** spoiler alert ** I have mixed-feelings about this book: Mostly because it is a behemoth which could have been edited down a bit, but ultimately because it turns out to be much ado about nothing. (I'm not going to expound on the latter point because that would be a huge spoiler, but once the real killer is discovered it was anticlimactic in more ways than one.)

What I enjoyed about the book is that Harvard seems to be another protagonist: A sinister presence that loomed over Cooper's time at Harvard both as a student when she first learned about Britton's murder and when the author returns to continue her investigation. Harvard is also a witness to what had happened on that fateful evening in 1969.

I also enjoyed how upfront Cooper was about her obsession. I appreciated how she seemed to keep herself in check when delving into online forums where people exchanged information about unsolved murders.

However, I was not invested in finding out who the killer was. I didn't really care if Cooper cracked the case or not. My interest was only in Harvard as an institution, its policies, and how it is self-policing. I waited until my Harvard-educated wife read the book to compare her perception of Harvard with Cooper. It was an interesting juxtaposition.

I was really enjoying this for about 90% of the book. Cooper’s writing was great, and the narrative nonfiction style served the history well. However, I felt the resolution/discovery of who actually did it just fell off and made the ending a bit of a boring disappointment. It just didn’t come together well for me.

“Breathing life into someone on the page was an act of both resurrection and transubstantiation: I wrote them by learning about them, then by holding them inside me, then by feeling them. By the end I became their host, so of course I would forget where they ended, and I started”. -Becky Cooper. 

In 1969 a young Harvard graduate student was found brutally murdered in her university owned off campus apartment. The case yielded a few suspects, but nothing substantial, and like many murder investigations got shelved and was relegated to a cold case file. 

Forty years later Becky Cooper, an undergrad at the University got wind of the story, and it became the thing that obsessed her for the next ten years of her life as she sought out who could have done this to Jane Britton. 
There are some obvious comparisons that could be made to the late journalist Michelle McNamara’s, “I’ll Be Gone in The Dark”, especially when seeing how the cases consumed both women, but Cooper’s story becomes a larger examination of the power dynamics of University politics shedding a spotlight on the treatment, or frankly mistreatment, of both female professors as well as grad students, here  in the fields of anthropology and archeology. 

Cooper illuminates the length Harvard went to cover repeated instances of unwanted sexual advances in an effort to protect the male dominated culture rooted deep in the hallowed halls while revealing a nuanced character study of the promising, complicated woman who Jane was. What started as a slow burn quickly accelerated for me as Cooper like a seasoned archeologist sifts through the soil of evidence narrowing down suspects making you eager to find out what she ultimately discovers. It’s a true crime story, a #metoo examination of academia before the hashtag, and a fascinating portrait of a group of people drawn together around an unfortunate tragedy. A worthwhile read.

Becky Cooper's We Keep the Dead Close started off very promising, but lost my interest about halfway through. Just wasn't for me.

A mysterious and unsolved murder of an archaeology student at Harvard in the late 1960s captures the mind of a current Harvard student. Unable to let it go, Becky Cooper's life begins to intertwine with that of Jane Britton as the former tries to solve the latter's murder. I mean, how could I pass on this? It has everything one could ask for from the hallowed halls of Harvard to the dusty dig sites of Iran, from elitist departments to sexist professors, from suspicions of a cover-up to alleged affairs. But at its core, We Keep the Dead Close is a deeply tragic story about potential wasted and death leaving a gaping wound. Thanks to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

I would like to say I have always been interested in true crime, but really I spent most of my early teenage years with my head still solidly stuck inside fantasy books. It was only during my early twenties, I would say, that my True Crime interest became a thing. Upon entering the real world I found that it wasn't quite as magical or wholesome or even beneficial, as I had originally hoped. True Crime was a way of engaging with the darkness at the core of our human world, a way of looking those things in the eye and not denying them. By acknowledging it, I am also able to acknowledge the truly beautiful things, and together it makes up a balance I can live with. But there are certain True Crime stories that capture you and are harder to look in the eye, and Jane Britton's story in We Keep the Dead Close did so. The reason for that may be that I, like Becky Cooper,  found myself relating to Jane. 

