Review: Bugliosi, Helter Skelter (1974)

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is, of course, the seminal text on Charles Manson. It is thorough, comprehensive, and clearly written---and an engrossing train wreck. I actually preferred Jeff Guinn's Manson biography, but appreciate Helter Skelter for the up close, blow by blow account of the trial, and of course Bugliosi's first-hand opinions of Charles Manson. I didn't warm to Bugliosi very much as a narrator, but he seems to have been as good a prosecutor as he thought he was. Certainly his investigation put the LAPD to shame (except for the LaBianca detectives, who were on the ball), and he does an excellent job of laying out all his evidence, no matter how far out on a tangent he has to go to get the one piece of information he needs.



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