On June 20, 2001, Yates drowned her five children, who ranged in age from six months to seven years, then she calmly called her husband and the police and told them to come to her home. This was a murder that shocked people all over the country; how could she do it? Was it the fault of her husband, Rusty? Was it postpartum depression? Was something else to blame? O'Malley covered the case from its inception and provides a fascinating study of Yates and her trial. The story not only covers Yates but also attacks the mental health system where she was misdiagnosed and at one point put into a drug rehab program instead of a treatment center for postpartum depression; the insurance companies that appeared to force Yates out of a treatment facility only days after doctors described her as the "sickest person they had ever seen"; and the defense and prosecution lawyers who missed opportunities to keep this troubled woman out of prison. Becky Ann Baker does a fine job of reading this book, a work that shows Yates was just as much a victim as her children. For all libraries.-Danna Bell-Russel, Library of Congress (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Andrea Yates's horrific murders of her five small children drowning them one by one in their bathtub remains one of the most shocking crimes of recent years. In this overly detailed retelling, investigative journalist O'Malley has transformed herself in the popular current style from observer into participant, albeit with ample justification. O'Malley, who had written for TV's Law and Order, was suspicious when a prosecution witness, attempting to establish that Yates acted with premeditation, testified that the television show had recently aired an episode in which a mother killed her children and then escaped punishment by asserting a postpartum depression defense. Sure enough, no such episode was ever made, and O'Malley led the Yates defense team to rebuttal evidence that came too late to affect the guilty verdict. The author asserts that Yates was never properly diagnosed and relies on psychiatric opinions that claim, tragically, that a different diagnosis and appropriate treatment could have prevented her devastating actions. The writing sometimes jars ("To say this day sucked didn't begin to cover it," O'Malley says of the fatal day), but some new information and heartbreaking extracts from correspondence the author received from Yates add interest. More analysis would have been welcome, even if the nature of the murders seems to necessarily render a satisfactory understanding forever beyond human capacity. (Feb. 2) FYI: O'Malley's reporting on the case appeared in the New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine and on Dateline NBC. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved