Melissa ~ Bantering Books's Reviews > Bright Young Women

I’m taking a cue from the author, Jessica Knoll. I will not call the American serial killer at the center of Bright Young Women by his name. Because names have power, and to bring any further recognition to the monster’s memory is a dishonor to the 30+ women he murdered. Infamy is what he most wanted, this supposedly bright young man.

Instead, and again like Knoll, I will focus on the women in this fictionalized account of The Defendant’s final 1978 killing spree inside a Florida State University sorority house – the women who lost their lives and those who afterward fought to bring The Defendant to justice.

Knoll gives us two narrators: Pamela Schumacher, the president of the FSU sorority house, and Ruth Wachowsky, a missing victim of The Defendant living in Seattle. Pamela and Ruth’s stories are told in an alternating fashion, with the link between the two women being Tina Cannon, Ruth’s intimate friend. When Tina hears of the latest attacks in Florida, she travels there and works with Pamela to catch him, knowing The Defendant is the reason for both Ruth’s disappearance and the Florida tragedy.

Bright Young Women is an intense literary crime novel that combines smart storytelling with propulsive readability. And in it, Knoll knocks The Defendant down a notch by bringing to light his many ineptitudes, including his idiocy, and shows us that he wasn’t the bright young man that a judge once praised him to be. That the positive press attention was misguided and, in reality, a way for the police to cover up the mistakes that allowed The Defendant to twice escape prison and continue killing.

Knoll’s book has fired me up. I’m angry with the press for the erroneous narrative they created about The Defendant. I’m angry with the police for their bumbling mistakes. And of course, I’m most angry with The Defendant, for being the monster he was and for the women whose lives he cut short.

But I’m proud of the women in this story, though a fictionalized account it may be. I’d like to think there actually was a real-life Pamela and Tina doing their best to put The Defendant in prison, their identities anonymous and contributions minimized. In fact, I’m sure there was.

I wish I knew their names. I’d say their names over and over, to myself and all who would listen.


My sincerest appreciation to Jessica Knoll and S&S/Marysue Rucci Books for the physical advanced reading copy. All opinions included herein are my own.