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Dollycas
, January 11, 2014
(view all comments by Dollycas)
Nanette Johnston Packard, a sexy divorcee, liked to meet men at the gym and through personal ads. Soon after she began dating millionaire Bill McLaughlin, he moved her and her kids into his bay-front home in Newport Beach. But one man was never enough for Nanette…Eric Naposki, her NFL linebacker lover, fulfilled Nanette’s wilder cravings. Together they schemed to make her fiance’s fortune their own. When McLaughlin was gunned down, authorities had suspicions �" but no proof. Pulitzer-nominated writer Caitlin Rother explores this chilling story of a woman who seemed to have it all �" until justice finally had its day.
Dollycas’s Thoughts
Rother is excellent at what she does with these stories, her book Dead Reckoning made my Best Reads of 2011 and Lost Girls was another awesome read.
I was not familiar with this case until I picked up this book. The author starts with a Prologue that gets everyone up to speed and I appreciate this.
Nanette Johnson Packard may not have completed high school but she was smart enough to draw several men into her web of lies. She even convinced one of them to kill for her. The scary thing is the way she lies reminds me of someone I personally know, which has me imagining the destruction this person could cause. That is what makes books like this so chilling, these are real people. People whose neighbors say they never noticed anything or there was no way that person would do that.
Rother investigates this story so completely and writes so well at times you forget this story is not fiction. The people she brings to life on these pages are REAL!!! These things actually took place. This time it was a cold case and they almost got away with it. The author takes us in depth into the case. The science that has evolved that helped solve the case. The truth the came to light because of hours of exhaustive investigation when the case was resurrected in 2008.
With true crime stories, you know the criminal(s), the killer(s), the outcome. Because I wasn’t familiar with this case though I was waiting for the final twist. This entire story was twisted. The lies, the deception, the greed. Thankfully the victim’s family finally received justice. But had someone not chosen to dig into this case more thoroughly the outcome could have been so different. This is family that truly suffered and deserved closure.
I started this book and it was after 2 in the morning when I finished. I just couldn’t put it down. I highly recommend this one and anything else written by this author.
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