Oh, how I love me some good true crime. I thought I might not like this very much since it’s very dated (disappearance was in 1981) but it was very good. Very good.

In 1981 Janice Start, 23, a college student, Army veteran and ROTC member at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia went missing. One of the only clues in her disappearance was her daily diary.

Detective Kay Schucker who was the first female police officer with the Chesapeake Police Department and who, believe me, went through some stuff which is so infuriating to read about, was the lead on Janice’s case. She began to suspect Janice’s ODU ROTC professor Dwight Beddingfield, a real ass, and who was married and had three kids. Kay’s superiors…”warned her off” would be a nice way to put it…Bedfingfield as a suspect, him having the support of the Army and all.

Other than my sorrow for Starr, which is obvious, and my dismay at all Schucker went through, I’m also sorry that out of Officers Tillett, Forelli and Dilday only one of them survives to read this book to be faced with their misogynistic, horrific treatment of both Starr and Schucker. Read this to be reminded of the bad old days that some politicians would like to see us return to. Give this to your true crime-crazy younger daughters so they can see the way that women, both victims and law enforcement officials were treated not so long ago (and it’s not like things are fixed.)

This is a great true crime account which includes a great deal of balanced information about the parties involved and the investigation process. Much of this, for me, was a bit overshadowed by the fury I felt when reading of the discrimination experienced by the women - including the victim herself and the police officer who solved the case. It’s an important piece of context of the time but, with a modern eye, it is just infuriating to see the barriers put in place for these women. This is not to say the author should not have included this - it is an important contextual factor - but more a reflection of how well they represented it! I appreciated the concluding information about where the various parties “ended up” as this left no loose strings to what was a very interesting case.