Helltown is a unique rendering of the crimes of one serial killer and the rivalry of two famous authors who both cross his path. Set in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1969, Casey Sherman begins his tale with the faltering writing career of local writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr and his envy of native author Norman Mailer's success. Both authors lived in or around the area and had peripheral contact with the serial killer Tony Costa.

Sherman eventually connects the intersecting worlds of Costa, Vonnegut, and Mailer while also vividly painting a portrait of hippie culture and the social and political upheaval of American society in 1969. While Costa is the center of the novel's narrative, his victims are not forgotten. Sherman goes to great lengths to share details of the lives of Costa's victims.

One of the most insightful observations of the book illuminated why most of us have never heard of Tony Costa and his victims before: the proximity in time to the Manson killings and trial. Even Costa's bizarre alter-ego, Cory, and his groupies who referred to him as "Sire" weren't enough to overshadow the sensationalism of Manson and his followers, but thanks to Casey Sherman, we now know the story of Tony Costa, his victims, and their place in history.

This nonfiction book takes the story of the Cape Town/PTown murderer (Tony Costa) and tells his story along with the parallel and eventually intertwined stories of famous authors Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut (including their fascination with the case and published works as the story continued).

The author did, however, use some fictional/storytelling elements creating conversations that may or may not have ever happened (this is confirmed in the authors note at the end). When reading true crime, I prefer straight facts.

The author put on quite a bit of research, however I felt that the book was drug out and several parallel narratives were inserted to add additional length to the book that weren’t necessary and made it feel like the narrative drug on for longer than was needed.

This was a really interesting read on a case I haven’t heard much about previously.

3 stars.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

With the vast number of true crime books authored by Casey Sherman, I anticipated an objective factual book underpinned by a knowledgeable writer and analyst. Instead the book is an odd admixture of fact intermixed with fiction, so far removed from objectivity that the author admits to altering facts to tell a story. If you are looking for sensationalism that romanticizes a man who killed to rape and dissect humans, you’ve found the right book. Unfortunately for the author, the more I read his admitted fictional maunderings the more enraged I became at his unwillingness to stick to the facts. He did do much research and it is reflected in his copious footnotes. But he also spent chapter after chapter name dropping famous people and events to give credence to a supposed interrelatedness that was nonexistent due to utter irrelevance. Particularly distracting was his reliance on Vonnegut and Mailer’s fascination with their home town killer to add bulk to his novel. And it is a novel interspersed with facts, not a nonfiction work. The final chapters manufacture subsequent killings to have direct links to Costa but appear to have nothing but fiction as a link. Although I was disappointed in it as a work of nonfiction, if you approach this as a ‘based on the murders of Tony Costa’ work of fiction, you may find it fascinating.

Reading the story of Tony Costa left me feeling disturbed and yet glad that the details I was reading were not visible on a screen in front of me. While Casey Sherman does a wonderful job of bringing to life the very real happenings of murder as depicted in this book, it was very difficult to get into the prose as I was never really able to relate to one of the characters.

As a writer and English major, I've read the works of Vonnegut before, and have only heard of Norman Mailer. It was interesting to see the intertwining of these men's various stories, yet I still struggled to find a link, a connection that would help me to enjoy the immense effort that writing this book must have required. These authors may have existed during the time of these killings, but what does one have to do with the other? Sherman draws links between Vonnegut's daughter and the fact that Mailer was close by, but beyond that I'm not sure why they were included in the story.

Perhaps my distancing from the book was from a reaction to what was happening to these women. Killings are what we see on TV, not part of a schizophrenic's deluded monologue that continues from normal behavior to murderous action without pause. There was no triumph over the "bad guy" when they found the women's bodies, no "gotcha!" moment that I could appreciate when Costa is (spoiler alert) finally found out.

"Helltown" is certainly a masterpiece from the perspective of weaving together events in history to the point where the reader is able to jump from the lives of its many characters to get an overall picture of what is happening. But for someone who likes the typical arc of a murder mystery, the prose left me a bit disappointed. I wanted to feel like a part of the story, rather than someone who saw things from the killer's perspective and didn't get the feeling that the narrator understood the dire consequences of his actions.

While I cannot necessarily recommend "Helltown" to those looking for a murder mystery such as those found on "Diagnosis Murder" or "Murder, She Wrote," it is a tale that could capture those more interested in true crime than this reader. Sherman rode a fine line between fact and fiction and for some it may pay off.

