Readers Guide for This Book Will Bury Me

Then Things Get Interesting … and Controversial

Six months after Jane’s father’s death, news of the “crime of the century” (not my words) breaks: three college students were murdered in their Idaho home.

George reports through “cop channels” about possible murders at Northern Idaho University in Delphine and the group springs into action, combing social media and working their contacts.

If you’re thinking these murders of Idaho college students sound familiar, they should

The case in This Book Will Bury Me is VERY similar to the 2022 University of Idaho, Moscow murders. VERY! I will run down the similarities I noticed later, but the decision of the author to use so many real details of a truly heart-breaking case that is still working its way through the justice system has upset readers.

In this book, three female college students (Madeleine, Larissa and Anastasia) were murdered in their shared rental house on Queen Lace Avenue.

The Real Crime Network fivesome identifies a few possible suspects. Through social media, Jane learns that one of the victims just broke up with her boyfriend. They release his name on Real Crime Network, creating a media firestorm. But all of the supects have alibis.

Goku, whose skills are in hacking, accesses Delphine police files. The group votes on whether to release them to the public.

George Lightly, who is vehemently opposed, quits the group.

Jane raises the possibility that the killer could have been a woman. She also points out that Madeleine had many more stab wounds than the other victims, suggesting she could have been a primary target.

But then something shocking happens: the killer strikes again

Three members of the University track team are killed at their house on Collegiate Parkway. From here on, these two separate incidents will be referred to as Collegiate Parkway and Queen Lace Avenue.

Because one of the victims is Black and reminds him of his daughter, Lightly wants to rejoin the group.

Lightly is able to get crime scene photos from an old FBI buddy. Upon close examination of the photos, Jane thinks she sees a stray eyelash on one of the victims.

Lightly‘s FBI friend chats with them online. He says the eyelash they found came from a man. And that it matches DNA recovered from a 12-year-old cold case in Oregon: the murder of a 17-year-old high school student named Bridget Howell. Lightly’s friend offers to make them unpaid FBI consultants on the cases.

The group assigns Jane to research Bridget’s case and Jane finds what she thinks is another clue: Bridget’s home had a keyless door lock that had a known hack. So the group decides to head to Idaho in person.

They all meet in person!

Jane arrives at the Airbnb the group is sharing and gets to meet them all in person. Of course she’s very attracted to Peter (Citizen). Is anyone else super-suspicious of Peter??? I am.

The group retraces the last movements of the Queen Lace Avenue victims: a bar, a food truck and then home.

Then the group decides to take a road trip to Oregon, where Bridget lived. Thanks to the help of Lightly’s FBI friend, they are allowed to see Bridget‘s file. She was strangled with a kitchen towel. There’s also a clue: a fragment of a parking permit sticker from the local high school.

The gang heads to Bridget‘s house. Because the keyless lock is still on the door they’re able to get into the house. And what do you know: there’s a naval base right by the house. Guess who was in the navy? Peter Bishop.

The Gang Goes on a Podcast

The Murder Junkie (lolol) podcast invites the cybersleuths to appear on a podcast episode. On the podcast, Jane announces the clue she found: the eyelash at the Collegiate Parkway scene matches DNA at the Bridget Hall murder.

In addition, Jane suggests that the suspect is still in the area and watching the investigation. He’s a highly organized killer who values order and control and might have some kind of a law-enforcement background.

Jane randomly runs into Anastasia “Stacie” Flowers’s mom Laura at the grocery store. She tells Laura that her name is Veronica (!) and Laura invites her over for dinner. Laura shows Jane Stacie’s room and says that she and Madeleine were attached at the hip. Stacie’s older sister Natalie arrives home with her boyfriend

After dinner, Natalie complains about all the “crime vultures.”

In an aside to the reader, Jane insists that she didn’t secretly record the Flowers family, or sneak into Stacie‘s room and take pictures. Everything Natalie later wrote in her “awful book” (Angels of Death) is a lie!!

Jane Goes Undercover #sororitytok

Jane is a bit dejected that the rest of the group disapproves of her visiting the Flowers. To cheer her up, Peter whisks her off to a dive bar and suggests she attend a recruitment event for the sorority of the Queen Lace Avenue victims.

Meanwhile, a woman named Susan calls the tip line, claiming to know who killed Bridget. There was a boy at school that was bothering Bridget, who thought he took her dog.

At the recruitment event, Jane gives her name is Veronica Sawyer, a reference NO ONE gets. A sorority sister named Rylee tells Jane that the Queen Lace girls were big partiers and troublemakers. Jane also meets “house mom” Lizzie, who gives her a weird vibe.

Gozu and Citizen find a disgruntled criminology student named Odell Rhodes who followed Madeleine and Larissa on social media. 

Jane Undercover Again

As “Veronica,” Jane invites Rylee for coffee. Rylee hasn’t heard of Odell but thinks the victims’ main enemy was house mom Lizzie.  Lizzie loved Harlow, who had to spend a lot of time at the sorority house because she wasn’t getting along with her (bitchy, according to Lizzie) roommates.

Citizen and Goku invite Jane to hang with them and Odell. He’s a creepy guy with thick eyebrows (hmmm) who hates women. Textbook suspect!

Jane studies Lizzie’s social media and learns that she wrote Buffy fan fiction on Live Journal from the point of Faith. Also fan fiction romance between Faith and Harlow. (Wow. Huge Buffy fan and I could write a whole other post about Faith. But will not digress…)

Things Take a Dramatic Turn

Mistress, who has gone to Oregon to try to track down a yearbook so they can identify Bridget’s high school tormentor, messages Jane, suggesting a meeting at the park.

