On July 27, 1981, six-year-old Adam Walsh disappeared from a Sears store in Hollywood, Fla., and his partial remains were found in a canal two weeks later. Novelist and nonfiction author Standiford (Last Train to Paradise) charts with devastating precision the decades-long search for the killer and the evolution of Revé and John Walsh (John was executive producer and host of America's Most Wanted) from grieving parents into powerful advocates for missing children. In 1983, Jacksonville police arrested drifter Otis Toole for arson and murder, and he began talking about a little boy he'd killed in south Florida. Myriad confessions (and retractions) followed, containing details only the killer would know, but evidence disappeared, potential witnesses were never interviewed, and Toole was never charged. Convicted on other charges, he died in prison in 1996. Twenty-five years after Adam's abduction, the Walshes asked Matthews, a renowned polygraph investigator and retired detective, to conduct an independent investigation; Matthews concluded that Toole was the killer. Standiford's account is riveting, heartbreaking, and supports John Walsh's statement: "it's not about closure; it's about justice." 8 pages of color photos. (Mar.)
[A] page turner…hopeful and heartbreaking, Bringing Adam Home is tough to forget.” — People
“A riveting, harrowing, tautly suspenseful book that reads like a crime novel…but is all the more chilling for being fact, not fiction.” — St. Petersburg Times
“Intertwined with this true-crime chronicle is the important story of how Adam’s abduction turned his parents into powerful advocates for crime victims and how law enforcement agencies across the country changed their response to missing children cases.” — Orlando Home and Leisure
“An essential read for those interested in forensic science and true crime.” — Library Journal
“[M]ystery writer Les Standiford, in collaboration with Detective Sgt. Joe Matthews, has written a riveting and page-turning account of this heart-wrenching story.” — BookReporter.com
“Les Standiford’s account of the decades-long attempt to solve the murder of Adam Walsh is chilling, heartbreaking, hopeful, and as relentlessly suspenseful as anything I’ve ever read. A triumph in every way.” — Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent
“Les Standiford’s account of the decades-long attempt to solve the murder of Adam Walsh is chilling, heartbreaking, hopeful, and as relentlessly suspenseful as anything I’ve ever read. A triumph in every way.” — Dennis Lehane, author of MYSTIC RIVER and SHUTTER ISLAND
“I didn’t live far from the mall where Adam Walsh was kidnapped. I remember that story as if it were yesterday. It terrified me as a kid. But it’s the details that Les Standiford has found that terrify me as an adult. Insightful, horrifying, and just beautifully written.” — Brad Meltzer, New York Times bestselling author of THE BOOK OF FATE
“BRINGING ADAM HOME is a maddening, terrifying and ultimately triumphant book. Les Standiford explores the injustice and finally justice surrounding the murder of Adam Walsh. You will cry and rage but you will not be able to put this book down until you finish it. My God! What a book!” — Ann Hood, author of THE RED THREAD and THE KNITTING CIRCLE
“BRINGING ADAM HOME is a riveting account of a child abduction and murder that goes unsolved for twenty-seven years—both an unsettling expose of police incompetence and a portrait of an extraordinary and dedicated detective.” — Joyce Carol Oates
“Not since IN COLD BLOOD has the story of a terrible crime been told with such elegance and power....Heartbreaking and hypnotically suspenseful.” — Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of VANISHED
“Charts with devastating precision the decades-long search for the killer and the evolution of Revé and John Walsh... from grieving parents into powerful advocates for missing children...Standiford’s account is riveting, heartbreaking, and supports John Walsh’s statement: “it’s not about closure; it’s about justice.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“While many true-crime books claim to shine a light on society by examining one particular case, this account actually does. No reader can come away from this without appreciating what it takes to keep pursuing an investigation, against the obstacles of police politics and bureaucracy. Wrenching and riveting.” — Booklist
“Compelling, bittersweet… ably fleshes out the difficult yet familiar story with style, pathos and relevant historical detail.” — Miami Herald
“Bringing Adam Home is one of the finest true-crime books since Thomas Thompson’s Blood and Money…This remarkable story will bring readers to tears of grief - and rage.” — Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers
“[A] heartbreaking story of incompetent police and determined parents… Novelist and nonfiction author Les Standiford does a masterful job of re-creation, reporting and research… readers will be haunted by the maladroit investigation and the added anguish this caused the Walshes.” — Los Angeles Times
“Standiford and Matthews relate Matthews’ quest skillfully.” — Dallas Morning News
BRINGING ADAM HOME is a maddening, terrifying and ultimately triumphant book. Les Standiford explores the injustice and finally justice surrounding the murder of Adam Walsh. You will cry and rage but you will not be able to put this book down until you finish it. My God! What a book!
[A] page turner…hopeful and heartbreaking, Bringing Adam Home is tough to forget.
A riveting, harrowing, tautly suspenseful book that reads like a crime novel…but is all the more chilling for being fact, not fiction.
[M]ystery writer Les Standiford, in collaboration with Detective Sgt. Joe Matthews, has written a riveting and page-turning account of this heart-wrenching story.
Les Standiford’s account of the decades-long attempt to solve the murder of Adam Walsh is chilling, heartbreaking, hopeful, and as relentlessly suspenseful as anything I’ve ever read. A triumph in every way.
