“In Broad Daylight” examines the question- how will a small community react when they feel the police aren’t protecting them from a local criminal? While the story is compelling, the narrative is bloated with unnecessary repetition and the book could have been half as long and twice as good. If you’re interested in small town true crime however, it might be worth the slog.

There abides a kinship among us farmers that I reckon most civilians cannot fully comprehend. A brotherhood that makes the mafia oath of silence look like a drunken vow made with an Elvis preacher at that multi-level marketing convention you went to back in '89. There's a word in Spanish that translates as a friend that you would kill or die for, but in English we simply call that a farmer. Which is how in a town of 400 no one saw a thing when a local terrorist, whom the media euphemistically labeled a bully, was gunned down in broad daylight with at least 60 witnesses or co-conspirators. In these parts, we simply call that a good old fashioned, behind the woodshed, St. Joe ass kicking. Now, I hope you will excuse me but I need to mosey on down the road a piece and pick up some more buck shot for the impending war with those devils north of the 38th parallel or the demons south of the Mason-Dixon.

A case study in what happens when a sociopath is paired up with an amoral but ridiculously clever lawyer and pitted against a town that is too fearful to protect their own.

McElroy managed to rape underage girls, terrorize witnesses, make his living entirely by robbing poor farmers, literally shoot two men at point blank range, stalk and aim guns at people at will, literally threaten to kill people in public and in full earshot of other residents, and other crimes too numerous to mention. Most of the cops were terrified of him, and every lawsuit against him, until the very last, ended in an acquittal. You will forgive the townsfolk, whoever they are, for what they do when they finally exhaust their options for dealing with him.

R.I.P. Ken McElroy. The world is infinitely better off without you in it.