title: A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder And Its Aftermath
author:  Jeanine Cummins 
description: On the night of April 4, 1991, during a spring-break family vacation to St. Louis, Cummins's 19-year-old brother, Tom, and his two female cousins were attacked while walking on the abandoned Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. During the attack, the girls were raped; afterward, all three were pushed off the bridge by the four assailants. Tom survived; the girls did not. Cummins presents a mesmerizing, highly balanced memoir of the events, writing in the third person to give readers "an intimate knowledge of each facet of the story." She introduces her own family, referring to herself by her childhood nickname, and then does the same for each of the assailants, thoughtfully painting an in-depth portrait of each character without ever passing judgment. Moreover, she takes what could be cold, dry factual information from "court documents, police records, electronic media" and her own interviews and deftly weaves them into a compelling, novel-like account. She explores the family's initial horror over the police holding Tom as a suspect for this crime that made national headlines. (One of the attackers wound up with a 30-year plea; the others are currently on death row.) For someone so closely related to a crime victim to strike such a fine balance in chronicling it is a highly admirable feat. Cummins's noble account will ultimately draw readers into all sides of the story. 8 pages of photos not seen by <I>PW</I>. <BR>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: Copyright ©  2019  Jeanine Cummins
  The right of Jeanine Cummins to be identified as the
  Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance
  with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 19 88.
  First published in the United States by Flatiron Books
  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law,
  this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted,
  in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing
  of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in
  accordance with the terms of licences issued by the
  Copyright Licensing Agency.
  First published as an Ebook in 2020 by Tinder Press
  An imprint of Headline Publishing Group
  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
  to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
  eISBN: 9 78 1 4722 6138 0
  Jacket design by Julianna Lee
  Jacket art: floral tile ©  Akbaly/ Shutterstock.com;
  watercolor ©  oxygen/ Ge