Murder in Little Egypt

Rating:
Summary: To close to home...
Review: "Murder In Little Egypt."
This book is unnerving to the soul yet unforgetable. My mother bought this book a couple of years ago do the fact that Dr. Cavaness was her doctor and also the doctor of some other members of my family.
Although i was only eight years old at the time Dr. Cavaness murdered his son Sean, I still remember my parents and family members discussing it. In private of course, but being a sly little girl i would hide behind the couch or stand in the hallway unnoticed and listen quietly to the conversation at hand.

Egypt, as the title refurs to is better known as Southern Illinois. Little Egypt, lies between Eldorado and Harrisburg Illinois. My home town area.

The news spread across the area within days and disrupted and discouraged the lives of friends and citizens of Dr. John Dale Cavaness, a respected, well known and well liked doctor, who lived in Harrisburg and practiced at Pearce Hospital in Eldorado. I found the details of Seans murder to be sickening and heartbreaking. I was in tears as i continued to read about their lives and how twisted it was. When my mother gave me this book she asked me if i remembered the story of what happened. Briefly i did but i had no idea of the turmoil behind it. The details and lives of the Cavaness's are well understood and i just couldn't put the book down until it was finished. It made me think twice about what doctor i choose.

Rating:
Summary: one of the best in true crime
Review: Actually, I'd give it three and a half stars. The research is good, but she fell short in understanding the area about which she wrote.

I grew up in a neighboring county and I remember reading about Mark's death, and remember as well when Sean's death resulted in Dr. Cavaness' legal difficulties. Ms. O'Brien's research in that aspect was top notch, I thought, and she portrayed the facts accurately.

Her attempts to give the people color and offer background explanations, however, were more problematic, and I feel I have to leap to the defense of the people who live there. What Ms. O'Brien failed understand was the source of the reactions of the local people.

Ms. O'Brien did accurately characterize some elements of Eldorado -- it is a small, insular community, and people who aren't "from" there sometimes have a hard go of it. Marian Cavaness no doubt realized that, and my mother (who moved there for a short period as a kid) would agree wholeheartedly.

Having left southern Illinois as a teenager (and returned only recently), I have had to tolerate snobs who think that southern Illinois is nothing but a bunch of dumb, inbred, hillbilly yokels, and I felt Ms. O'Brien was in agreement. It is certainly not a metropolitan area, to be sure, but the reason the people of Eldorado supported Dr. Cavaness isn't simply explained by what Ms. O'Brien hinted was their supposed stupidity and gullibility.

Judging from the bibliography she provides, Ms. O'Brien knew about some material on the history of the area. She appears to have failed to apply it. The people are generally middle to lower-middle class, hardworking, proud, and fiercely independent. The fact that Dr. Cavaness occasionally treated people without pay is rather characteristic of a southern Illinoisian, and I'm sure his supporters took this into consideration.

What I saw, that Ms. O'Brien did not, is the deep distrust people in southern Illinois have for "outsiders" coming in and telling them what to think and do. That area has had to put up with being shortchanged financially and socially by the rest of Illinois, the people in positions of power in Illinois tend to be from places north of I-80, and there are still feelings lingering from the labor strife of the early part of the previous century (the strikebreakers generally coming from Chicago). When people from elsewhere, like detectives from St. Louis, come in like gangbusters, poking around, accusing a local doctor of murder and treating the locals like redneck idiots, they are going to get some resistance.

With that in mind, the reader would have had a better sense of the REAL drama in the book: a tortured soul who was a good man to strangers, and a monster to those who loved him.

Rating:
Summary: Good research, but I doubt Ms. O'Brien is from Little Egypt
Review: Actually, I'd give it three and a half stars. The research is good, but she fell short in understanding the area about which she wrote.

I grew up in a neighboring county and I remember reading about Mark's death, and remember as well when Sean's death resulted in Dr. Cavaness' legal difficulties. Ms. O'Brien's research in that aspect was top notch, I thought, and she portrayed the facts accurately.

Her attempts to give the people color and offer background explanations, however, were more problematic, and I feel I have to leap to the defense of the people who live there. What Ms. O'Brien failed understand was the source of the reactions of the local people.

