The Waltham Murders

One Woman’s Pursuit to Expose the Truth Behind a Murder and a National Tragedy

By: Susan Clare Zalkind

Narrated by: Courtney Patterson

A crusade to find a killer becomes a gripping, intensely personal investigation into a shocking cold case and the radicalization of a terrorist.

In September 2011, Erik Weissman and two friends were murdered in a brutal triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts. The case went unsolved for months and then years, with no discernible leads. Erik’s friend Susan Zalkind, an investigative journalist, needed closure and knew that finding it would be up to her. As Susan began digging, and as the Boston Marathon bombing exposed startling new leads, the case led her down a tangled and sometimes dangerous path to the truth.

With every person Susan interviewed came a new thread. She followed each one through a web of conspiracy theories, corruption, and crime until she eventually arrived at a decade-defining act of domestic terrorism.

A true-crime memoir and the culmination of more than ten years of reporting, The Waltham Murders is an in-depth probe into a dark American underworld by a journalist coming to grips with both personal grief and the collective anguish of a nation in her tireless pursuit of the truth.

©2024 by Susan Zalkind. (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“A studiously reported and consistently immersive account. Readers will be captivated.”—Publishers Weekly

“Readers will be able to visualize Zalkind’s murder board as they take in her meticulous, intriguing summation of her years of research. This is an eloquent book that is part true-crime deep dive and part memoir. It’s a definitive resource on a crime that, while officially unsolved, appears to be littered with conspiracies, corruption, and poor decisions.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“This mix of fact and feeling provides a unique perspective on some frustratingly unresolved aspects of a horrific assault on our national security.”—Booklist

Lack of Editing

This is what happens when a magazine article is allowed to be bloated into a book. Also the constant mispronounciaton of Norfolk and Suffolk was jarring.

Great story with historical context of a crazy time in the US

The story was well told, a bit hard to follow at times, but overall intriguing. The author does a good job of not pushing her point. Instead, she lays out everything she’s found — contradicting points and all — and lets the reader/listener chew through it with her.

Some mispronunciations, important work

Most in depth background of the Boston marathon bombing case currently available. Impressive considering it’s not really about the bombing. Author’s relationship to one of the victims is used as a narrative device to move the story along in places without beleaguering or being overdependent. Appreciate the lack of deifying the victims (despite the author’s relationship with them.

Interesting premise, uneven writing

Where the story includes personal elements the writing is at its most interesting, other times it gets extremely dull, quoting casefiles and defending reporting practices in a dry manner. Excessive detail and facts irrelevant to the purpose result in an unnecessarily long book that ultimately ends rather abruptly without much in the way of conclusion.

The corruption of law enforcement involved.

A lot of information. I had to rewind quite a few times. But it was eye opening.