Latest Review of DECEIT

Nick van der Leek has written a stunning exposition of the actions of Amanda Knox, in particular. It is clear the author has researched his material in great depth, from court documents, newspaper reports, court testimony, DNA evidence and motive. However, none of this gets in the way of the flowing narrative.

The book reads like a psychological thriller, with the perpetrators continuously trying to keep six steps ahead of the cops, like a Spaski- Fisher chess game.

It doesn't help that in Italy, court hearings go on for years and does not end until the final Supreme Court seal of approval. In this case, we know the Italian SC - perplexingly to many - acquitted the two remaining accused, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

However, that does not mean we cannot revisit the crime scene and try to reconstruct, from all the facts known, what really happened and to attempt to guess at the motive.

You may or may not agree with Nick van der Leek all of the time, and critical minds should not, as the case is ever-developing; however, the author's insights into what drives Amanda Knox in particular are astute, perspicacious and logical.

I have my own theory as to what happened, but it doesn't really contradict Van der Leek's view point.

This is a marvellous book, well written, exciting and insightful. Just when you thought you knew all there is to know, the author surprises with a fresh nugget of information or observed behaviour. - Christina Giscombe

ORDER DECEIT HERE NOW!

DARK MATTER COMING SOON!

RESTITUTIO is Oscar Trial eBook #5. So...what's it all about?

The Short Version and the Long Version:

1. Short Description via Juror13:

"This book is not about sheer entertainment.  It's really about reflection, and moving forward. I think anyone who reads this book is going to stop and think about how this ties into their own life."

2. Long Description (via Amazon):

RESTITUTIO was published on 19 September 2014, exactly 7 days after Judge Thokozile Masipa pronounced her controversial verdict; Oscar Pistorius not guilty on the charge of murdering Reeva Steenkamp in his home on Valentine's Day 2013. On the same day RESTITUTIO was published, the South African Police announced the latest crime statistics: 

17 068 people were murdered in South Africa over the past year. That’s 47 people per day; 800 more than the previous year. Reeva Steenkamp, however, will not be counted among those numbers. 

The question RESTITUTIO asks is: 'why not?’ And ‘where to from here’? 
South African freelance photojournalist, Nick van der Leek, and forensic profiler and criminologist, Laurie Pieters-James, have teamed up for the first time to interrogate the subterranea behind the Oscar trial. Additional insights via the popular American analyst Juror13 provide international perspectives to the story. In sum, a trio of analysts means a singular narrative reinforced into an even more powerful, and thoroughly-considered story. 

RESTITUTIO takes the reader on a journey through intellectual rivers and deserts, mountains and storms, until finally a guiding metaphor emerges...and presents us with an Abyss. Whether we float over it or plunge into it depends on how we respond to our own (individual and societal) 'wrongness'. Can we even acknowledge 'Being Wrong'? 

The RESTITUTIO narrative seeks answers on this very central question and then probes an even darker mythos...our prospects for Ernest Becker’s brutal questions on the human condition. Is there an escape from evil for us? And from death (by crime in South Africa, for example)? Is there a way for us to find our way back to real reconciliation and true legitimacy? 

The authors interrogate these questions using the Oscar Trial as a taking-off point. 

Highlights of RESTITUTIO include stories by: 

1. Sonja Raath. The last journalist to interview Reeva Steenkamp, writes candidly about her thoughts, feelings and firsthand experience when she met the couple at the Virgin Active Sports Awards, and her interactions with Reeva afterwards. 

2. Criminologist and analyst for CNN, Laurie Pieters-James. Pieters-James, co-writer of Shattered Lives (the story of Dirk Prinsloo and Advocate Barbie) describes her impressions of Hilton Botha, who she had the opportunity to converse with during the bail hearings, which she attended in person. Pieters-James also provides insight into the (often disturbed) psyches of the fanatic Oscar followers, better known as the Pistorians. 

3. Juror13. Over the past year and a half, South Africans have been in mourning, along with the grieving Steenkamp family. Has justice been done? Disappointment in the spring of 2014 is widespread following the verdict. US-based courtroom analyst and blogger, Juror13 interrogates the grief that societies suffer in the wake of such verdicts. Juror13 also describes her personal experiences of 9/11 and the Newtown Elementary school shooting in Connecticut. How can a nation move forward after such abominations? 

4. Nick van der Leek. The author provides more poignant insights and analysis into the Oscar trial, into its ironies (the victim’s family being less emotional than the accused throughout), but also draws the reader further, far further than REVELATIONS, on a journey to the Existential Abyss...and beyond. 

To order your copy go to this link.

If you don't have a Kindle, read this.
If you don't have a Kindle and need a step-by-step explanation that an eight-year old could follow, read this.
If you have a digital device, have an internet connection and simply need to download the free app, click here.

Early Reviews of RESURRECTION, Book #3 in freelance photojournalist Nick van der Leek's series on the Oscar Pistorius Trial

"By the way, I bought your Oscar Pistorius books – am very interested in that trial. Well …at last some sense to it all. You are on to something. Excellent reads with so much research and so so much thought. I was most impressed. Hope they do well." - JL, Sub-editor

The above comment made by Jani Allan is posted in the comment forum below her 'Letter to Oscar'. It can be verified at this link. 

"The public deserve to read [the Oscar Pistorius Trial eBook series]. Nobody could have done it the way you did.  They're genius. - Maggie Taylor, via Whatsapp

"Holy crap it is awesome!!! You have captured so much of what so many believe and hypothesize about on Twitter. Btw did you know there were a pair of jeans lying outside on the pathway outside the bathroom window (he said he heard what sounded like the window opening?) Your theory of her going to the bathroom to use the phone would fit in with the jeans being thrown out for her escape-. She could pretend she was going downstairs to get something to eat and then make a run for it. 

Your theory is great and makes perfect sense.

The bursary idea is great and there are many people out there who would love to see that happen and help it come to reality. I will certainly want to be involved in some way. Well done Nick - I don't think it's megalomaniac at all! - Terry Wittwen, via email

Read the opening pages here.