Sean Patrick Cooper's debut, The Shooter at Midnight: Murder, Corruption, and a Farming Town Divided, details the murder of Cathy Robertson in rural Missouri in 1990. This murder resulted in the wrongful conviction of Robertson's neighbor, Mark Woodworth, and a nearly 20-year ordeal to see his conviction overturned.
Cooper, a journalist and essayist by trade, writes a detailed account of rural America in the 1980's and early 1990's, how the farm crisis helped sow distrust between families, and how the criminal justice system was broken in determining who murdered Robertson. The book effectively weaves through all these narratives to paint a story of a town that became divided in loyalty between families, how and why the justice system failed both the murder victim and the wrongfully convicted, and how those in positions of power exploited the case to their benefit.
This book has moments where it reads quickly and powerfully; however, in some spaces, the details can be overburdened and stretched out like a piece in the New Yorker (and less a true crime book). To that point, Cooper wrote a longform piece in Atavist detailing Robertson's murder several years prior to this book. That said, The Shooter at Midnight is a very good account of rural America in the 1980's and 1990's and how politics, family drama, and an economic crisis all came together in a case that's still not officially solved.
MY RATING: 4.5
