The World’s #1 Bestselling Writer, according to the blurb on the back of his book, James Patterson holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the most books on the New York Times Bestsellers list. Yet, he seems to have gotten confused about the difference between fiction and nonfiction.
I anxiously awaited the publication of his newest book Murder, Interrupted because it was a True-Crime Thriller. I wanted to see what if anything he uncovered looking into the Gypsy Rose Blancharde case, and since he only wrote a half a book about the case I wanted to see if there was enough there to write a whole book, a pet project of mine.
When I opened the book to the first page I read through the standard information I already knew, or at least I thought I knew about the case. Some of the first couple of pages didn’t ring true with my own research but this is the master storyteller, so I assumed that he knew something I didn’t. The more I read the more I was stumped. Anne-Marie Burrell of channel 4. I grew up the last twenty-five years in the area we do not have a channel 4.
Maybe Anne-Marie came from another television station that is in the state of Missouri. Though I doubt that something as simple as the Blanchardes receiving a house from a charity would garner St. Louis or Kansas City news attention, after all when they got the house they were just a mom and daughter fighting against the odds to overcome a debilitating disease. I took to Google, looking for Anne-Marie Burrell. I found another Anne-Marie, she has even a cable show out of Canada, but there were none in the state of Missouri.
So I dug a little bit deeper. That is when I was directed to the front of the book, you know the part that some people choose to skip over when they are anxiously awaiting a new read, the letter to the reader. The part where Patterson states, “The crimes in this book are 100% real. Certain elements of the stories, some of the scenes and dialogue, locations, names, and characters have been fictionalized, but these stories are about real people, committing real crimes, with real, horrifying consequences.”
It’s a True-Crime work of fiction. The only part that is real in the second part of the book is the fact that Gypsy Rose Blancharde and Dee Dee Blancharde lived in Springfield Missouri, Dee Dee was murdered in their home, and friends were worried when they saw a suspicious message on Facebook.
However, Patterson even fictionalizes that account. A message was posted to the Facebook wall shared by Gypsy and Dee Dee. The phrase “The Bitch is Dead” was the message people saw. In Patterson’s reality, Gypsy sent a private message to her best friend and neighbor.
Then we are introduced to the cops. Who have fictionalized names and behave in a manner that makes the actual officers look foolish, sexist, and in many ways stupid. The banter between the officers is not believable, and even borders on shocking as the readers are led to believe Springfield Police Department officers would crack jokes about the deceased Dee Dee.
Next Patterson colors the way that Dee Dee was supposed to have viewed the home that she and Gypsy got from Habitat for Humanity, although in Patterson’s world it is a made up Methodist organization that donated the house. There is more fiction than nonfiction in his entire telling of the story, leading this reader to conclude that Patterson didn’t care as much about researching the book as he did about the dollars he would make from its publication. It is shameful to think that the readers have been duped into believing this is a “true” crime book when it is nothing more than an elaborate work of fiction.
