“Helltown is a work of fact told with elements of fiction storytelling.” – Casey Sherman

Non-fiction can be hit or miss for me but I greatly enjoyed this one. Whereas I knew about other historical events/information included within this story, I had never heard of the serial killer Tony Costa. My parents hadn’t heard of these murders either. Granted they had moved away from Western Mass about 5 years prior, Vietnam was still going on, and Charles Manson hit the west coast by storm before Costa went to trial so that might have taken away some of the attention.

There are a few storylines within the book but the main topic is the gruesome murders of 5 young women. Some were locals and others were not. All were lives taken way too soon by a drug addict with an alter ego controlling his actions. I thought all the stories were well told and blended together nicely so I would say it was well written. I definitely recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for gifting me with an advanced copy to read and review.

‘Helltown’, is my first Casey Sherman book, but it won’t be my last. Although this was not my usual type of book, I enjoyed learning about the Cape Cod murders of 1969 in Provincetown, MA. The author is a nephew of one of the victims of the Boston Strangler from the 1960’s. I enjoyed reading about the rivalry between Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer, and their time on Cape Cod.

I was confused about the categorization of,this book. Is it no fiction or fiction? I thought it was non fiction, but so much of the dialogue had to be fabricated. In the author’s end note he calls it a novel, but provides pages of documentation of resources and research.
I think the author should have made the demarcations much more clearer.
In any case, it illustrates what a barbaric Sicko Tony Costa really was.

I really struggled to get into this book. The first half felt very confusing to me and it was hard to keep the stories straight. I was going in as if this was a true crime book. It does not feel like a true crime book and the blend with fiction made it difficult to read. The second half was definitely better as it gave more details on the story of this killer. However by the time I got to this point, I had sort of lost interest. I felt this book could have been a lot shorter and more focussed. This would be a great read for those who are interested in where there two writers come from with a little true crim mixed in. This one just didnt work for me.

This is not at all what I was expecting from this book. I enjoy true crime and was looking forward to learning about Costa as I had never heard of him. But the way it’s written is just cringey. It’s sensationalized and has elements of fictional storytelling which I feel is disrespectful to the victims. True crime should provide the facts and give a voice to those who can no longer speak for themselves, not “entertain readers” with dramatization. I also found it weird adding in a storyline with Kurt Vonnegut-I understand he wrote articles on the murders but there’s no point in diving into a fictional plot line for him. Honestly infuriating what this author has done, shame.

Thank you Sourcebooks and NetGalley for the ARC of Helltown by Casey Sherman. This is definitely a story that needed to be told. Tony Costa reminds me some of Ted Bundy. His charm and good looks protected him from suspiscion for far too long from the murders happening all around him. Local writers in Cape Cod, Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer try to put the pieces together themselves so that they can launch their writing careers even further. We are taken back to the 60's into a world of drugs, deceit, and a gruesome trail of murders that are unimaginable.

Helltown is a true crime story about the serial killer Tony Costa who was active in the 1960's in Cape Cod. I was looking forward to reading this book because I was unfamiliar with Tony Costa and his crimes; however, I did not like how the story was presented. I understand adding some characters and dialogue to true crime stories makes the stories more interesting to read, but so much of this book seemed to deal with artistic liberties rather than the facts. I have no doubt that Sherman carefully researched Costa, but so much of the story seemed to be based on true events as opposed to just the facts. The author's note explains that Helltown is based on fact with elements of fiction storytelling. This just didn't work for me. I need my true crime stories to be more source material and less fictionalized. I also did not like the inclusion of Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer throughout the book. It would have been enough to mention the authors since they wrote articles concerning this, but not to create entire drawn out story lines. This distracted from the entire purpose of the book which was to learn about Tony Costa. I wanted more background on him and the police investigation. I did not want all of the extra information. This book did not work for me and ultimately I did not finish the book because I just couldn't connect with the story.

Wow was this book something I was not expecting! I couldn’t put it down and when I did I had to grab it for just one more chapter. Great night time read.

I feel very conflicted about this book. On one hand its narrative style gave the reader a more insightful view into both an infamous true crime story but also to the history of Provincetown and the Cape Cod region. However, I feel the fictional suppositions and reconstructions are a little too sensational and extreme. It degrades from the overall feeling of the book and takes away from the fact that this book was based on very true and horrific events. It felt like a disservice to the victims and their families and friends. I think the author was attempting to capture both the vibe of Provincetown and the intense misogyny held not only by the serial killer Tony Costa but also the famous authors and power players of the region. It left a bad taste in my mouth and I now have a deep dislike of Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut (not that I esteemed them before this book). Profiting off of the pain caused from true crime is very uncouth in my opinion and I prefer to read works that attempt to give voices to the victims and/or informs readers on forensics advancements involved in the case. Basically I enjoy true crime that elevates the topic and brings compassion to the table. I did not feel like this book did that. I give it two and a half stars because while it is well written in its mechanics and research, it missed out on something essential in the execution.

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.