Never Leave Me: A True Story of Marriage, Deception, and Brutal Murder

by John Glatt

Book Overview

In a quiet community of million dollar homes and shiny SUVs, the Nyce family projected the very image of success. Dr. Jonathan Nyce, an asthma sufferer, had achieved medical breakthroughs that made... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312934270
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.6" x 1.0" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

The Controlling Husband and His Mail-Order Wife

John Nyce's marriage was built on bad pretenses. He didn't do well in relationships, so he signed up for a matchmaking service that paired (mostly older) American men with Filipino women. He pursued a 20-year-old, lied about his age, and took advantage of her lack of experience. You can say that his younger wife was after his money, but that's not fair. The bottom line is that he took advantage of her being foreign and uneducated. He also took advantage of her parents, buying their trust with expensive gifts. He lied to friends and family about how they met, concocting stories about how he "tripped over her" on a beach in Hawaii. Close friends were always suspicious; if he bought her parents a duck farm as a gift, they obviously weren't affluent. So how could they have afforded to send her on vacation to Hawaii? Dr. Nyce was clearly ashamed of how he "met" his wife. The "Miss Saigon" phenomena, where the submissive Asian woman meets an American serviceman, is over. Most Asian women who marry White Americans meet their spouses in college or at work. A man who wants an Asian woman doesn't have to look very far. But no woman wants to marry an older, unattractive man unless she needs to for money. You'd have to worry about a man who has to go overseas to find a wife.

Mailorder bride/Murder

This book is the story about a brilliant and successful scientist.He wasn't as successful in love.The book did a great job explaining the complicated lives of Dr.Nyce and Michelle his wife.Without giving too much away,I came to sympathize with the both of them.Michelle deserves more sympathy because she was murdered.I afforded some sympathy toward Dr.Nyce because he was betrayed by the woman he loved.The biggest victims are the three children who no longer have their mother.They will forever have to live with the knowledge that their father murdered their mother.

With Razor Sharp Insight and Detailed Examination

In "Never Leave Me", John Glatt portrays with razor sharp insight and detailed examination, just how a family which seems so ideal and attractive on the outside, can so painfully unravel. Glatt's masterful attention to detail and frank writing style give the reader an opportunity to understand "real" people like Jonathan and Michelle Nyce and the series of events that culminate towards Michelle's violent end. A talented writer of many true crime books, Glatt sets the scene in a way that there is little surprise at the end result of such a horrific crime. Hence, the lines between empathy and voyeurism are blurred, which makes reading a true crime book so fascinating. I would love to see a director like Clint Eastwood adapt one of John Glatt's books to film.

A well-written objective view of the case

Unlike a few other reviewers I found this to be a very well written and balanced account of an interesting case. I, too, live in the area and I had no problems following the action at all, nor did I find, as a previous reviewer stated, that the author confused events and places. At the time of the case I had a lot of sympathy for Dr. Nyce, although I never for a minute bought his story that he "accidentally" pulled his wife a little too hard out of her car as she drove back from her rendezvous with her lover and her head sort of accidentally got smashed over and over again on the concrete floor. However, after reading the story I am much less sympathetic. If he had told the truth and shown remorse, then the short sentence would have been appropriate. As it is, he is sticking to his story that his 100 pound wife upon arriving home in her car "tried to kill him" by lunging at him (for no imaginable reason) with an (unidentified) sharp object and he pulled her out of the car to save himself thereby "accidentally" killing her. He then staged an elaborate cover-up so that he "wouldn't have to tell my children that their mother tried to kill me." He has told numerous lies throughout his life that were uncovered in the trial. And he is sitting in jail continuing to tell this story and to convince his children exactly what he said he DIDN'T supposedly want to tell them, namely that their mother (whose head he pounded into a pulp) "tried to kill him." And he will be out of jail in just a few years. I only hope his children have an opportunity someday to read this book. By the way, one unanswered question that I do fault the author for never raising is why the Nyce's were married in a civil ceremony. He repeatedly makes a big point about what big Catholics Jonathan Nyce's parents were, yet their son marries a poor Fillipino (presumably Catholic) woman that he's only known for a few days in a civil ceremony. Why would her parents permit this? It can only be because they knew that it would take a year or more to qualify for a Catholic ceremony and their daughter's big American mail-order catch might well disappear in that time. As far as I can tell in the book, the children were never baptized or raised in the church. Again -- why did neither set of "devout" Catholic grandparents say anything? I can only assume that neither the parents nor in-laws of a man who appeared to be raking in millions were about to criticize him in any way. His parents are still sticking by him as he is "persecuted" by the police.

A Great Read

I am an avid reader of True Crime and eagerly awaited John Glatt's new book, having read about the Jonathan Nyce case in the New York Times. It is one of the most complex and baffling crime stories ever and I want to congratulate Glatt on a job well done. I was most impressed by his investigative skills and the high quality of his writing. The book really comes to life during Glatt's coverage of the trial and as a reader he transported me into the courtroom. I would recommend "Never Leave Me" to all fans of True Crime and it is right there at the top of the genre.