“For nearly two weeks the Singer-Swapps — a family of fundamentalist Mormons — barricaded themselves in their cabin and, armed with an arsenal of handguns, ri­fles, and sawed-off shotguns, held off an army of county deputies and federal agents. On the 13th day, the standoff erupted into a gun battle that left one officer dead.”

“I could not really grasp the fact that this woman, who could be such a perceptive and enjoyable companion, might have lived without shelter and food. She had known something frightening, something that was not civilized.”

“Adam Berwid was the living converse of a Kesey nightmare: a criminally insane man whom the system was not reluctant, but anxious, to release.”

Dorothy Stratten was the focus of the dreams and ambitions of three men. One killed her.

“It would be no exaggeration to call the ’80s the decade of Crime as Entertain­ment. An epoch where fascination with ‘reality’ permeated every nook and crev­ice of television.”