Murder at Teal's Pond: Hazel Drew and the Mystery that Inspired Twin Peaks

 

Today's post is on Murder at Teal's Pond: Hazel Drew and the Mystery that Inspired Twin Peaks by David Bushman and Mark T, Givens. It is 326 pages long and is published by Thomas & Mercer. The cover is a picture of Teal's pond with the mountains in the distance. The intended reader is someone who is interested in historical true crime. There is very mild foul language, no sex, and discussion of violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- In 1908, Hazel Drew was found floating in a pond in Sand Lake, New York, beaten to death. The unsolved murder inspired rumors, speculation, ghost stories, and, almost a century later, the phenomenon of  Twin Peaks. Who killed Hazel Drew? Like Laura Palmer, she was a paradox of personalities- a young beautiful puzzle with secrets. Perhaps the even tricker questions, is was was Hazel Drew?
Seeking escape from her poor country roots, Hazel found work as a domestic servant in the notoriously corrupt metropolis of Troy, New York. Fate derailed her plans for reinvention. But the investigation that followed her brutal murder was fraught with red herrings, wild-goose chases, and unreliable witnesses. Did officials really follow the leads? Or did they bury them to protect the guilty?
The likely answer is revealed in an absorbing true mystery that's ingeniously reconstructed and every bit as haunting as the cultural obsession it inspired.

Review- A well researched and interesting true crime that inspired one of the best TV shows ever. The mystery of who killed Hazel Drew is over a century old but it still haunts the place where she died. So the authors wanted to do research and try to discover the truth about what happened to Hazel Drew and maybe who could have killed her. The authors take the reader from the night Hazel died and the chaos happened when her body was found to a in-depth research into Hazel, her family, her employers, the local politics, and the people who knew Hazel. It was a very interesting way to try and recreate the world that Hazel lived in and maybe was trying to escape. Of course, the authors did not discover new evidence, that reveals who the killer but they do have some good theories and some evidence to back them up. If you like true crime or are curious about what inspired the writers of Twin Peaks, then you should check this book out. 

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.