Surm Belmontis - Sebastian Junger

In 1963, while Boston and its surrounding areas had for some time been gripped by anxiety over a series of brutal crimes known as the "Boston Strangler" murders, a killing took place in the quiet Boston suburb of Belmont—just a few blocks from the family home of the book’s author, Sebastian Junger. The murder appeared to fit the Strangler’s modus operandi perfectly. Roy Smith, a Black man who had been sent to clean the victim’s house that day, was arrested, tried, and convicted. Yet, the terror of the Boston Strangler continued.
Two years later, Albert DeSalvo—a former construction worker for the Junger family who had often spent time with Sebastian and his mother—confessed to being the Boston Strangler. The author, Sebastian Junger, uses this tragedy—which touched his own family so closely—as a springboard to analyze the foundations of American racism and the judicial system, highlighting several systemic failures in the administration of justice.
This is a compelling and nuanced chronicle of lives that collide and are destroyed within one of the world’s most developed and affluent nations. The work has been compared to Truman Capote’s famous book, *In Cold Blood*.

Original title: *A Death in Belmont*. In Estonian

Keywords:
Smith, Roy, 1927(1928)-
Goldberg, Bessie
De Salvo, Albert Henry, 1931-
murders
murderers
legal cases
racism
judicial systems
Boston
United States
non-fiction
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