WE KEEP THE DEAD CLOSE does a really good job of combining a classic true crime story with an examination of the dark side of academia, and the oppression and misogyny that can be found within its circles. Cooper alternates the life of Jane Britton, the murder and the aftermath, and her own investigation into the crime years after the fact. The structure makes this a page turner, but it also brings up a lot of very important questions about morality surrounding the true crime genre, and how a murder that was turned into almost myth can be seen as a warning to the women at Harvard about the dangers that they may face. Cooper is not only diligent about not losing the fact that Britton was a person and not just a victim (and tries to tell her story in a fair, factual, an compassionate way), but she shows that the misogyny of 1960s Harvard was incredibly destructive for women students and faculty, and that there are still lots of problems of that nature in academia that still go on today. Cooper also avoids the traps that some of these true crime/ memoir books can fall into, as she never feels like she's centering herself unnecessarily, or exploiting a tragedy. 

WE KEEP THE DEAD CLOSE is meticulous and well researched, and kept me enthralled while forcing some introspection regarding my love for the true crime genre.

A true crime novel that left me spellbound.   I highly recommend this book I think a lot of people who love true crime will enjoy it.

a bit of a doorstop, but will be an easy sell to my true crime aficionados. Great cover, really fascinating subject material. Well researched and engagingly presented.

True crime is a tough genre, since the author needs to be able to hold the reader's interest long enough to get them through the story, rather than immediately jumping to Wikipedia. It's also really, really tricky for an author to successfully weave their own experience of investigating the case into the case itself. Unfortunately, neither of those two tricky layups were made by Becky Cooper. The case is interesting on its head, particularly because of the "boys club" secret-keeping quality around Harvard in the '70s. Unfortunately, Cooper's own story is less interesting. It feels like a lot of pontificating about what it's like to be at Harvard, which to me (and maybe I'm alone) is incredibly irritating. I'm still not exactly sure why Cooper cares so much about Jane, and I often lost the thread throughout the book about how exactly she was "investigating." Ultimately, this was one of the books that led me to Wikipedia fairly early on-- the suspense, the caring about what happened, the depth of understanding just wasn't there.

We Keep the Dead Close is part true-crime, part memoir, part examination of the inner workings of academia. When author Becky Cooper is a student at Harvard she hears the story of a girl who was murdered by a professor she had an affair with. This sets off Becky's decade long obsession with the unsolved, 1969 murder of Jane Britton. In that time Becky tracks down and forms relationships with many of the Jane's friends, neighbors, colleagues, and key players in her murder. The sections of this book that focused on the 1969 events and the players in them were more successful for me than the memoir section of the author in present day, but it was all done well.
I did make the mistake of looking up Jane Britton online about half way through the book and saw that the case had been solved using DNA in 2018. Let the solution be a surprise, do not spoil it for yourself.

True crime writing has come a long way since In Cold Blood, a book that reads like a novel with an objective narration.  With We Keep the Dead Close, Becky Cooper is intimately involved with the telling of the long unsolved murder of Harvard student, Jane Britton.  Cooper examines not only the crime scene, clues and multiple suspects but also reveals Harvard culture--what it takes to get tenure, how faculty can manipulate graduate students and how women had to cope with inequality.  There is closure with the crime story but the revealing portrait of an Ivy League institution remains.

True crime fans will not be disappointed with We Keep the Dead Close. 

Very thoroughly researched with an incredible attention to detail, Cooper brings the story of Jane Britton to life and leaves no stone, or potential suspect, unturned.

The way Cooper completely immerses herself in this decades old case is very reminiscent of Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. It is all consuming.

This is so much more than a murder mystery. Cooper tackles gender inequality in academia and how elite institutions still continue to silence victims

Beautifully well-written.  Cooper has a gift for description.  Once I started this book, I could not put it down.  I deliberately did not research the story online so that I was waiting with every page turn for the author to lead me to the inevitable but surprising conclusion.  Spoiler alert:  like an Agatha Christie novel, red herrings abound!  In addition to being a fascinating cold case true crime story, this is also a window into the attitudes toward women in academia and the treatment of female crime victims.

This book was a mix of a memoir and true crime, I personally wish it was more on the true crime side. The ending left me wanting a little bit more of a solid ending. The writing was great, even about an unfortunately awful story.

We Keep the Dead Close is a victim-first true crime with memoir-style storytelling that not only investigates the murder of Harvard graduate student Jane Britton, but how all women in academia find themselves at risk.

