Review: Dig Me a Grave: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Who Seduced the South by Richard A. Harpootlian; Shaun Assael
As personable as he was ruthless, Pee Wee defied easy categories. He killed to avenge minor slights as well as for pleasure, using any convenient method—including stabbing, shooting, poison, suffocation, and drowning. Evidence suggested he forced at least one victim to dig his own grave, stand in it, and be shot.
With escalating callousness, Pee Wee murdered acquaintances, friends, family members, and strangers. Yet within his North Charleston community he was well-liked—a family man who took neighborhood kids to the beach and hosted cookouts. Ice-cold within but outwardly charming, he joked with judges, reporters, and Harpootlian himself, but didn’t hesitate to hatch a plot to kidnap the prosecutor’s daughter in order to extort an escape.
Dig Me a Grave is a haunting look at a prolific, remorseless killer, as well as a provocative exploration of justice and the death penalty.
I LOVE true crime stories. Especially the ones where the
author actually has firsthand experience with the case. Helter Skelter
is a personal favorite of mine for exactly that reason, it was written by the
prosecuting attorney, someone who knew every detail because he lived it.
This book, however? Not even close.
Right out of the gate, there were far too many characters, which
often lead to confusion. I get that this is based on real-life events, but that
doesn’t mean we need the biography of every single person who crossed paths
with Pee Wee at any point in his life. I don’t need to know about his childhood
neighbor’s cousin’s best friend’s mother to understand what he was capable of.
Focus on the victims, on how they came into his life, and on the actual crimes.
Instead, I found myself skipping sections simply because I was bored, which is
not something that should ever happen with a true crime book.
And honestly? A quick Google search gave me the same
information (sometimes even more), and in a far more interesting way.
When is the last time anyone preferred Googling something over reading a
firsthand account? That should tell you something.
Another major issue I had is that the book often felt less
like a detailed recounting of Pee Wee’s crimes and the investigation that
followed, and more like a memoir of the author’s personal journey. I genuinely
do not care what made him feel like “one of the boys” with local law
enforcement. I don’t care about unrelated cases he handled years later. And I
definitely did not need repeated reminders about how stressed he was down to
his clothes becoming “baggy” because he lost weight. We get it.
The timeline didn’t help matters. It jumped around so often
that keeping track of the sequence of events became its own chore. At one
point, we’re told about Pee Wee’s newborn son, Donny. Then a few pages later,
his wife is suddenly pregnant with him again.
What truly boggles the mind, though, is how Pee Wee managed
to kill so many people without anyone catching on. Especially when multiple
missing persons reports had been filed, some of them explicitly suggesting foul
play may have been a factor. You would think at some point someone would notice
that the one common denominator in all of these cases was Pee Wee himself.
As for the crimes, they are described in graphic detail, and
the execution scene is no exception; something that may be upsetting to certain
readers. I’m not particularly squeamish, but even I found moments where I had
to take a breath.
In the end, despite the potential and despite the author’s personal involvement in the case, the book missed the five-star mark for me. Too many irrelevant details, too many characters I didn’t need to know about, and too much of the author drifting into his own story instead of sticking to the one I actually came for. What should have been a sharp, focused true crime narrative ended up feeling scattered, padded, and far less compelling than it should have been.
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