, better known, but Pirro's first-person account assumes more knowledge of his history than many readers will have. Instead of a chronological presentation of a complicated narrative that involves murders decades and coasts apart, Pirro opens with a description of her personal investment in convicting Durst of a 1982 homicide committed in her jurisdiction, and her desire to "dance in [her] Manolo Blahniks on his grave." She then describes her reaction to the final episode of The Jinx, before getting to how in 1999 an informant gave her a lead in the disappearance of Durst's wife, Kathleen, a development that caused Pirro to devote considerable resources to proving that Kathleen was killed by her husband. Readers hoping for a definitive and balanced account of the case will be disappointed. (Nov.)