Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule

 Being based in the UK I had never before heard of this case and it just shows how much difference the internet has made to our knowledge of what is happening in the rest of the world.  In 1983 British eyes were focused on Dennis Nilsen and Diane Downs just passed us by.

The bare bones of this case are terrifying and almost beyond comprehension.  A single mother and her three children driving down a dark country road and somehow the three children are shot.  One dies more or less at the scene and the other two are in a critical condition but their mother only has minor injuries.  Diane Downs maintains it is an unknown assailant but something about her story really doesn't add up.  This book dives deep in to the investigation of the case and how little there is to go on.

Meticulously researched i think the transcripts of Diane Downs statements and from the Court Testimony are perhaps the most telling.  There is just something chilling about the whole thing and the physical and psychological impact on the surviving children is undoubtable and well described without descending in to sensationalism.

I particularly liked that whilst Ms Rule does give her opinions on what happened that night and why she never at any point tells the reader this is definitive.  Instead she assumes that you have the intelligence to read the evidence she provides and make your own mind up about the who, how and most importantly the why.  There is a lot of focus on the psychology of Diane Downs and I am still at a loss to understand how, even with all her undoubted mental health issues, she thought that any of this would actually work out for her.  Yes, I believe she did it and agree with the Court's findings.

This book did make me feel uncomfortable as it genuinely takes you in to the minutiae of Diane Downs life both before and after this tragedy and she was dealt a bad hand from the start.  You want to be compassionate for her but then her actions make you want to condemn her out of hand.  Definitely thought provoking and unsettling.

This review has been a long time coming.  I actually read this book between the 25th April and 1st May 2020.  Fortunately, I have a notebook where I jot some initial thoughts on the book and an overall ranking so between the book blurb and that I did have a reasonable handle on what I thought at the time of reading.