Book Review: Blood in the Water
Original review written 7/7/23
Title:Blood in the Water A True Story of Small-Town Revenge
Author: Silver Donald Cameron
What's it about?
In June 2013, three people murdered Phillip Boudreau in a small town of Canada on Cape Brenton Island. Phillip, a staple of the community known for his mischief, had spent half of his adult life in jail. The aftermath of these men's actions, including the court trial, is now laid out for us to read and experience.
My Thoughts:
To be honest, this book was a bit of a disappointment to me. While I an sure that there is an interesting store here, I don't think the author's depiction of said story does it justice. Between the historical rants that, I admit, are sometimes interesting but often left me wondering why I just spent three pages reading about it and how that connects to the topic at hand and the poor organization of the book, I couldn't help but to wish the book had been different. One of the things I thought was cool about the book was that the author collected antidotes and quotes about the Phillip in the book, illustrating his role in the community and his history of causing trouble and lawbreaking up until the day of his death. However, with that being said, I felt like the first half of the book told stories and antidotes that kind of alluding to the idea that the community generally liked him, that he was just that odd mischief maker of the small town. Kind of the "Oh, Phillip" character. Then, the second half of the book, they talk about how so many people were scared of him and he had threatened to physically harm harm people and their kids and how all these people were relieved when Phillip was gone. It almost felt like they were talking about two different people and just calling him the same name. I would have rathered they shared the stories in chronological order rather then "good, fun stories here and bad stories there".
In fact, I wish that they would have refrained from jumping around from the trial to quotes about Phillip to antidotes, back to quotes and finally another session of the trial and written two sessions. One, and the first part could have been about the town and phillip's roll in it including his relationships with those accused of killing him in chronological order. Then, the second part, the murder and the trial as well as how the murder effected the town. I found it so disjointed and unorganized that I described this book to my husband as "If you took a puzzle and dumped out all of the pieces and then had to put it back together with someone just kind of describing how it should look at the end without ever seeing the box. That's how I felt reading this book."
And then, there's the doubt I was left with. They said over and over that they didn't find blood and no reason to suspect that he had been shot and they didn't find a body so do we really know he's dead? I'm not convinced from this book alone.
I wanted to like it. I liked pieces of it, but in the end, that wasn't enough. I think the concept of the book was great. I appreciated getting to see the social aspects of how Phillip interacted and effected the town and how they felt about him and getting to see a full person not just the good or bad but some of both. I just really wish it had been put together to present a more clear and linear image then what I got. Had that been done, I think I w
Ratings:
I give this book a 3
out of 10 fishing boats
But that's just what I thought. What did you think? Did you love the organization? Are you convinced of his death? Let us know in the comments.
