Synopses & Reviews
The Boys on the Tracks is the story of a parent's worst nightmare, a quiet woman's confrontation with a world of murder, drugs, and corruption, where legitimate authority is mocked and the public trust is trampled. It is an intensely personal story and a story of national importance. It is a tale of multiple murders and of justice repeatedly denied.
The death of a child is bad enough. To learn that the child was murdered is worse. But few tragedies compare with the story of Linda Ives, whose teenage son and his friend were found mysteriously run over by a train. In the months that followed, Ives's world darkened even more as she gradually came to understand that the very officials she turned to for help could not, or would not, solve the murders. The story of betrayal begins locally but quickly expands. Exposing a web of silence and complicity in which drugs, politics, and murder converge, The Boys on the Tracks is a horrifying story from first page to last, and its most frightening aspect is that all of the story is true.
Mara Leveritt has covered this story since it first broke back in 1987. Her approach is one of scrupulous reporting and lively narrative. She weaves profiles and events into a smooth and chilling whole, one that leads the readers to confront, along with Linda Ives, the events' profoundly disturbing implications. A powerful story reminiscent of A Civil Action and Not Without My Daughter, The Boys on the Tracks is destined to become one of the most powerful works published in 1999.
Review
"Imagine a true story that opens with two dead teenagers being run over by a train!
The Boys on the Tracks is the new crime journalism at its best-understated though bizarre, carefully documented, full of twists and surprises, and devoid of the flights of fancy that mar so much 'true crime.' I wish I'd written this fine book." --Jack Olsen, author of
Hastened to the Grave
Synopsis
Few tragedies compare with that of Linda Ives, whose teenage son and his friend were found mysteriously run over by a train. Ives' world darkened even more as she gradually came to understand that some in law enforcement had reasons of their own for not wanting the murders to be solved. The story of her betrayal quickly expands to involve government officials -- officials bound in a web of silence with drugs and blackmail, politics and murder at its core. It is a tale of multiple murders and of justice repeatedly and insidiously perverted. Because it is clear that Mrs. Ives' nightmare could have happened to anyone, this is a scary story from first to last, and its most frightening aspect, page after page, is that all of this story is true. The Boys on the Tracks is one of the most powerful works of nonfiction that will be published in 1999.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [347]-362) and index.
About the Author
Mara Leveritt has worked for twenty years as an Arkansas journalist. She has won several awards, including the White Award for Investigative Reporting. In 1994 the University of Arkansas named her Arkansas Journalist of the Year. She writes a column in the weekly
Arkansas Times and lives in Little Rock, Arkansas.