No Room for Doubt: A True Story of the Reverberations of Murder

by Angela Dove

Book Overview

A daughter's account of how one moment of violence shattered lives, made heroes, and continues to affect change in the world. On March 25, 1988, Debi Whitlock was brutally murdered in her Modesto,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425225887
• ISBN13: 9780425225882
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Berkley
• Length: 367 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 1.0" x 5.4"

Customer Reviews

i read a lot of true crime books...

and the vast majority are very poorly written, terrible grammar, full of cliches and exclamation points, etc... This book reads like a novel and builds up suspense as you really do not know who the killer might turn out be until 3/4 into the book, at least. I always skip the photos when reading true crime until I have finished just in case there are any spoilers, which usually isn't the case as the killer is identified early on...but glad i stuck to my routine here, as it would have ruined the book. As far as the crime, it is an especially heartbreaking one and the author details the effects not only on the family but on the town as well. Very compelling read.

True crime, true courage and a little bit more

Angela Dove's account of the murder of her step-mother and the eight-year search for the killer is compelling. The author's father was the chief suspect in the court of public opinion, though the police cleared him of tangible suspicion early on. The victim's mother,shy about public speaking, became an outspoken champion for discovery of her daughter's killer and, in the process, a nationally recognized victim's advocate. Dove's telling maintains suspense right up to the final revelation, and despite her almost too close relationship to the characters in the drama, she lays out the failings as well as successes of her family and near-family. This is a story about the author's own coming of age, a daughter-father love-hate dance, persistence and trust and doubt. Altogether a fine read.

Thought-provoking

I usually judge a book or a movie by how long I'm still thinking about it after I've read or seen it. This one had me thinking for days! I felt as if I were in the room with the characters on every page.

Compelling glimpse into paradoxical human behavior

Book Review NO ROOM FOR DOUBT By Angela Dove Berkley Books trade paperback, 2009 Reviewed by: Kathryn Magendie Angela Dove's debut book NO ROOM FOR DOUBT is a true story of how "one violent moment can changes lives--forever." If one expected Dove's first book to be a humorous jaunt, one would be mistaken, even though Dove has been writing humor columns for six years. Yet, when Jacque MacDonald asked Dove to write the story of her daughter's murder and the hunt for her murderer, Dove took on this task knowing that what she may find could forever alter the relationship she has with her family, most particularly with her Father, Harold Whitlock. Although Dove's book, on the surface, may center on Debi's mother, the "butterfly effect" on family and friends cannot be ignored. I found that my interest focused on Dove and her father (who is a suspect in his wife's murder). The father-daughter relationship that had been strong before the murder begins to fall apart as Harold's other side is revealed to his daughter--a side Dove is not happy to know, one in which she struggles to compare with the man who has always been her hero. There is the revealing of the events of the crime, and finally, its criminal, but as well, there is the revealing of a man who has lost control of the world in which he needs to feel control over. Yet one cannot ignore the ferocious determination in which Jacque single-mindedly focuses on finding the evil one who murdered her daughter. And, though suspicion is placed upon Debi's husband Harold, Jacque is convinced someone else committed this crime. She will not stop until the killer is found, and indeed, she is still tirelessly working as an advocate for victims. Excluding the Introduction, the beginning pages of the book set up the events that occur hours before Debi's death, up to when Harold finds his wife lying in the hallway with her throat slashed open, her naked body posed, her face covered. Harold has been at a bachelor's party. There are questions about when he left the bar, where he was between bar and his mistress (and here Dove finds out just one of the secrets of her father previously unknown to her), how much time lapses that he cannot account for. His erratic behavior when the authorities arrive further pushes Harold into a negative spotlight. The reader wonders: did he do it? When Jacque first learns of her daughter's murder, she takes to her bed, unable to focus on anything but what her daughter's last hours were, how afraid she must have been, and who could have done this to a woman everyone loved? But as her anger surfaces and takes hold, Jacque finds a core of strength, a determination to find out who took her beautiful girl from her, and from her now motherless granddaughter. As the book progresses, the "crime drama" recedes and in intersecting chapters Dove gives readers glimpses into her and her father's relationship, both past and as revealed. There is poignancy to Dove's writing in these chapters,

A Great Read

I read this book almost non-stop over the last two days; it is hard to put down. It is also hard to categorize. Taken at face value, it is the meticulously researched and skillfully told true story of the vicious murder of a young mother (Dove's own stepmother), a suspenseful, real life "whodunit," set in Central California in the late 1980's. But it is much more than that: It is also a touching memoir of the author's coming of age as a bookish, withdrawn child of divorce, trying repeatedly to have a closer father-daughter relationship. It is the story of that father's agonizing attempts to cope with his own personal demons: three failed marriages, chronic depression, anger, guilt and alcoholism. But first and foremost it is the inspiring story of the courage, love and perseverance of Jacque MacDonald, the murdered woman's mother, who never gave up her personal, nine-year crusade to find her daughter's killer and bring him to justice. Angela Dove, who was the last person to see the victim alive the night she was brutally killed, was asked by Mrs. MacDonald to write the story of the murder and how it finally empowered her not only to solve the case but also to turn her own tragic loss into a means of reaching out and helping other families of victims all over the US and even abroad. In 2007, Mrs. MacDonald received the National Crime Victims' Service Award from the U.S. Attorney General.