TWENTYNINE PALMS. A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave

Hardback. 'The approach to the Mojave town of Twentynine Palms is a long, dusty parade route of fraternal lodges, cheap motels, and cross streets with names that beckon - North Star and Lupine and Ocotillo - and front yards with pit bulls that tell you to forget about it. Then, the town itself, split in half by the age-old conflict of violence and beauty: North of the main drag is the world's largest Marine Corps base; south is Joshua Tree National Park, sanctuary for freak-show plants and extreme geography. In 1991 it all collided when 2 young girls were savagely murdered by a troubled Marine who had recently returned from the Gulf War. One girl was about to turn sixteen, the other twenty-one. How did they come to find themselves in a certain apartment on a certain night in Twentynine Palms?...Deanne Stillman uses this tragedy as a prism through which she explores not only the murders and the families involved, but a rootless culture of fatherless families, shattered dreams, and relentless violence...' 277pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. Review copy with loosely inserted slip. F. in f. dw.