The Ride: A Shocking Murder and a Bereaved Father's Journey from Rage to Redemption,   ISBN:9780306816260

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In 1997 a ten-year-old was abducted and murdered close to his Cambridge home - and his father demanded the death penalty for his abductor. Four years later he'd change his mind. "The Ride" chronicles events leading to the murder, the investigation and trial, and how Bob Curley struggled through grief and anger, and devoted himself to activism against predators. An outstanding and dramatic account, "The Ride" will interest any general lending library.

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It was an excellent book. Too much information about the legislature which got boring at times but other than that it was well written and very very sad. I am so glad his father made peace within himself and was able to move forward to some extent.

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I grew up with Bob Curley. Same schools, same streets. Never in a million years would I have imagined this could happen. First,losing a child, then the neverending horror of life, and the political battles that just take over your life, and change it forever.. Bob is a stronger man than I.. could you handle it??

Customer Rating: 

Taking this journey with Bob Curley and his family was very hard to do. The story was, and remains to this day, horrific and extremely sad. I started this book in favor of the death penalty, but by the time I finished,my opinion had changed. I got totally caught up in the seriousness of this "sizzling, hot" topic. I was also left with an understanding of why I changed my mind. Has my anger toward these two evil men dissipated? Absolutely not. This book is staying with me and will forever leave Jeffrey and his family in my heart. I strongly recommend this book to "everyone". The Ride will change you, one way or the other.

Customer Rating: 

The death of a child is a nightmare from which a parent never truly recovers. Much less when the child is a victim of a violent murder, and the family relives the moment not only in nightmares, but also in a courtroom where they must listen to a replay of the grisly details. With the accused in the witness box, face-to-face with the grieving, it's a wonder that more tormented parents don't leap the distance to inflict like violence on the perpetrator. Who at that moment would want to turn the other cheek?

Certainly not Bob Curley, father of ten-year-old Jeffrey, who was murdered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1997 by two young men Jeffrey considered to be his friends.

Boston Globe reporter and editor Brian MacQuarrie recounts the days before the murder and the dozen years following it with a journalist's finely trained eye for detail. Reading of murder is not pleasant, and writing about it can't have been either, but MacQuarrie accomplishes the task with respect and empathy for the Curley family and its continuing grief.

Read the rest of the review in the July issue of the Internet Review of Books.
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