Guilty Creatures

Sex, God, and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida

De: Mikita Brottman

Narrado por: Leon Nixon

Duración: 6 h y 49 m

Resumen del Editor

“Murder, a love triangle, and small-town secrets in Tallahassee, Florida...an unputdownable read.” —The New York Times

“A compelling psychological double portrait of what happens when two people are forever bound by a life-altering secret.” —Becky Cooper, bestselling author of We Keep the Dead Close

From the critically acclaimed author dubbed “one of today’s finest practitioners of nonfiction” (The New York Times Book Review), a breathless true crime tale of sex, religion, and murder in the deep South.

Mike and Denise Williams had a tight knit, seemingly unbreakable bond with childhood friends, Brian and Kathy Winchester. The two couples were devout, hardworking Baptists who lived perfect, quintessentially Southern lives. Their friendship seemed ironclad. That is, until December 16, 2000, when Denise’s husband Mike disappeared while duck hunting on Lake Seminole.

After no body was found, everyone assumed that Mike had drowned in a tragic accident, his body eaten by alligators. But things took an unexpected turn when, within five years of Mike’s disappearance, Brian Winchester divorced his wife and married Denise. Their surprising romance set tongues talking. People began wondering how long they had been a couple, and whether they had anything to do with Mike’s death. It took another twelve years for the truth to come out—and when it did, it was unimaginable.

Now, the full, shocking story is revealed by Mikita Brottman, acclaimed true crime writer of the “enthralling” (San Francisco Book Review) An Unexplained Death. Through tenacious research and clear-eyed prose, she probes the psychology of a couple who killed and explores how it feels to live for eighteen years with murder on the soul.

A fascinating thrilling study of modern noir, Guilty Creatures is destined to become an instant true crime classic.

©2024 Mikita Brottman (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

Excellent Recitation

The voice, inflection, and overall recitation was excellent. My only complaint, which is really being picky, was the pronunciation of some places that a southerner would definitely cringe over…hence, my dilemma. So you can just ignore me on that, if you wish.

Normalizing spousal murder???

The story was very interesting except for the author’s interpretation of the murderers’ motivations and intentions. For some reason, the author attempts to convince us that all of us can be tempted by lust (which she somehow equates to love in her mind), motivated by malignant selfishness, greed, and blatant hypocrisy to plan and execute the most horrific of crimes. Denise is not a victim of misogynistic social mores as the author would have us believe. Both perpetrators are manifestations of the worst case scenario of religious zealots who are able twist “the word” to feed their own base desires. To minimize the grief of the victim’s mother is utterly unconscionable. The story and facts are well-written and interesting, but I feel the behavioral analysis is totally off the mark. A toxic dynamic this extreme IS an aberration contrary to the author’s belief.

Excellent

Excellent pacing, excellent narration. Shades of a lurid R Rated version of crime and punishment. I finished listening to this very quickly. .

Interesting Story

I had listened to a podcast about this murder and found it interesting, particularly the amount of time that passed between the murder and the time the killers were caught. I decided to listen to the audiobook written about the case and found it interesting as well. However I don’t think it was written in such a way that if I had read it in a paper version that it would have held my interest. The writing was a little dry and it revealed early on who the killers were. I also didn’t really care for the narrator. He has a nice voice and he articulated well, but his delivery was very “sing-song,” meaning he constantly went up and down, reminiscent of a voice actor in a commercial. It was too dramatic and sounded as if he was trying to sell you a high-end product instead of reading a book.

Well researched but too long

It’s clear that the author really researched the case. The thing is that she wanted to share every little fact that she learned, but a lot was repetitive and/or unnecessary. This should have been at least 1/3 shorter. For some reason listening to the book brought these issues to the forefront. I kept wanting to skim forward but couldn’t because it was not in paper. Great investigation and assembly of facts. But an editor should have scaled this down.

Great!

So good, you won't want to turn it off. I felt like I could picture the sceens and characters.

Captivating

Thoroughly enjoyed this read. Could easily and even horrifically identify with each character, hero and villain alike.

Not Enough Story

This one missed the mark on many levels. For one, there were too many extraneous details, perhaps because the crime itself really wasn't enough of a "who done it" to make it fodder for a book. The murderers are loathsome, small-minded religious hypocrites who are not too terribly interesting. The fact that they were into kinky sex for a time fed right into the stereotype.

Mostly Filler

There’s about two hours of actually storytelling in this tale. The rest is filler. Need to flush out a rather boring police procedural? All you’ve gotta do is go into detail about the predictions of psychics, the opinions of neighbors, biblical verses about murder, adultery, etc. You know, things that do nothing to advance the story or develop character, just take up some space. I have no idea how this thing was positively reviewed by the New York Times. Don’t waste your money or your credit.

Don’t

I gave it till chapter 5. Just listen to a free 48 hours podcast. A really bad 48 hours podcast. Wasted credit. 👎🏼