Amazon.com (ISBN 0060191538, Hardcover)

The murder of 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey on Christmas night in 1996 inspired sensational headlines throughout the nation--and plunged idyllic Boulder, Colorado's justice system into an ongoing nightmare. In Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, bestselling author Lawrence Schiller explores both the child's mysterious death and the exhaustive, yet often mishandled, investigation that has, in the two years since the crime, failed to produce either a plausible scenario or a killer. The more that was discovered about the crime, the less likelihood there seemed of tying all the evidence into a single theory that fit the murder scene. Meanwhile, conflicting agendas and personalities within the Boulder police department, the district attorney's office, and the sheriff's office escalated a war that has all but eroded the picture-postcard image of liberal, laid-back Boulder.

Schiller has a knack for distilling context and meaning from violent crime. He partnered with Norman Mailer on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Executioner's Song and was O.J. Simpson's choice of confidante for I Want to Tell You. (From there, he went on to write the definitive story of the Simpson defense, American Tragedy.) For Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Schiller and researcher Charles Brennan conducted more than 500 interviews, examining the exculpatory evidence from every conceivable point of view to create a fascinating portrait of what happens when tragedy strikes in paradise. There are no easy answers, no simple outs; the murder of JonBenét Ramsey remains unsolved. --Patrizia DiLucchio