True Crime Redux

By: Stephanie Kane

Narrated by: Lee Ann Howlett

Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

"More than a witness but less than an active participant, I was a bit actor whose role in the crime shaped my life.” So writes Stephanie Kane, who here recounts the dramatic events that forever fractured the lives of the Frye family, as well as her own.

The murder of Betty Frye goes unpunished for decades. Kane, ex-wife of Betty's son Doug, finally decides to tell her story by fictionalizing the events she witnessed, as well as those about which she simply speculated. The result is the novel Quiet Time. She shortly finds out, however, that fiction can oftentimes accurately mirror reality.

In her new true-crime non-fiction, True Crime Redux, Kane artfully describes the chain of events that followed the publication of her novel and brings a forgotten cold case back to life. She dives deep into the inner-workings of modern crime and punishment through the retelling of events she played an involuntary role in.

This strikingly transparent report of a brutal homicide engulfs listeners from the very first line. True Crime Redux is thus a perfect pick for true-crime fans looking for a compelling, true story that leaves no stones unturned.

What's is unique about this book:

• The year 2023 is the 50th anniversary of the murder and the aborted murder prosecution.
• Style: A can't-put-it-down story of trauma and forensics delivered in propulsive bursts, with a knock-out blow of an ending.
• Voice: Author holds nothing back about her role in Betty's murder and how it shaped (one might say warped) her life. In promoting its predecessor on podcasts, her transparency and brutal candor were the number one thing that impressed podcasters.
• Saga of an American family plagued by mental illness and struggling to adjust to the demands of a rapidly changing world, and what happens when an outsider enters the scene.
• Personal tale of obsession: Effect of a murder on a normal college girl who felt responsible for it, and the lengths to which she (as an amateur sleuth) went to get answers. A story about finding meaning in the darkness of her past and a reason to move on with her life.
• A raw look at the criminal justice system from the vantage point of a lawyer with the shoe suddenly on the other foot, thrust into the quicksand of being a witness in a cold case investigation and prosecution.
• Art imitating life imitating art: How a true crime inspired a fictional novel catalyzed the opening of a real-life prosecution of a stone-cold killer.
• Award-winning author (Bantam, Scribner, Pocket) with an outside publicist who's published many magazine pieces and appeared on podcasts and TV shows to promote her books.

©2023 Stephanie Kane (P)2023 Bancroft Press

Good story, awful writing

80%of this book is redundant and repetitive. I thought I had skipped backwards over and over again due to the exact same lines being read.

This should have been an autobiography rather than a true crime book. The author talked much more about herself than the victim, or the “perpetrator “ that was never convicted.

there must not have been much evidence because she never spoke of any except a bump on the head, and the fact that she decided he did it. ????? Which he probably did but she’s not a jury.



Just not a good book.
The narrator was great!
The story was interesting but unresolved.
The book was terrible.

Can someone else write this story so it makes sense?
Please and thank you!!