In We Keep the Dead Close Becky Cooper takes us on a journey. While a student at Harvard, she is told the story of a young graduate student, murdered by the professor she was having an affair with. While the student is nameless, the professor is very much named. Rumours swirl around him, but Becky is focused on the female student. Once she finds her name, Becky is on a mission to find out everything she can about Jane Britton and, if possible, solve her murder. The book moved back and forth in time, with our focus point being the days shortly before and after Jane's murder being solved. We get to dig deep into Jane's past, the Archaeology department at Harvard, the people she knew and the wider circles of people who may or may not be linked to her death. Through this wide range Cooper shows how many lives a single human touches, but she also demonstrates how a tale like this can echo down the generations. While We Keep the Dead Close is a deeply insightful book about the lives of two women, it is also a book about stories. How does a story like Jane's evolve? Who benefits from the different versions? Can the villain of one story be the suffering hero of another?

Although every True Crime reader is, at least ever so slightly, in it for the thrills and chills, many of us also look for a sympathetic portrait of human fears and joys. We don't need to be told murder is wrong, we know that. We want to be told who this person was, what was lost. Perhaps there is something life-affirming in this, knowing that if we were to die we would also be missed. But these concentric circles, like a pebble dropped into a pond, of a life taken, that is what is fascinating. Cooper herself becomes one of these concentric circles in We Keep the Dead Close, drawn tightly into Jane's group of friends and acquaintances. With other authors I may have found this strong authorial presence a distraction, but I found myself equally fascinated with her story and her perceptions. She grows immeasurably during the years she follows Jane's story and it is only by seeing the effect it has upon Cooper that you understand how profoundly powerful these stories can be. 

I found We Keep the Dead Close utterly engrossing. I had an essay due and yet I couldn't help but go back to Cooper every few hours for another chapter of three. Her writing is honest and direct, with the occasional flights of fancy we are all due to have when we find ourselves in the middle of something interesting and exciting. With this book she has written a True Crime whodunnit, a coming-of-age story, an investigation of sexism and misogyny at universities, an ode to the joys and disappointments of archaeology, and a touching portrait of two women,  different yet alike. How Cooper managed to do all of this without losing her reader, I have no idea. Cooper's writing also takes you places. Whether she is describing a dig in Iran, a trek through Canada, or accommodation at Harvard, you can picture it. We Keep the Dead Close will transport you and make you question yourself on the stories you keep close and why.


We Keep the Dead Close held me captive for days. Wide-reaching and well-researched, written with a lot of pathos, it is a fascinating read that far extends its 'True Crime' label. Whether you have an interest in archaeology, women's rights or true crime, I would heartily recommend Cooper's book to everyone.

With everything going on this year, I just haven’t been drawn to nonfiction, so was happy to see so many good reviews of We Keep the Dead Close. In the beginning I really liked it. Cooper laid out how she came to learn about the still unsolved murder of a Harvard coed back in 1969. She laid out the facts of the case, what was known and what was not, and how she became increasingly interested in uncovering more facts around the case. I really liked it for the first 200 pages, but then it just went on and on. A lot of it became very repetitive for my taste with very little new information being added for long periods of time. I think I’d have liked the book better had it been about 150 pages shorter!

Book: We Keep the Dead Close 
Author: Becky Cooper 
Pub Date: November 10, 2020 

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for my e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: Becky Cooper is a Harvard undergraduate student when she hears an "urban legend"/rumor about an Archaeology professor who allegedly murdered Harvard student Jane Britton in 1969 after having an affair with her and fearing she would tell. Cooper is immediately intrigued and soon finds out that the case is cold and has largely been given up on. Cooper makes it her mission to bring justice to Britton's case, once and for all. 