Les Standiford’s account of the decades-long attempt to solve the murder of Adam Walsh is chilling, heartbreaking, hopeful, and as relentlessly suspenseful as anything I’ve ever read. A triumph in every way.
Intertwined with this true-crime chronicle is the important story of how Adam’s abduction turned his parents into powerful advocates for crime victims and how law enforcement agencies across the country changed their response to missing children cases.
I didn’t live far from the mall where Adam Walsh was kidnapped. I remember that story as if it were yesterday. It terrified me as a kid. But it’s the details that Les Standiford has found that terrify me as an adult. Insightful, horrifying, and just beautifully written.
BRINGING ADAM HOME is a riveting account of a child abduction and murder that goes unsolved for twenty-seven years—both an unsettling expose of police incompetence and a portrait of an extraordinary and dedicated detective.
Not since IN COLD BLOOD has the story of a terrible crime been told with such elegance and power....Heartbreaking and hypnotically suspenseful.
While many true-crime books claim to shine a light on society by examining one particular case, this account actually does. No reader can come away from this without appreciating what it takes to keep pursuing an investigation, against the obstacles of police politics and bureaucracy. Wrenching and riveting.
[A] heartbreaking story of incompetent police and determined parents… Novelist and nonfiction author Les Standiford does a masterful job of re-creation, reporting and research… readers will be haunted by the maladroit investigation and the added anguish this caused the Walshes.
Standiford and Matthews relate Matthews’ quest skillfully.
Bringing Adam Home is one of the finest true-crime books since Thomas Thompson’s Blood and Money…This remarkable story will bring readers to tears of grief - and rage.
Compelling, bittersweet… ably fleshes out the difficult yet familiar story with style, pathos and relevant historical detail.
[A] heartbreaking story of incompetent police and determined parents… Novelist and nonfiction author Les Standiford does a masterful job of re-creation, reporting and research… readers will be haunted by the maladroit investigation and the added anguish this caused the Walshes.
While many true-crime books claim to shine a light on society by examining one particular case, this account actually does. No reader can come away from this without appreciating what it takes to keep pursuing an investigation, against the obstacles of police politics and bureaucracy. Wrenching and riveting.
Compelling, bittersweet… ably fleshes out the difficult yet familiar story with style, pathos and relevant historical detail.
Bringing Adam Home is one of the finest true-crime books since Thomas Thompson’s Blood and Money…This remarkable story will bring readers to tears of grief - and rage.
"[A] page turner…hopeful and heartbreaking, Bringing Adam Home is tough to forget."
Novelist Standiford and investigating officer Matthews chronicle the riveting search for the murderer of Adam Walsh, a six-year-old boy abducted from outside a store in a Florida mall in July 1981. Most readers know the America's Most Wanted TV series and John Walsh, its host and the victim's father. The story behind the long and convoluted search for Adam's killer, which eventually became a cold case, takes many twists and turns. Few held out any hope of ever solving the mystery of who left the severed head of a child in a canal, and why Matthews, once part of the initial team brought in from another jurisdiction, was asked by Adam's parents to again try to unearth the truth. In December 2008, the case was finally resolved, thanks in large part to the dogged determination of a small team of experts with access to technology not available when the crime happened. The final gut-wrenching, horrific piece of evidence brought a long-awaited closure. VERDICT An essential read for those interested in forensic science and true crime.—Claire Franek, MSLS, Brockport, NY
A bestselling author and a veteran Miami police sergeant tell the whole story behind the 1981 kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh.
After playing video games inside a department store in Florida, Revé Walsh's six-year-old son Adam vanished. Before the grisly details emerged of his kidnapping and dismemberment, the boy's disappearance garnered national media attention, thrusting the Florida police department—namely top-notch homicide detective Joe Matthews, a father of four—headfirst into the desperate search. Early on, Matthews notes that he became troubled by the disorganized, "chaotic" quality of the station handling the investigation, but his concerns went ignored. After suffering a nasty car accident, he was excused from the case altogether. When the boy's remains were discovered in a drainage ditch, the case was further fumbled by shotgun accusations and an absence of any tangible leads, until convicted serial killer Ottis Toole admitted to the murder during an arson indictment. Standiford (Washington Burning: How a Frenchman's Vision for Our Nation's Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army, 2008, etc.) documents the numerous instances of investigatory malfeasance routinely plaguing the case, as accusations flew over botched testimonies, circumstantial evidence and Toole's numerous recanted confessions. Further, during this time period, DNA forensic technology was rudimentary at best. As years passed, Adam's father John became a staunch advocate for missing and exploited children. As the host ofAmerica's Most Wanted, Walsh reunited with Matthews, who, with a renewed, heartfelt intent and an arsenal of forensic tools, reopened the Walsh case, formally indicted Toole with sufficient evidence and closed the case in 2008. Standiford's by-the-numbers reporting is consistently engrossing and fortified with statistics, police transcripts and chillingly reenacted kidnapping attempts by Toole, whose dark-hearted verbatim dialogue, even after nearly 30 years, still has the gruesome power to keep readers on edge.
A riveting, sad coda to an American tragedy.