Yes, I suspect that Mistress found a photo of Peter in Bridget’s yearbook! Jane is surprised when Mistress doesn’t show for their meeting, but I am not.

Jane tells Lightly about Lizzie Bath. Lightly says he thinks the Collegiate Parkway crimes could be copycat. Then Peter bursts in and says that they got Odell to confess on tape.

An increasingly worried Jane breaks into Mistress’s bedroom. She also found a timeline of the murder and a note about Citizen/Peter being on leave from the navy.  Next, Jane goes to Peter’s room. She suspects may have been faking his Signal background to make them think he was home when he wasn’t. Lightly catches her in Peter’s room and she shares her suspicions with him.

The police report that they have a suspect: Odell. But people on the forum are skeptical.

Lightly and Jane head to Oregon. Yep, sure enough. Peter Bishop went to Bridget’s school. Jane texts the picture to Susan, the tipline caller, who says he was the guy bothering Bridget. And that she told Mistress this.

George and Jane go to the Oregon police who reveal that Peter Bishop had an alibi: JROTC. Just to check they go to talk to the JROTC instructor But the instructor admits he lied for Peter. 

Jane wonders if Peter committed the second set of murders to get Lightly back in the group.

Things Come to a Head

Lightly and Jane arrive back in Delphine to huge protests. The police and FBI are furious and Brian and Peter are missing. The FBI agrees to search for Mistress.

Jane lays out her shocking theory: Lizzie committed the first murders, but Peter killed Bridget and he (and possibly Goku) killed the Collegiate Park victims.

Lightly and Jane go back to the group’s Airbnb, which is empty. Goku shows up and insists that Peter is missing. The FBI swoops in and arrests George, Goku, and Jane (the scene from the opening chapter). But Peter left a note for Jane telling her where Mistress was.

The address is the Flowers’s house. They find Mistress tied up and dehydrated on an edge of the Flowers’s large property. Mistress says she confronted Peter and he disappeared.

The media and public are outraged over the idea that Peter Bishop is a serial killer who infiltrated the FBI. Peter is on the run, spotted in Colorado. The group now suddenly (!) sees all the signs: control freak, ego issues, obsessed with serial killers. abused by his father. 

This Book Will Bury Me: The Ending Explained

A month later, Jane gets a letter from Peter. He swears he didn’t commit the Queen Lace murders.

Peter says he killed Bridget accidentally because she was going to accuse him of harming her dog (Which I guess he did? And harming a dog is NOT okay. Plus no one ever had a fatal accident with a kitchen towel. Clearly, Peter is scum.)

Just as Jane supected, Peter committed the second set of murders to get the group back together. He leaves her a Heathers quote: “We could have toasted marshmallows together.”

Of course Jane finds this weirdly romantic (JANE!!) When Peter asks her to write him back, she sends him a short message.

Later, Jane learns that Peter Bishop entered an FBI safe house where the police were holding Lizzie Bath. When an FBI agent tries to intervene, Lizzie stabbed him. Bishop then murdered Bath, but Bishop also died from his injuries, as did the agent.

Jane is still certain that Lizzie committed the Queen Lace murders. So we learn that Jane’s reply to Peter’s letter was the address of the FBI safe house where she, George and Goku had been taken after their arrest.

Jane feels like she got justice for both the Delphine girls and Bridget. She was concerned that the police would pin everything on Peter and that Lizzie would get away with what she did.

Jane seemed weirdly convinced that, if placed in the same room, Lizzie and Peter would kill one another.

Does this make sense to you? I’m not sure. I think Lizzie was a more emotionally motivated and impulsive criminal, while Peter was definitely cold and calculating.

Tell me in comments: do you think Jane did get justice?

Controversy over This Book Will Bury Me

There are MANY thrillers and mysteries that draw inspiration from True Crime. I have a list, and one day I will do a post or series of posts on this.

What the readers who are upset seem to object to:

• while many books use True Crime as inspiration, This Book Will Bury Me uses MANY exact details of the case
• the trial of real suspect Brian Kohberger will start five months after the book’s publication

Similarities between This Book Will Bury Me and the Moscow Idaho Murders

• The police were very closed-mouthed about the case initially, which led to much of the early reporting to be on social media
• There were three female victims, two of them blond best friends found in the same bed
• The method of attack (knife) was the same
• The intruder entered through a glass door
• The victims were sorority members
• The night before, the group had gone to a bar, then a food truck, then gone back to their multi-story house and ordered food
• The surviving roommate had seen a figure in a black mask in the house
• The killer left a small amount of DNA behind
• One victim has just broken up with her boyfriend, who was a suspect
• a TA with a criminology background was also a suspect
• One of the victims was attacked more violently, suggesting she was the initial target
• One victim’s family was very outspoken with the media
• The police chief was a man with a snow white goatee and ruddy complexion who got emotional at the initial press conference
• The address of the house on King Street was changed to Queen Lace Avenue
• Family members of the victims want the house destroyed (which it was in the Idaho case)
• Due to intense media interest, the police issue a gag order (in the real case this was issued by the judge assigned to the case and applied to media, lawyers, and witnesses.)

Differences between This Book Will Bury Me and the Moscow Idaho Murders

• There are two different sets of homicides, plus a preceding crime
• All the victims were women, and one was Black
• There were two perpetrators (at least that’s what I think the book suggests)
• The suspect is identified from a direct DNA match between two crime scenes

What do YOU think? Is this book too close to the real case? Tell me in comments!