My Thoughts: This was an extremely well researched book, I can not overstate that. The way Cooper is able to present an enormous amount of research without the reader getting lost is impressive. Cooper is also able to tell the story in a compassionate, thoughtful way. I felt like I truly got to know Jane Britton in a way that I deeply cared about her and wanted justice for her. I could also tell that the author felt connected to Britton, which added to the caring way she told the story. 

I also appreciated that the author lifted a veil on the patriarchal influences and misogyny that existed and still exist at Harvard and other institutions of higher education. The sexist influences in academia are often passed off as "the way it has always been" and I liked that this book challenged that. This book is as much about exposing inequality in this way as it is about the loss of Britton. 

I highly recommend this book! 

For fans of: Well Researched Books, True Crime, Stories Set on College Campuses, and Cold Cases. 
You can also see my review on my blog: https://okayinmybook.com/2020/12/28/book-review-we-keep-the-dead-close-by-becky-cooper/

Cooper is to be commended for the painstaking research she undertook to reveal the details of the murder of Harvard college student in 1969.   Her depiction of the life of Jane Britton was so vivid that you really felt invested in learning what really happened.  Jane appeared to be a fascinating person, with all the positive and negative traits discussed.
The exposure of the academic inequality at Harvard was no surprise.  Cooper made a point of interjecting this throughout its pages, addressing a national issue..
I regretted that the author inserted so much of herself in the telling of the murder.   The story of Jane Britton was enough in its own right.

I couldn't read it due to formatting issues. The background was dark gray with black text and I couldn't fix it.

This was one of the most throughly researched and well-written true crime books I have ever read. And I read a lot of true crime.

We Keep the Dead Close was about misogyny as much as it is about a murder. A murder that, until very recently was unsolved for over two decades! Becky Cooper does an excellent job bringing Jane to life and making her a well rounded real person and not just a murder victim. Her dedication to the case had me worried at parts and although I disliked the end, sometimes that's how it is in life. 

I'd definitely recommend this for readers of true crime and those looking to dip their toes into the genre, but not want anything morbid or "too murdery." For fans of The Secret History and academic type novels as well!

I'm going to review this book by saying a few things about how I normally do reviews. 

First and foremost, I normally take a ton of notes while I'm reading a book. I highlight every single line that catches my eye or catches my breath. Here, I noted almost nothing. 

Second, and more notable still, I normally give myself one day to mull over what I thought of a book. Quite literally, I sleep on. Here, I had to give it more than a week. I really had to think about it. Hell, I had to read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49337373-the-third-rainbow-girl">another book with many similar themes</a> - true crime, feminism, racism, coming to a place from the outside and become part of it - to fully digest my feelings.

And I'm still not sure what to say.

On its face, <i>We Keep the Dead Close</i> is a story about a young woman murdered at an Ivy League school and all the ways her death was dismissed, disregarded, swept under the rug. It's about the suspects and the people who knew her best. 

But what this book is really about is the misogyny inherent in academia, about the persistent othering of women and femmes who try to make a mark in a world that has too long been male. It's about the darkness that surrounds any unsolved crime. And it's about the fact that we never can really know another person. 

<i>We Keep the Dead Close</i> is a haunting text, told in turns bluntly and tenderly, that explores the intricacies of what it is to try and walk in another person's shoes, a task made all the more harrowing when that person's life is cut short. So much more is uncovered here than evidence, suspects, timelines. Much like the unearthing of an ancient city, here revealed by layers is the story of a life. 

I didn't make too many notes. But I noted this: 

"Perhaps Jane's story was a morality tale in more ways than I had realized. Not only did it serve as a narrative check on someone with power, [...] it was also a way of cautioning against promiscuous, assertive behavior from someone in Jane's position: a female graduate student. Assigning guilt to the victim helped distance us from what happened to her; it wouldn't happen to us, as long as we stayed in check. But in so doing, we had unconsciously been perpetuating a story whose moral derived from the very patriarchal system we thought we were surmounting by telling the story in the first place.

