This was a very frustrating read. McGowan starts out the book by upfront describing his process whereby he would provide information and then step back to let the reader connect the dots. He is at least honest about this but I still found it frustrating.

This book is about 300 pages but could easily be cut down to 150. There is so much biographical material of the musicians in Laurel Canyon that I just don’t care about. And again so much useless information.

Kelly Katherine was to be the couple's second child, but she was, alas, reportedly stillborn on the summer solstice of 1943. Nothing suspicious about that.

This is a line about the sister of Gene Kelly of The Byrds who died at birth. For context the family had 10 something children and 1 was a miscarriage. No there is nothing suspicious about that!

There were whole passages where I was totally in the dark as to which dots I should be connecting. The whole book felt very scattered. The epilogue is just another chapter about a serial killer tacked onto the end??

There is some interesting material in this regardless. It’s just a shame McGowan maybe for legal reasons isn’t brave enough to actually come together with a thesis.

I have read Programmed to Kill by McGowan but it was a long time ago and I don’t remember if it was as amateurish as this.