Murder In the Heartland

April 10, 2006
The disturbing 2004 Missouri murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, eight months pregnant, whose unborn baby was ripped from her womb by her alleged killer, Lisa Montgomery, is the subject of Phelps's undistinguished latest true-crime book. Having lied about a nonexistent pregnancy, Montgomery deliberately planned the crime, selecting her victim after meeting her through their mutual involvement in breeding rat terriers. Immediately after the savage killing, Montgomery presented the newborn girl as her own to friends and family, most of whom rapidly put aside the suspicious circumstances, which included the new mother's claim that she had been discharged only hours after the delivery. Once an alert was issued for the missing baby, it was only a matter of time before the police put the pieces together. Montgomery's trial is due to begin in late 2006. In the hands of a writer such as Ann Rule, this grim tale could have served as a meaningful entry point into the killer's psyche, but Phelps (Perfect Poison
) overwrites and fails to offer much insight.

June 1, 2006
Bucolic Skidmore, Missouri, was the setting for Harry M. Maclean's " In Broad Daylight" (1988), about a town bully who died in a hail of bullets before a crowd of armed locals, none of whom remembered seeing anything -untoward. Bloody murder visited Skidmore again in 2004 when somebody murdered pretty, pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett, and stole her unborn child. Simultaneously, Kansan Lisa Montgomery was facing a crisis. Having lied about being pregnant for more than eight months, she had to come up with a newborn. When she returned from a shopping trip with a baby, joy ruled--until, that is, her movements were examined. Claiming to have delivered the baby and been discharged from a clinic in hours--those wacky new insurance provisions!--Lisa was caught in a web of deceit. Phelps' frothy, urgent style conveys the supermarket-tabloid nature of the story but may put off true-crime mavens who like things a mite harder-bitten. Still, this is a worthy, entertaining shelfmate for Stephen Singular's " Unholy Messenger" (2006) and other chronicles of middle-American mayhem. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)