"I'm sorry."

Straight off, I’ll just admit my guilty pleasure is true crime. I’ve read a lot of less-than-wonderful true crime over the years, and some extremely good stuff (Columbine, Bad Blood, Catch & Kill, and I’ll Be Gone In The Dark come instantly to mind). I had read about Becky Cooper’s We Keep The Dead Close, subtitled “A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence,” and was happy to receive a copy from Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. It definitely falls into the “good stuff” category, and it’s an incredible double story of an unsolved murder from the ‘60s and a woman’s obsession to find the truth about that murder. 

In 1969, a 23-year-old graduate student named Jane Britton was found murdered in her apartment just off the Harvard campus. She was an ambitious and independent student in the Archaeology Department at Harvard, and lived her life on her own terms, including casual relationships with lots of men. Her father was a Vice President at Radcliffe, Harvard’s “sister school,” and it would seem that solving the murder of his daughter would be a high priority for both campus and Cambridge police…

Forty years later, as a student at Harvard,  Becky Cooper was fascinated when she heard the story that had been told for many years about  a professor who had murdered a female graduate student with whom he had been involved in an affair. The professor and the student, Jane Britton, had worked together at an archaeological dig in Iran, and he was allegedly freaked out about a scandal harming his chances to get tenure. As the story was told to Ms. Cooper, the professor used a stone tool from Harvard’s Peabody Museum to bludgeon Jane to death, then took her body into the museum where he draped her with jewelry and sprinkled her body with red ochre powder. Harvard, wanting to avoid any bad publicity, covered up the crime, silenced the press, and stopped the investigation, protecting the professor — who was still on the faculty!

This fascinating book details Ms. Cooper’s decade-long obsession with Jane’s story (reminiscent of Michelle McNamara’s obsession with the Golden State Killer, chronicled in her outstanding book  I’ll Be Gone In The Dark). It’s extremely   detailed and well written, and is really two complete stories in one: the murder mystery itself with its subsequent investigation/possible coverup, and Ms. Cooper’s obsessive quest to find the truth and tell Jane’s story. 

Ms. Cooper’s affinity for Jane is clear when she writes “I understood –or at least believed that I did–that at the center of this brilliant, vivacious woman was a loneliness and a fundamental need to find somewhere to belong that I knew all too well.” Harvard was a difficult place for women when Jane was a student. Although women were admitted to Harvard by the time she was enrolled there, they weren’t allowed to enter Lamont, the undergraduate library, had to search for one of only nine women’s bathrooms on campus, and could go by invitation with a male to the Freshman Union, but had to endure the tradition of men clinking their forks on their glasses when a female entered. 

The book gives us Ms. Cooper’s story in detail, and explores the extent to which Harvard’s power was exerted. It’s astonishing the amount of effort that seemed to go in to burying the investigation, and keeping Harward’s reputation intact. Ms. Cooper is  a relentless researcher, as indicated by her two years of attempts to contact John Fulkerson, one of the Cambridge cops who reopened Jane’s case in the 1990s. She finally meets up with him, and he tells her “Things are being hidden, and I don’t know why.” 


In the end, Ms. Cooper’s monumental effort pays off, and although I NEVER reveal spoilers, I admit I appreciated the reveal at the end of the book. The long investigation was grueling for her, and she mused about how writing a story can impact an author deeply. She was obsessed with Jane, and the breadth and depth of her research made her very thoughtful, shown by her reflection on the experience: “Some days, I don’t even know what to tell you about Jane. I know even less about whether telling a responsible story of the past is possible, having learned all too well how the act of interpretation molds the facts in service of the storyteller…there are no true stories; there are only facts, and the stories we tell ourselves about those facts.”

