Author: MARK BOWDEN
The Last Stone by Mark Bowden is a true crime story about the disappearance of two sisters from a Wheaton, Maryland mall in March of 1975.
Bowden “is a master of narrative non-fiction, but I think it’s safe to say he’s surpassed himself here. The story he’s telling here is remarkably focused and controlled, and there’s a sense of urgency in the writing that manages to be both personal and remarkably balanced,” said a review published in goodreads.com.
In a review published in The New York Times, Robert Kolker said Bowden “focuses on 21 months of questioning by a revolving cast of detectives, telling a stirring, suspenseful, thoughtful story that, miraculously, neither oversimplifies the details nor gets lost in the thicket of a four-decade case file.”
Kolker added: “The Last Stone finds its power not by leaning into cliche but by resisting it — pushing for something more realistic, more evocative of a deeper truth.”
Bowden “shows how even the most exquisitely pulled-off interrogations are a messy business, in which exhaustive strategizing is followed by game-time gut decisions and endless second-guessing and soul-searching,” said the review.