Nightmare in Wichita

Nightmare in Wichita
The Book
Author(s)	Robert Beattie
Language	English
Genre(s)	True Crime
Publisher	Penguin
Publication date	2005
Published in English	2005
Pages	352 pp (Paperback ed)
ISBN	0451217381

Nightmare in Wichita: The Hunt for the BTK Strangler by lawyer Robert Beattie is a nonfiction book about a serial killer in Wichita, Kansas known as the BTK Strangler. The book debuted at No. 4 on The New York Times bestseller list upon its April 2005 release.^[1]

Dennis Rader, a city compliance officer and church council president working in Park City, just north of Wichita, was ultimately arrested, charged and convicted of the crimes. Beattie, who lives in Wichita, compiled the book based on interviews with police officers and detectives familiar with the case. Rader's capture, on February 25, 2005, happened just as the book was in the final stages of editing. An addendum about Rader and his arrest was added before the book went to press.

Many, including some Wichita police officers, have speculated that the fact that a book about BTK was being written was what caused the killer to reemerge in 2004, which led to his arrest the following year.^{[citation needed]} Beattie researched the book for two years.^[2]

In its review, truTV's "Crime Library" criticized the book for filling up "many, many pages with (the author's) meetings with various individuals that clearly interested Beattie, but are likely to bore readers." But the article also credited the book for including "quite a bit of detail that never got into the newspapers."^[3]

References

1. ^ USA Today, "Wichita braces for media flood when hearing begins for 'BTK' suspect," April 14, 2005
2. ^ The Wichita Eagle, "Robert Beattie's just-released book also says that Dennis Rader applied to be a cop," March 19, 2005
3. ^ truTV, "Crime Library: Nightmare in Wichita."