Unfortunately right before I read this book the Boston Globe ran on article on Jane's death in the Sunday magazine, so I knew how she had died.  However, even knowing the outcome, I still found the story interesting--the politics of Harvard University was especially compelling.  The author also looked into Jane's character more than the Globe article, so she became much more real.  I also like Ms. Cooper's honesty about her feelings about the outcome of the investigation--how it took her time to accept it after putting so much time and effort into trying to figure out who killed her that it was just a (spoiler alert) random killing.

These types of books always tend to amaze me. It could be the lack of interested to investigate properly by the police. Or the response from the community. This one is the time period. It is amazing the differences you see from the 1960's to now. Yet we all know they are there, we still don't think much of them till we read about them. This case is heart breaking and captivating. A must read for any true crime lover.

This is not your typical true crime book, and that’s very much a good thing. At the same time, it’s a caution to readers who pick it up expecting a run-of-the-mill true crime yarn. This is not that, but it is a stunning achievement—a whodunit page turner with an unexpected ending that is both shocking and, sadly, a little disappointing.

But no spoilers here. To discover who exactly killed Jane Britton, a 23-year-old graduate student at Harvard University or, perhaps more accurately, who the authorities say killed Jane Britton back in 1969, you’ll have to read to the end of the story. It’s worth it.

In this reviewer's opinion, this is one of the best books of 2020. Author Becky Cooper’s quest to learn the truth about Jane Britton’s 50-year-old unsolved murder is a fascinating journey that ultimately leads to any number of truths about murder, relationships, justice, misogyny and powerful institutions.  

To begin, it’s surprising that Jane Britton’s murder was unsolved for so long. She was Caucasian, went to Harvard (or Radcliffe in those days), lived just off campus in university owned housing, and her father was a senior administrator at the university. Surely there was pressure on the police to find her killer.

Given the bare bones outline of the story, it’s not surprising that the tabloid reporters came running; even New York City newspapers had Jane’s murder on the front page. Jane was an outspoken, outgoing anthropology student whose murder had earmarks of a ritual killing. Red ochre was sprinkled around her body, a substance used for burials rituals in various cultures many archeologist comes across.

That fact alone made it seem as though someone associated with Harvard’s anthropology department had committed the murder, and there were long whispered rumors that Jane had been having an affair with a professor who was about to get tenure. If his affair with Jane became known, his tenure would be lost. Did someone say motive?

Enter author Becky Cooper, herself a student at Harvard when she first hears the rumors about the murder casually. Jane Britton’s murder is something of an oft-told cautionary tale passed down from student to student about what happens to co-eds who sleep with their professors. What’s more, the rumor mongers tell Cooper, Jane’s alleged killer is still a respected professor—with tenure—in the Harvard anthropology department. How can this be? Cooper wonders.

Cooper graduates and stores the story away but cannot shake it. A year or so later, by then a researcher at The New Yorker, Cooper gets the investigative reporting bug, quits her job, and resolves to uncover Jane’s murderer. It’s a story inside a story, not just of an unsolved murder but of a reporter’s determination to find the truth.

But how to begin? Because Cooper is not an actual investigative reporter, she is daunted by the prospect of talking to sources, taking days to work up the courage to call Jane’s friends, and going down paths that lead nowhere.

How does one talk to the police and the district attorney? How can she, who has no standing in journalism circles, get them to cooperate? Will Jane’s friends and acquaintances even want to revisit her murder?

Cooper makes a breakthrough when one of Jane’s close friends agrees to talk. This friend, Elisabeth, brings Jane to life: “[She was] a kick in the pants. She was sort of like a combination of Groucho Marx and Dorothy Parker, just without the mustache.”

And just like that, Cooper is off and running with one friend leading to another and then another. As many a reporter has learned, persistence pays off. When friends and relatives of a victim understand that you care about the murder victim nearly as much as they do, doors open.

Cooper’s initial naïveté is one of the charms of the book. We see her tackling her own self-confidence in real time, and we take the journey with her as she becomes more of a seasoned reporter and researcher.

