Book Review : Echoes in the Darkness Joseph Wambaugh Morrow, $18.95 Engaged to Murder Loretta Schwartz-Nobel Viking, $17.95

• Author: Fredric Koeppel
• DOI: 10.1177/104398628700300308
• Published date: 01 August 1987
• Date: 01 August 1987
• Subject Matter: Articles

Book Review
69
Echoes in the Darkness
Joseph Wambaugh
Morrow, $18.95
Engaged to Murder
Loretta Schwartz-Nobel
Viking, $17.95
On June 25, 1979, the naked and battered body of Susan
Reinert was found in the trunk of her car in a hotel parking lot in
Harrisburg, Pa. Her two children had disappeared; their bodies
have never been found.
Two men were convicted in the murders - William Bradfield,
Susan Reinert’s lover and colleague as an English teacher at Upper
Merion High School in Philadelphia, and Jay Smith, the high
school’s principal.
At the time he was convicted, Bradfield was living with Susan
Myers, another English teacher at the school, and had several other
girlfriends as well - some of whom thought they were engaged to
him and remain loyal today, despite his conviction and three
consecutive life sentences.
The case was complicated enough and involved such complex
personalities that two authors were drawn to write books about it.
Joseph Wambaugh spent 14 years as a Los Angeles policeman
before turning to writing seven crime novels and four nonfiction
books about crimes. Several were best sellers; four were made
into movies.
Loretta Schwartz-Nobel is an award-winning investigative
reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Magazine.
She is the author of &dquo;Starving in the Shadow of Plenty.&dquo;
Wambaugh begins &dquo;Echoes in the Darkness&dquo; at the beginning
(when Bradfield and Susan Myers met in 1963), usually a mistake
in a true-crime narrative.
Ms. Nobel begins her book, &dquo;Engaged to Murder,&dquo; with the
murder and then backtracks to fill in the details, a wise structural
choice. She includes monologs by Bradfield and Smith recorded
when she visited them in prison.
Reading the convicted
murderers’ thoughts is chilling and they contribute authenticity to
her account.

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70
Bradfield, on one hand, was well-educated and appeared to be
sensitive, compassionate and a devoted and charismatic teacher
beloved by his students.
On the other...