Almost Midnight
By: Michael W. Cuneo
Intro
I chose this book because of many reasons. The first reason why I chose this book is because I love reading about murder stories and watching crime shows. Secondly, this murder happened in the Ozarks and very close to Reeds Spring. So I thought that this would be kind of cool because I knew where most of the places that the author was talking about. Lastly, I thought I would be cool to read about how Reeds Spring was back in the 60's through the 90's.
What my book is about
Darrell Mease all through out grade school was a smart and athletic kid. He had good grades and he was a good christian kid. Now in the 60's Darrell Mease got drafted into the Marine Core and he was shipped off to Vietnam. Once he was in Vietnam he was trained to be a combat engineer and he was attached into the First Marine Air Wing.
Over in Vietnam Darrell saw some pretty gruesome things and started smoking and doing drugs. Once he was done with his tour in Vietnam he was still addicted to smoking and drugs. He came back from Vietnam another man people were saying. Darrell was very shady which was not the way that he used to be.
Ever since Darrell was back in Missouri he was doing anything he could to get his hands and Marijuana. He started to get into things that were very bad. After a while Darrell started to loose money, so in this situation Darrell Mease started to run a Crank operation with a man known as Lloyd Lawrence. After a while Darrell didn't want any business with Lloyd and his crank. But, Lloyd did not like that one bit. So one night Lloyd gave Darrell some bad Crank that made Darrell go crazy and Darrell was in very bad shape but Darrell got out of Missouri to get away from Lloyd.
Darrell was out of Missouri for about five months, and in all that time Lloyd was looking for him. Now Darrell had a plan and that plan was to kill Lloyd so Lloyd wouldn't mess with him anymore.
So Darrell got back in Missouri and killed Lloyd, Lloyd's wife and his grandson. The murder scene was very gruesome and it was hard for some police men to look at the scene. It looked like Darrell did some overkill. A couple days after the triple homicide they arrested Darrell Mease. In 1990 Darrell Mease was sentenced to death and this changed Darrell because he asked god for forgiveness and he said that god has forgiven him and that god is his lawyer. Now since Darrell Mease had said that it made quite a commotion and in the long run the Pope at that time insisted that Darrell should be given life with no parole. And this happened, so Darrell was not put to death.
My Opinion
I would recommend this book to a friend if that friend like crime and reading about homicides. I would also recommend this book because it keeps you on your toes. Also this book makes you think about things like if you think the murderer actually did and if you think he or she should get a different punishment than what he or she actually deserves.
In conclusion, overall I think that this book was a fairly good book. My first reason is because it keeps you on your toes. Secondly, I like reading and watching this about crime, so this book was an interest to me. Lastly, I liked it because it took place in the Ozarks and near Reeds Spring. So that is why I chose this book.