Ms. O'Brien did accurately characterize some elements of Eldorado -- it is a small, insular community, and people who aren't "from" there sometimes have a hard go of it. Marian Cavaness no doubt realized that, and my mother (who moved there for a short period as a kid) would agree wholeheartedly.

Having left southern Illinois as a teenager (and returned only recently), I have had to tolerate snobs who think that southern Illinois is nothing but a bunch of dumb, inbred, hillbilly yokels, and I felt Ms. O'Brien was in agreement. It is certainly not a metropolitan area, to be sure, but the reason the people of Eldorado supported Dr. Cavaness isn't simply explained by what Ms. O'Brien hinted was their supposed stupidity and gullibility.

Judging from the bibliography she provides, Ms. O'Brien knew about some material on the history of the area. She appears to have failed to apply it. The people are generally middle to lower-middle class, hardworking, proud, and fiercely independent. The fact that Dr. Cavaness occasionally treated people without pay is rather characteristic of a southern Illinoisian, and I'm sure his supporters took this into consideration.

What I saw, that Ms. O'Brien did not, is the deep distrust people in southern Illinois have for "outsiders" coming in and telling them what to think and do. That area has had to put up with being shortchanged financially and socially by the rest of Illinois, the people in positions of power in Illinois tend to be from places north of I-80, and there are still feelings lingering from the labor strife of the early part of the previous century (the strikebreakers generally coming from Chicago). When people from elsewhere, like detectives from St. Louis, come in like gangbusters, poking around, accusing a local doctor of murder and treating the locals like redneck idiots, they are going to get some resistance.

With that in mind, the reader would have had a better sense of the REAL drama in the book: a tortured soul who was a good man to strangers, and a monster to those who loved him.

Rating:
Summary: Good True-Crime Read
Review: Growing up in the area this book is based on, I knew the basis of this story before I read 'Murder in Little Egypt': a doctor with dark secrets, who killed his son(s). Since my Mom is addicted to true-crime stories, she served as my source of true-crime books, like this one. I had to read this one myself to clarify what I'd heard about this story.

'Murder in Little Egypt' was an excellent read. It seems well-researched. It uncovers a side of people that is rarely exposed. It makes it even better if you are familiar with the area, southern Illinois, and the people involved in the book.

Rating:
Summary: Beyond My Comprehension
Review: I am from Southern Illinois and remembered when the Cavaness case came about. One of our neighbors had been one of his nurses. I couldn't fathom a father killing his sons and in such a gruesome and cowardless way. I also couldn't comprehend a town that could worship such a menace to society. And the unbelievable part is that even today, he is still regarded as a well respected indidvidual.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves true crime. You will not be able to put this book down.

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable!
Review: I am from the "Little Egypt" area and enjoyed being able to recognize places that were discussed in the book. I also was amazed at the devotion of the townspeople for the doctor. This was a gripping tale of a man with two lives.... I would recommend this to anyone!

Rating:
Summary: one of the best in true crime
Review: I have read many, many true crime books and have found most to be poorly written and researched, as well as very one-sided. This well researched, well written and very compelling story of a complicated and troubled man who happened to be a well respected physician is top notch. It is a real page turner. For other well written true crime books, try Bella Stumbo's Until the Twelfth of Never, Anne Rule's A Rose for her Grave, and the Joe McGuiness' Blind Faith.

Rating:
Summary: One of the ten best true-crime books
Review: I'm glad this book has returned to print; in my opinion, it ranks right up there with "In Cold Blood" as a true-crime masterpiece. You will be fascinated by the author's portrait of the southern-Illinois area called "Little Egypt," and you'll shake your head at the Little-Egyptians' almost cult-like devotion to their "good" doctor, even after the extent of his crimes became known.

Rating:
Summary: yeah it's okay
Review: I've read better true crime books, but this is better than most. A lot of unnecessary details are included. And then there are some strange omissions. We read about the doctor's parents a lot at the beginning and then it's just mentioned parenthetically along the way that they died.

The book could have benefitted from a good paring down, say by 30%. But then they couldn't sell it for as much could they?