Minnesota's Oldest Murder Mystery: A Book Review

This book is so terrible that I am actually unable to get excited about it. It's not even so bad it's good.... it's just bad.

Brueggemann has so many random asides that the book feel is like a rant. For example, he goes into detail about Irish history and the history of Fort Snelling. I can forgive the tangent about the history of the Fort but, both topics have little to do with the murder of John Hays.

I even take issue with the little title of the book. First, it implies that there weren't any murders in Minnesota before that of John Hays in 1839. As I have reported earlier, John Smith was murdered at Fort Snelling in the 1820s. Some might argue that John Smith was technically murdered in what was called "Minnesota Territory" instead of just "Minnesota". Well, I say, "Tomato, tomato; John Smith was killed in Minnesota." And the murder of John Smith is probably not the only murder to happen in the area which we now call "Minnesota." People forget that native tribes have lived on this land for ten thousand years. Within that time, I'm positive that at least one person committed murder.

The second issue I take with the title is that Brueggemann calls it a "mystery." There is no mystery; we know who killed John Hays. In fact, Brueggemann names the killer in the ^%$#ing prologue. Edward Phelan killed John Hays. End of story.

My advise for you all it to skip this book and go read a real mystery, like Nancy Drew.

..........Stay Tuned..........

"Further Reading"? (But really don't do it!)

Minnesota's Oldest Murder Mystery by Gary Brueggemann