A Special Kind of Evil

The Colonial Parkway Serial Killings

By: Blaine L. Pardoe, Victoria R. Hester

Narrated by: Lee Ann Howlett

For four years a killer, or killers, stalked Virginia’s Tidewater region, carefully selecting victims, sending waves of terror into the local community.

The Colonial Parkway Murders - the name given eight murders that took place in the Tidewater region in the late 1980s, two of which were on the historic Colonial Parkway, the nation’s narrowest National Park. Young people in the prime of their lives were the targets. But the pattern that stitched this special kind of evil together was more like a spider web of theory, intrigue, and mathematics. Then, mysteriously, the killing spree stopped. The nameless predator, or predators, who stalked the Colonial Parkway stepped back into the mists of time and disappeared.

Now, father-daughter true crime authors Blaine Pardoe and Victoria Hester blow the dust off of these cases. Interviewing members of the families, friends, and members of law enforcement, they provide the first and most complete in-depth look at this string of horrific murders and disappearances. The author-investigators peel back the rumors and myths surrounding these crimes and provide new information never before revealed about the investigations.

©2017 Blaine Pardoe and Victoria Hester (P)2018 WildBlue Press

Very interesting cases but the narrator. . .

I heard about these cases through a true crime podcast and was interested enough to purchase this book. The book does not disappoint.

However, the narrator is difficult to listen to and at times, it hurts my ears! I am Southern and I know I have an accent, but I am not making a living as a narrator! This woman pronounces "ur" in the strangest manner. There is no accent that I know of that pronounces "murder" and "buried" the way she does.

Again, good listen, but I will never purchase a book read by this narrator.

Well researched

I'm a bit dubious about the rationale these authors have for writing this book. Each of the victims is described in depth through interviews of family and friends. Known facts and various theories of the cases are presented in detail. Remaining questions are clearly outlined. But these are very, very cold cases and suggesting this book might prompt a resolution seems a stretch. And if it does, who will let us know?

Lee Ann Howlett's performance is quite satisfactory. I didn't catch any glaring errors in either delivery or production.

NOTE: I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Exceptional

This book offer exceptional details into the unsolved homicides. Terrific descriptions and analysis. It lays to rest some of the many myths and rumors. May these gruesome killings be solved soon.

An interesting story

A special kind of evil is in one word interesting. There is a lot to digest in this book and it isn't always easy to do so. For those expecting a resolution to the case you will be sorely disappointed because this case is far from solved. What this book does is take all the existing information and puts it into one place while also going very deep into the lives of the victims to it's detriment at times which might make it hard for some reader's to get through. I will say that the authors state at the beginning of the book the focus was going to be on the victims and most of this book is about them by far more than most true crime books do. Having purchased the audio version of the book and while the narrator wasn't bad she wasn't great either, and the audio quality was pretty good. All in all if your looking for a true crime book more focused on the victims then the crime this is the book for you, a very interesting group of cases, bad police work and bad coverage by media at the time make the case even more interesting then most.

rewelacyjna książka!

Bardzo ciekawa książka o niezbyt znanej w Polsce sprawie. Dobrze napisana. Trzymająca w napięciu ale również niepozwalająca zapomnieć o najważniejszym w całej historii, czyli o ofiarach i ich rodzinach.
Warto odsłuchać.