Along the way, any number of Jane’s friends seem like they may have had something to do with her death. One of the most fascinating threads involves a fellow student who had a crush on Jane. This same fellow later accompanies a different female researcher, Anne Abraham, to Labrador where Abraham mysteriously disappears. It seems too much of a coincidence and, as Cooper discovers, she’s not the only one who thinks that. Two other women, not associated with each other, have studied this suspect for years, trying to understand why he was with or nearby Jane Britton and Anne Abraham when they died.

But that’s only one of many roads Cooper travels down. Aside from the potential murder suspects, Cooper delves into the misogyny faced by many brilliant women at Harvard back in the day and the way the patriarchy affected their lives and careers.

By the end of the book, Cooper does learn the identity of Jane Britton’s killer. She’s not sure she entirely believes it, but the police do, and the district attorney closes the case. That revelation takes us down yet another sociological road into the way the criminal justice system operated back in the 1960s and ’70s. It’s one more lesson for Cooper in a book full of them. Luckily for the reader, we get to go along for the ride.

We Keep the Dead Close is a meticulously researched and well-crafted work. It has the feel of a mashup of genres: part memoir, part true crime, part investigative journalism. It somehow manages to work on all fronts. The author's interest in the story is personal. She attended Harvard, as did the victim. She'd heard about the crime as a student. Her personal ties, however, serve to drive her curiosity and add a personal familiarity with the details, while not polluting her objectivity about the subject that she is writing. 

The book offers a detailed and deep dive into the history of the crime and into all the the players. Social and gender dynamics at the time at Harvard are explored. The author maintains the tension throughout this long book by moving around to the various aspects of this analysis rather than staying completely linear in her coverage. 

If you enjoy true crime, investigative journalism or simply a story well told, this book may be for you.

We published https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/fifty-year-old-harvard-murder-mystery-still-has-lessons-today on this book.

Literary true crime (The Devil in the White City, In Cold Blood, In the Garden of Good and Evil) is one of my favorite sub-genres and the good ones are rare finds! We Keep the Dead Close is part true crime, part memoir (Cooper shares her own story of investigating Jane’s death and the effect it had on her) and reminded me of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark in that way. It has a super atmospheric setting and Harvard feels like a romantic, yet sinister character. The story is full of intriguing, larger than life personalities. It also feels a bit like a gossipy expose of Harvard and the Anthropology department specifically…the rampant sexism, the insular “protect Harvard’s reputation at all costs” mentality, and the interdepartmental politics of academia. Cooper’s writing is excellent and that’s not something that generally jumps out at me when reading true crime. Though this book is long, it’s broken up into smaller sections and has pictures throughout, so it moves faster than you’d think. It will likely be the last book I add to my Best Books of 2020 list and is one of the better true crime books I’ve ever read!

This was an outstanding true crime book that also included memoir-like aspects. Becky Cooper feels drawn to the 1969 unsolved murder of Harvard archaeology student Jane Britton. Cooper spends years investigating the case and interviewing many that knew Britton. The Harvard campus itself becomes almost a character. This is truly well written true crime fiction that comes with a conclusion.

Review of We Keep the Dead Close: Becky Cooper’s true crime book is straight up urban legend. It’s about Jane Britton, a grad student at Harvard, who was murdered in her apartment and whose killer has never been brought to justice. It has all the elements of a TV drama: Britton was supposed to be worldy and had a troubling relationship with her dad and stepmom; might have had an affair with a married professor; and was studying archeology at Harvard in a time where many women didn’t get degrees, much less advanced degrees (the murder happened in the ’60s).

Cooper does a careful job of explaining what officially was explained and the person blamed for it and then goes into why the investigation stalled out. Britton had so many things working against her: gender and class mainly, not to mention incompetent policing. Cooper peels back the onion so delicately that it makes you wonder just how anyone’s murder has ever been solved. 

We Keep the Dead Close wasn’t exactly a quick read but it was an entertaining one. It was one part Mad Men and one part Crime Junkies (they should have gotten Ashley Flower to narrate the audiobook) and those pages kept turning themselves.