Publishers Weekly
05/20/2024
Psychologist Brottman (Couple Found Slain) meticulously catalogs the illicit passions roiling beneath a husband’s murder in this enthralling true crime narrative. The Winchesters (Brian and Kathy) and Williamses (Mike and Denise) were tight-knit friends who met at North Florida Christian High School and remained close through college, marriage, and parenthood. In 2000, Mike went missing while duck-hunting in an alligator-infested lake. Rumors flew when Denise collected $1 million in life insurance, but without a body, little could be proven. A few years later, Brian divorced Kathy and married Denise, raising eyebrows among the couple’s social circles. When Brian’s sex addiction and drug use spiraled out of control, Denise filed for divorce in 2015, and Brian snapped, kidnapping her at gunpoint. After he was arrested, authorities cut him a plea deal, and he eventually testified that he and Denise, who had long been lovers, killed Mike and collected his insurance money. Though the case itself doesn’t harbor many surprises, Brottman excels at evoking Denise and Brian’s Southern Christian milieu, and she paces the proceedings with aplomb. Readers won’t be able to look away. Agent: Betsy Lerner, Dunow, Carlson, and Lerner Literary. (July)
From the Publisher
A nonfiction noir that combines propulsive true crime with stylish writing, Brottman’s account of a murder, a love triangle and small-town secrets in Tallahassee, Fla., makes for an unputdownable read. There’s sex, death and money, yes — but also a smart, sensitive examination of a group of people and what happens when lies take over a life.”
—The New York Times
“This story has it all—adultery, obsession, murder, revenge, betrayal—but Brottman doesn’t settle for the superficial. Rather than a whodunit, Guilty Creatures is a compelling psychological double portrait of what happens when two people are forever bound by a life-altering secret.”
—Becky Cooper, bestselling author of We Keep the Dead Close
“So much more than another true crime story, Mikita Brottman’s Guilty Creatures is a psychological thriller as intricately organized as a Hitchcock movie. And, with its high literary values, it stands with classics of the genre like Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song and Capote’s In Cold Blood.”
—Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls' Rising
“An excavation of the luridness and venality underneath a smiling, all-American façade.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Meticulously catalogged... [and paced] with aplomb. Readers won't be able to look away.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Engrossing... [written] with freshness and verve.”
—Shelf Awareness
"[A] compelling... deep dive into human nature.”
—Booklist
“Guilty Creatures could have slinked out of fiction by Flannery O’Connor or Donna Tartt—not to mention James M. Cain—and they come alive in this richly atmospheric, deeply researched, and terrifying true crime book.”
—Betsy Bonner, author of Round Lake and The Book of Atlantis Black
“Propulsive, harrowing, and ironic, Mikita Brottman’s impeccably researched story investigates how, under pressure, morals can twist to justify even the worst actions.”
—Erika Krouse, author of Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation
Kirkus Reviews
2024-04-02
The British American psychoanalyst and true crime author returns with an excavation of the luridness and venality underneath a smiling, all-American façade.
Brottman, author of An Unexplained Death, Thirteen Girls, and The Maximum Security Book Club, narrates the tangled story of two couples: Mike and Denise Williams and Brian and Kathy Winchester. They had been a tightknit group ever since high school, partying together on Saturday nights before going to church on Sunday mornings—until 2000, when Mike disappeared while duck hunting. Just a few years later, Brian divorced Kathy and married Denise. From there, the rumor mill in their community went into overtime. Had they been a couple before the divorce? Were they involved in Mike’s death? Brottman digs deeply into the investigation, which gripped the community and divided loyalties. With the help of a Tallahassee Democrat reporter and pressure from Mike’s mother, the case gathered momentum, and the public watched the murder trials live on YouTube. “It’s commonplace murders, not grotesque or bizarre ones, that hit the public nerve,” writes the author. “The Winchester-Williams case exemplified a kind of thrilling hubris: adulterous Baptist lovers beat a murder rap, collect on the insurance, but can’t escape each other. People love a tale of outrage and scandal; they love to witness the unmaking of those who haven’t practiced what they preach.” Through meticulous research, Brottman reconstructs the backgrounds of the principal players and provides context on the role of Christianity in their lives. Even though we know the ending, the author mostly holds readers’ attention; as the conclusion nears, she ratchets up the tension, unspooling the untimely end of Mike’s life and the desperate lengths to which his friend and wife went to cover it up.
An atmospheric tale that unwraps the wholesome, God-fearing exterior of two lovers to show the rot underneath.
