What. Is. This. Ending? The point of true crime podcasts is to SOLVE mysteries, not leave them open-ended. Her best friend and next door neighbor, Margot Davies, also six at the time, always wondered if it could have just as easily been her killed that night-and now twenty years later, she is a journalist who is still obsessed with the crime. Also, when Billy kills Krissy, he says, “You shouldn’t have lied to me.” Uh… like 15 years too late, right? I mean, if he wanted to call her out for lying, wouldn’t he have done that a long time before? Why did he kill her anyway? I guess we’re supposed to assume it’s because he found the note in her purse. But then, wouldn’t he have said, “So, you know what happened, huh? I can’t have you telling anyone…” or something like that? I know this was to conceal who the killer was, but it was really ill-fitting. The whole suicide story was actually pretty unconvincing. The police never looked into it further? They never tested for gunshot residue? They didn’t find it suspicious that half of Krissy’s letter was torn off or that she lying by the door with her purse out, as if she was getting ready to leave? The had noticed a tiny bit of blood on Jase’s pajamas all those years before; could they not find any blood on Billy’s clothes? I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t have looked into this very deeply, given the family’s history. But maybe we’re supposed to just accept that the police were so convinced of Jace or Krissy’s guilt that they accepted suicide without investigating at all. Again, that seems ridiculous.

According to a podcast I just listened to, the medical examiner in the Anthony case testified that 100% of the time, parents who find their kids accidentally injured call 911. Flowers perfectly captures small town USA - the social pressure to do the right thing, the in-line thinking. There’s a lot said here about the rush to judgement. Billy realizes that Margot suspects him and tells her it was an accident. That Krissy also realized he did it and he had to kill her too. Eight year-old April was out playing with a friend and decided to home and get her umbrella. Then she vanished.

This isn’t a fast paced book, but it moves at a steady pace with several twists thrown in along the way. Most of which I didn’t see coming, especially the last chapter. The book has a timeline that spans twenty-five years, with major events happening in 1994, 2009 and 2019. Hope this helps you keep it all straight. After discovering the evidence in Elliott Wallace’s storage unit, Margot goes to tell Billy that she’s solved January’s case.

When you think about it, there really weren’t that many suspects in January’s murder. Mostly just Krissy, Billy and Luke. My main suspect was Luke. The dementia seemed like a plot device to me. April’s body was found a few days later. The case went cold. Then, two years later in 1990, someone wrote a creepy message on the side of a barn confessing to April’s murder. If you are familiar with the most debated true crime cases, a staged crime scene by a parent to cover up the death a child isn’t that out-there. WHAT did Krissy mean in her letter to Jace when she said “I learned something about your father. He isn’t who you think he is.” Does “your father” mean Billy, the only father Jace ever knew? Or does it mean Dave/Luke, Jace’s biological father? DID Krissy figure out that Billy killed January? Natalie Clark may have been the catalyst for Margot’s investigation but HER story is never explored, making this a journalist’s quest to solve a COLD CASE.I won’t waste time going into the plot, but apparently, writing podcast episodes is very different from writing a novel, because this story never got off the ground. The author did capture the small town atmosphere, but the mystery itself was a replay of the Jon Benet Ramsey case. I had high expectations that someone who works in true crime could come up with something a bit more original and compelling. Personally, I felt all the twists and turns were organic and made sense within this story. They feel earned and representative of how complicated real crime investigations are. The truth is rarely as simple as we would like it to be and All Good People Here reflects this beautifully. Small Town Secrets That very day, Krissy ends up dead, presumed by suicide. Who killed Krissy Davies in All Good People Here? I hope you will join the Spoiler Discussion for All Good People Here! Talk to me in comments! What did you think of the book, the ending, all of it? Do you listen to podcasts? Let’s discuss this! You can also read my review of All Good People Here!

Ok, I feel like it is tough to just review the book and not to mention the other bits that come to my mind when reading this, so I will use this opportunity to include that. I understand him not saying anything in all the chaos of January’s death, but fifteen years later, when Krissy decides to come clean, he already knows. Now, rather than keep ranting I am going to finish with the ending… my god that ending. Trash is all I can say. It was suppose to create suspense and have us wondering and hoping… but it just leaves the reader hanging with no resolution - but then the epilogue gives a play by play of another part of the book which took hand holding to the maximum. It was complete rubbish I hated the ending. It completely ruined the entire book and any parts that could have been good for me. 😡 Could January’s case have been inspired by the JonBenét Ramsey case? Did you think the explanation for January’s death make sense? Thanks to Kat (in comments) for pointing out another possible True Crime inspiration: April Tinsley.Ok debut, but sudden ending that totally felt unfinished. Didn’t really grab me, nothing really surprised me. The January Jones case is awfully similar to the Jon Benet Ramsey case in so many ways that even the super fans were disappointed by it. I wont go into it… but the parallels are glaringly obvious. 🙄 My biggest problem is that this is basically a fictionalisation of a theory about a real-life child that has not only lost her life tragically but also been made into a media spectacle and now this book does even mention that?! How is that not disrespectful? I just cannot fathom the balls to do that. Can't. Nope. Billy Jacobs: married to Krissy; learned he was not the biological father of the twins from Dave/Luke on the night January died in 1994

Billy then intends to kill Margot when he realizes she knows he killed January. What really happened to January Jacobs in All Good People Here?There is also a theory about a heated sibling dispute possibly involving a flashlight and some pineapple. This has clearly been inspired by and based on a real-life crime including a child (!), so we are not going to even mention that and basically create a theory about that and profit off of it and not even disclose it. Is this history repeating itself again? And is the "author" getting away with it again? Doesn't sit right with me. While it’s most likely intended to leave readers hanging for more, I also felt that it reflects our expectations of stories, especially those about crime. We look for a neat ending, for the bad guy to be brought to justice and for our heroes to persevere, unharmed. But that’s not how reality works, very few things are this simple. And while we get to know what happened to January, we don’t get the satisfaction of wrapping up Margot’s story with a neat little bow.