Columbine

Colorado journalist Dave Cullen's meticulous research dispels the myths and hasty assumptions surrounding the 1999 Columbine High School shootings. Cullen's conclusions are drawn from hundreds of interviews and the wealth of information left behind by shooters Harris and Klebold. Apparently, Columbine was a painstakingly planned bombing gone wrong. Only when the bombs failed to detonate did the shooting begin. Don Leslie's nuanced reading of the disturbing material makes clear that the boys were not goths, gay, or bullied. Leslie is mesmerizing as he makes Cullen's case that Harris was predisposed to psychopathy and Klebold was erratic, depressed, and suicidal. Once they got together, the dyad became deadly. If this important book were fiction, it would be devastating. Knowing it really happened is heartbreaking. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Starred review from February 23, 2009
In this remarkable account of the April 20, 1999, Columbine High School shooting, journalist Cullen not only dispels several of the prevailing myths about the event but tackles the hardest question of all: why did it happen? Drawing on extensive interviews, police reports and his own reporting, Cullen meticulously pieces together what happened when 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold killed 13 people before turning their guns on themselves. The media spin was that specific students, namely jocks, were targeted and that Dylan and Eric were members of the Trench Coat Mafia. According to Cullen, they lived apparently normal lives, but under the surface lay “an angry, erratic depressive” (Klebold) and “a sadistic psychopath” (Harris), together forming a “combustible pair.” They planned the massacre for a year, outlining their intentions for massive carnage in extensive journals and video diaries. Cullen expertly balances the psychological analysis—enhanced by several of the nation's leading experts on psychopathology—with an examination of the shooting's effects on survivors, victims' families and the Columbine community. Readers will come away from Cullen's unflinching account with a deeper understanding of what drove these boys to kill, even if the answers aren't easy to stomach.

August 15, 2009
Relying on more than ten years of research, award-winning journalist Cullen (www.davecullen.com) here pieces together a stunning, authoritative, full-scope view of the Columbine tragedy, reaching powerful and controversial conclusions and revealing several facts previously unknown to the public. Don Leslie ("The 48 Laws of Power") reads with both sensation and objectivity, escalating emotion during the often graphic diary passages and helping the story to flow. However, the narrative's continual jumping back and forth in time may confuse listeners. For Ann Rule and Jon Krakauer fans. [The Twelve: Hachette hc, a "New York Times" best seller, was recommended as "definitely worth reading despite the disjointed narrative," "LJ" 3/15/09.Ed.]Terry Ann Lawler, Phoenix P.L.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.