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True Crime Garage
True Crime Garage
News & Politics
8
8.6 (10 Ratings)
Podcast Rating
The chemistry between the hosts (2 more)
The research
Variety of topics
Occasional personal views (0 more)
Serious, But Amusing
Nic and the Captain bring personality and camaraderie to the true-crime table without the outright silliness and irreverence of some of the more popular podcasts. Soft-spoken and smooth-voiced, they weave stories of victims and crimes with vivid detail while still respecting the dignity of the victims. They are never careless in that respect.

Even the stories that are familiar to the average listener are compiled in such a way as to make them feel fresh, and most are peppered with items that may not be so widely known.

Nic and the Captain are lifelong friends and their chemistry is one of the best parts of the show. From the first few minutes of your first episode, you will feel as if you are in the garage with them, having an IPA and talking about true crime.

I suggest The Boys On The Tracks as a good first show to throw you headfirst into a multi-part, multi-layered story that showcases the amount of research the guys put into their work. Unfortunately, I feel that it also is one of the episodes where their personal views made me a bit annoyed. They rarely seem to cross over into the realm of conspiracy, but this one episode seems to do that. But it is very good, nonetheless.
  
TP
That Part Was True
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
SPOILER ALERT!!



That Part was True is the story of two middle aged divorcees, Eve and Jack. Eve is a single mother from England, who is unemployed. Jack is a single writer from New York. In fact, the thing that connects them is that Jack is one if Eve's favorite writers. They begin communicating through a string of letters, and short emails, when she writes him in regards to one of his books. Readers then learn through the two sides of the story that Jack struggles with being a bachelor and writing a new book, while Eve struggles with anxiety and the impending wedding of her only daughter, Izzy, and the arrival of her uninvolved ex-husband, Simon, and his family. During their hard times, they find one common bond that helps them get through life - food. The book continues to take readers on a journey through both their communication and their personal lives.

I loved some parts of this book, while I disliked others. I loved the development of the characters and discovering the ins and outs of the personal lives, especially Eve's anxiety disorder, something that hits close to home. I didn't like that Eve and Jack didn't end up meeting in the end like I had expected. Though I knew from the beginning that this wasn't a run-of-the-mill love story, I hoped for a little more with their friendship. I would have liked to have seen more closure.
  
I was highly intrigued by this book when I first read about it as I have a minor obsession with everything and anything to do with the American Civil War. Admittedly, this is pre-war and gives an insight into the efforts of missionary do-gooders in trying to relocate the African American population back to their 'native' home.

I was expecting a more fictional style of writing, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it is written in more of a recount style of the lives of the main family, namely Leighton Wilson. The detail and attention paid to the research shone through in every page and was highly informative to read. However, at times this book did have a tendency to drag, and I suspect it is due to the overwhelming attention to small detail. Fabulous if you're using the book as a research project, not so if you're reading out of curiosity into this era of history. In addition, it also occasionally lacked the fine balance between informative on the religious aspect of the missions and preaching through the pages. As a not so religious person, this did become annoying at times, but I could understand why Clarke had this tone in the book.

Overall, an enjoyable, if not very long, book that was incredibly informative and rather enjoyable. The addition of the photographs and personal snippets from letters added a very personal and enjoyable aspect to the tale of the Wilson's.