Jane Howatt’s true-crime memoir JIGSAW & JANE: Thirteen Years of Murder and Mayhem with Badge Number One delivers exactly what the title promises: an intimate oddball tale of the thirteen-year writing partnership between Jane Howatt, a Camarillo “doctor’s wife” with dreams of becoming a writer, and John “Jigsaw” St. John, the LAPD’s legendary homicide detective and self-described “crusty old fart with a badge.” Part true-crime chronicle, part offbeat memoir, Howatt’s book is the literary equivalent of a buddy cop movie—a frank, funny, and poignant recounting of her adventures with St. John as they collaborated on a book about his most famous case: the saga of the notorious 1980s serial killer Bill Bonin, a.k.a. “The Freeway Killer.”
Howatt pulls no punches in depicting the gruesome particulars of Bonin’s crimes (“Grabbs’ body had over seventy stab wounds and multiple defense wounds. The corpse was almost drained of blood,” she writes of one particularly chilling murder). She also describes her own initial naiveté about becoming a writer of true crime: “Now that I’d bared my soul to Mr. Broom Closet, I wasn’t sure I could even write a kids’ sports book.” But JIGSAW & JANE is, above all else, a wonderfully humane and empathetic portrait of an unlikely friendship between two very different people—a homicide detective with limited patience for an aspiring writer’s “glass castle” sensibilities, and a tennis-playing housewife determined to become more than just a “spoiled doctor’s wife” helping a “geezer” write his memoirs.
Howatt’s breezy, conversational prose, peppered with sharply rendered details and witty asides (“Duck Shit and Feathers sounds like a good book title”), vividly evokes both the grim, banter-filled squad rooms of the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division and the manicured lawns and gated communities of suburban Camarillo: “Beer bottles were lined up on shelves, along the sidewalk, and the wall of the parking lot like bowling pins. I caught the unmistakable whiff of male in the foyer: musky and sweaty like a well-worn pair of Levi’s.” St. John emerges as an unforgettable character—gruff and acerbic but fiercely dedicated to justice and the victims of the crimes he investigates. The book is perhaps most effective in charting the growth of Howatt and Jigsaw’s friendship, from an initially combative odd-couple partnership to a deep, familial bond forged by their shared literary mission and battle against St. John’s prostate cancer.
While JIGSAW & JANE occasionally meanders through extraneous subplots and character sketches, Howatt’s wry, empathetic voice and palpable affection for her remarkable friend elevate the book from standard true-crime fare to a moving tale of an extraordinary friendship. By the time St. John receives his cancer diagnosis, readers will be as invested in this unlikely duo’s friendship as they are in the murder mystery at the heart of their book.
Warm, witty, and refreshingly self-deprecating, Jane Howatt’s JIGSAW & JANE: Thirteen Years of Murder and Mayhem with Badge Number One is a true-crime memoir that finds the human heart beating beneath the yellowed police reports and grisly crime scene photos. A must-read for both true crime aficionados and aspiring writers.
~Edward Sung for IndieReader