Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave

That being said, the book has some major flaws. My biggest problems with the book are:
- The author's prose gets a little too purply in places, and it almost seems like her imagination starts running away with her story. There's no way she could have known some of the things she talks about as fact, or even have heard those things from the friends of the deceased. In a fiction book based on actual events, that's fine; but this is presented as a nonfiction account, and it is not.
- The author makes some glaring errors, some of which have been pointed out in other reviews. One that comes to mind is when she talks about a local arcade as being a favorite hangout for Mandi and her friends, then later says the arcade didn't open until after Mandi was killed. An editor should have caught this, if not the author herself. In a work of nonfiction, when details like this are incorrect, you wonder what other details in the book are erroneous.
-Throughout the entire book, Stillman blames the Marine Corps for the deaths of Mandi Scott and Rosie Ortega, but in Mandi's case never places any of the blame where I believe it squarely lies - with Mandi's mother, who allowed her 15-year-old daughter to basically run wild. Mandi's mother Debi knew Rosie Ortega associated with Marines she considered dangerous, yet she thought nothing of letting her daughter spend the night at Rosie's apartment and run around with her friends seemingly unchecked. Stillman takes a pitying view towards Debi and her feelings of self-blame, but in my eyes Debi doesn't blame herself enough. There are predatory men everywhere, not just in Twentynine Palms, but that's why children have parents - to set limits and protect children from harm as best they can. In my view, Debi's children didn't have much chance of escaping a violent, marginal life, being raised by a woman who associated with felons, trafficked drugs, and was barely capable of taking care of herself, much less three children. Regardless of how horrible Debi's husbands beat her, she is the one who's responsible for the poor choices she made in life, although Stillman seems to want to blame the Marine Corps and the desert itself for the bad choices made by women in Mandi's family - there's very little support for personal responsibility of any kind in the book, unless Stillman is talking about the murderer's lack of remorse. It's telling that one of Mandi's friends, who wished to go find Mandi the night before the murders, was prevented from doing so by her mother and escaped harm. I don't mean to blame the victims, because Valentine Underwood, as the murderer, is the one to blame for these horrendous crimes, but if both Mandi and Rosie had been a little more careful about who they associated with, they might still be alive today.

As for the unflattering portraits of Victorville and Twentynine Palms, all I can say is that it's not surprising to me town residents would get upset about how their towns are portrayed, because Stillman definitely doesn't pull any punches when it comes to portraying how desolate and depressing the towns can be. Anyone who has ever lived in a small town knows how entrenched and blind to reality the so called "city fathers" and town boosters can be when it comes to their town. I am sure the towns portrayed in the book have their good qualities, and there are times when Stillman gets very condescending about the desert and its residents, as only someone from the outside can do. But I've been in too many towns like Victorville and Twentynine Palms to totally discount her descriptions.

All in all, the book is worth a read, although the way the narrative jumps around is annoying - I think people read stories about crime partially for the suspense element, and in this case you find out Underwood's sentence before the murders even happen. The book definitely could have been edited more competently, with a little less leeway given to Stillman's at times self-indulgent narrative. But the story is compelling and will stay with you long after you put the book down.


Good, but not Great   January 13, 2004
 2 out of 3 found this review helpful

Although I don't live in Twentynine Palms, I do live in San Bernadino County and was a little amused by the statistics that Ms. Stillman cites about "us" because we aren't really like that. I am familiar with the desert and many of the desert towns and their histories, though, and I agree that they do have a sort of mystique that transcends the urban, the suburban, and the midwest.

Some of the reviews and reviewers here have taken offense to the way that their town is characterized and that's understandable. I realize that most people in 29 Palms can't possibly be that dysfunctional or problematic or the place wouldn't even run. However, I think that Ms. Stillman did a masterful job of portraying a certain portion of a desert town, a certain circle of people in a particular way that helps one be able to see them as real individuals with real problems that they have dragged through generations to end up in a place like 29 Palms and endure more uncertainty and more tragedy. And that, to me, is what makes the book worthwhile--it's intimacy.

I, like another reviewer, would have like to have heard more of what Ms Stillman has to say to substantiate her claim that the Marines have continued their "war on American" woman, but despite that flaw, this book is on my true crime classics shelf.


A good read but not a good account   November 27, 2003
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

I first read this book out of interest in this particular murder case. In that aspect I found it disappointing. As I am personally acquainted with some of the investigators and one of the witnesses, I didn't find it to be completely accurate regarding the case; having known so many Marines and Gulf War veterans, I found it's characterizations to be sweeping generalizations; having lived in 29 Palms, I found it to be glarely inaccurate in its portrayal of the area and, yes, offensive.
However, in re-reading this just as a crime story, it makes for a good read. Like those movies you enjoy that are "based on" or "inspired by" a true story, it is much better if you don't really know the true story. Allowing then that this is a fictionalized account, it is well written and at times a real page-turner.


This Is A True Crime Classic   September 6, 2003
 6 out of 8 found this review helpful

I stumbled across this long string of customer reviews, so I started reading them because I read this book when it first came out.

It's difficult to be objective about your own home town or somewhere you lived and know well. But some of the negative comments here are so biased and out of whack, they are unfair to the author of what I, a mere reader with no links to the town of 29 Palms, consider a truly first rate true crime book.

It's one thing to critique a book based on the writing, style and story telling skills of the author, but a different matter entirely when that critique is based on a personal bias which has nothing to do with the actual book, and everything to do with taking exception to the subject matter and someone's perspective.

To me, this ranks right up there with Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" and Emlyn Williams' "Beyond Belief." The very nature of this kind of true crime book is the recreation or reimagining of scenes and dialogue based on facts, newspaper reports, personal interviews with the protagonists, etc.

It's an incredibly effective method as it gives you, the reader, the impression that you're watching events unfold as they occurred.

Stillman is a very skilled practitioner of this hard-to-master art. She is a very evocative writer. As a previous reviewer noted, she has made the desert a living, breathing character in this book, as important to what transpired as the people involved. The town of 29 Palms is another "character" which she evokes masterfully.

As far as the Marines are concerned, I don't see the book as an indictment of Marines. What it does do is highlight institutional problems in the administration of the Marine Corps. which surely come as a surprise to no-one who knows anything about the services or reads the newspaper.

We read all the time about cover ups and the failure of different branches of the services to recognize and deal with internal problems. Just because a writer points them out doesn't mean that she or he is anti- anything. That's what reporters do, and thank goodness for it.

To prospective readers, I would say: Don't be swayed by "reviews" by locals and/or interested parties with an ax to grind. This book is a cracking read, and is as much a fascinating sociological document as it is a work of true crime.