As someone who lived over 55 years in Massachusetts and vacationed in Wellfleet (not far from Provincetown in the at the time of the killings, I figured I should read the book. There is a lot of true crime fact in the book, but I think there is also fiction. The story is mostly about Antone (Tony) Costa, a young hippie living in Provincetown on Cape Cod. He wants to be to be remembered as a writer and thinker, but on drugs, he becomes a serial killer of women. The hippies all love him; he is very self confident and good looking. Most of the action takes place in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, and claims to be true. This is the time when there are protesters of the Viet Nam War, the first man lands on the moon, Mary Jane Kopechne dies in Teddy Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick, and the Manson killings take place in California. Also living on Cape Cod are Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut, who both get tangled up with the happenings.

The book is fairly long, and I had trouble getting into it in the beginning (I almost quit after the first four chapters, about 20% into the book), especially since I was not particularly interested in hearing about Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut and their differences and travels, and the descriptions of the crimes were also a little too vivid for me. However, once the grisly killings were done, the police work of trying to solve them and the proceedings at the trial were interesting. Tony Costa was pretty smart, and was a convincing liar. His first two killings were passed off as missing persons, and thus didn’t really come to police attention for a few years. However, he made some serious mistakes with the last two women killed. Costa was sure he would get away with everything right until he didn’t!

DNF @ 25%. I might pick this up again someday when I am in a different mindset, hence the second star, but it just didn't grip my interest at the moment. The writing is very stiff, and it wasn't engaging for me.

DNF @ 45% - the writing was so bland and textbook like I really couldn’t get into it :( I really appreciated the story itself from a first hand experience, but if I wanted to read about mostly facts, I could get it on Wikipedia or a true crime documentary.

Extremely interesting and readable. Bizarre to realize this guy was killing at the same time the Manson family was getting headlines. A must read for true-crime fans.

Fans of true crime might struggle with this as might fans of crime novels because it's a blend of the two. Tony Costa committed multiple murders in the Truro area during a period of social change. Famous writers- Vonnegut and Mailer-glommed onto his story, the story of a man who charmed women in Provincetown and then killed them. Over all of it is the fact that it's 1969 and there are, horrors, hippies. This is more graphic than I like (but that's not unexpected for the genre). It's also slower than I expected, perhaps because of the digressions into Vonnegut and Mailer. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

My thanks to Net Galley and Source Books for this arc.

I love true crime books and found this well researched and written ,but a bit gruesome and couldn't connect with.

<i>*Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review *</i>

Helltown, in chronicling Tony Costa's murders on Cape Cod in the summer of 1969, in its actual true-crime aspect is interesting, while very gruesome - this is definitely not for the faint of heart.

However, the storylines with Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer - didn’t really add anything to the story, and I feel like they messed up the pacing, as they weren’t nearly as interesting, and somehow just slowed the whole story down. I understand that they served to illustrate the time period, but they were too long and just felt draggy.

Also, the writing style felt a little bit overly descriptive at times.

This was not for me even though I am familiar with the murders that took place being from Connecticut and having very good friend from Massachusetts. The writing just could not keep me interested enough. Not the type of true crime writing I am used to.

Cannot recommend.

Thanks to Netgalley, Caset Sherman Sourcebooks for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 7/12/22

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to receive an arc in exchange for an honest review! All thoughts and opinions are my own.



A mix of fact and fiction- I wish the author just sort of … stuck to fiction. Maybe an “inspired by” sort of book. It just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for the advanced e-book. I liked the opening of this book but pretty quickly lost interest. I didn't care for the writing style and the chapters on Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer didn't quite work for me. I ended up not finishing the book after only about 10% so maybe further in it explains the connection between the serial killer and the authors?

This was an interesting book about a serial killer I'd never heard of and I follow true crime. Antone "Tony" Costa brutally murdered 4 young women in the 60s. It also follows the stories of writers Kurt Vonnegut Jr and Norman Mailer.

Thanks to Sourcebooks for sharing this ARC. Although I usually enjoy true crime stories, I didn’t find this book engaging. I’m not sure if I could pinpoint why but by the 1/2 point, I no longer cared to read any more about Tony Castro. So I did not finish.

I received an ARC of, Helltown, by Casey Sherman. This is such a sad and twisted story. People are crazy, the murders in this book are gruesome. I did not care for the swearing in the book though.

I want to start with UGH! disgusting, without any conscience this Costa was.

Its odd because I thought that writing this story in fiction form would not work, but I was okay with it.

Author throws us right away into the action and the pace keeps going until the end.

This book/guy makes Mason look like a choir boy.

Thank you netgalley. I loved this book. Kept me interested from the jump. It’s something different from what I normally read, but I love a good crime story.

Trigger warnings for all the gruesome discussion in this book. However, it was very interesting. I had never heard of Tony Costa before but I definitely will remember him after this book.