Jane Britton, a 23-year-old with a promising future, a sharp wit, and a bright personality, was murdered in 1969. Becky Cooper hears whispers of Jane's story forty years later, as an undergrad at Harvard. And those whispers lead her on a years long investigation into Jane's murder, the most promising suspects, and the ritual elements surrounding her death.

"If…Jane's story functioned as a kind of cautionary tale, then perhaps it was less about the literal truth of what happened to Jane than it was an allegory about the dangers that faced women in academia."

Cooper doesn't focus on the gory details, however. Instead, she focuses on Jane's life, the potential lost, the history of the girl before she became a ghost story to keep undergrads from spending too much time alone with an anthropology professor that bore a striking resemblance to Vladimir Tepes. Cooper investigates not only the murder, but the institutional failings that kept investigators from information, protected suspected tenured professors, and lent the whole case an air of mystery and prestige simply because it was a Harvard murder.

"Back then, I was blind to the idea that an institution could still be destructive even if its members were good people."

With a style that is more memoirist than true crime journalist, Cooper also investigates herself. What it means to be turning 30, what it means to find yourself in the world of Harvard alumnae (and the world at large), all while seeing herself through the lens of Jane's life.

We Keep the Dead Close is a true crime tale that succeeds in bringing light to the Jane's (now solved) case. But it is also more than the simple account of a murder-now-solved, and shows the reader that sometimes, even when we get answers, we don't have closure.

There is a lot here. A lot of well-developed suspects arise, along with many other key players - witnesses, friends, lovers, investigators, family members - who are possibly over-developed for the purposes of trying to tell a cogent story. The author’s commitment to her research is obvious, but doesn’t always reflect the probably less-committed reader’s interest in the deeply-woven details. It’s really a lot. 

I’m glad to know about this murder - it happened in a time and place that is of interest to me. The writing was really good, and held my interest, for the most part. I just can’t recommend this widely because of the volume of information; it really overwhems the reader.  A bit more culling would have improved the whole reading experience. Less is more, and all that. I read an advance copy, so perhaps the final publication will be edited down a bit. 

 (Special note to my spfld people - there’s a connection here to a still-living spfld resident, so that’s kind of exciting.)

I found this riveting and very difficult to read in these times. I think true crime fans will be sure to enjoy it, although it's hard to recommend dark books like this right now. Very highly recommend to the right readers, though.

"We Keep The Dead Close: A Murder and a Half Century Of Silence" (2020) investigative journalist Becky Cooper explores the shocking and tragic murder of Jane Britton (1945-1969). The beautiful 23 year old Harvard University Anthropology student suffered blunt force trauma to the head and rape, her body was found in her 4th floor Cambridge apartment. 
Investigators followed up on all tips and leads. Britton was well respected and  liked by everyone who knew her, she had no enemies. Her boyfriend was cleared, though a man was seen by a witness running from the building about 1:30 am, (likely after the attack) but was never identified.  Eventually the case went cold and unsolved until a DNA match through CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) identified the killer in 2018.
I love this cover, and this book sounds like it will be a good read. I was unable to download the publisher promotional copy for review. The book will be available for sale November 10, 2020.

Being a huge consumer of true crime, WE KEEP THE DEAD CLOSE went beyond my expectations of providing a unique insight into a terrible murder that puts a lens to sexism and inequality experienced at Harvard. What was especially enlightening was the introspection into the "world" of archaeology and how it strangely correlates to our need to make sense of the world through stories as experienced also in the unraveling of the truth behind this crime. The author did a great job too connecting it to her personal life in a super relatable and emotional way that otherwise seems missing from the true crime genre. This was such a great page turner with many layers beyond the "whodunit" mystery. Highly recommend.

We Keep the Dead Close is a book of many well-developed characters and this can be confusing at times. With my notebook at hand and notes to keep them straight, I made my way to the end.  Overall, this was a good read.  Not what I expected, though I am not sure what that was, but I did enjoy it!

A very meta true crime/memoir—the crime being the 50-year-old murder of a young Harvard archeology student, and the meta part the author's nuanced interrogation of her own motives, assumptions, and context for pursuing the case. As Cooper digs deeper into the murdered girl's story she turns up any number of loose ends, dead ends, and a large cast of tangential characters whose stories become intertwined with hers. I'm dancing around the story itself because it is, at bottom, a crime story that has a resolution... or does it? And I wouldn't want to spoil that for anyone. But it's the many ripples and reverberations set off by the murder that make up the substance of Cooper's story, and keep it weird and slightly off-kilter. This is a bit of an unclassifiable book, which is something I liked very much.