Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
- 388
- Pages
- about 7 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” is less a true-crime file than a portrait of Savannah and its eccentrics. A shooting in a grand house gives the book its spine, but Berendt lingers over the townspeople more than the case and writes like a novelist. Some readers find that slow and the people too colourful to feel real. It serves lovers of place and character better than seekers of gore.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
THE LANDMARK NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, NOW A MAJOR MUSICAL COMING SOON TO BROADWAY • An enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city: “Elegant and wicked.... [This] might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime." —The New York Times Book Review • 30th Anniversary Edition with a New Afterword by the Author. Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.7 across 328 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 69% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Rankings average of 8.2. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.7 | 29 | 9% |
| Hardcover | 7.7 | 299 | 91% |
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
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