Murder in the dollhouse The Jennifer Dulos story

Journalist Cohen (The Last Pirate of New York) delivers an engrossing account of the disappearance of a Connecticut woman who was likely killed by her estranged husband. On May 24, 2019, 50-year-old Jennifer Dulos, a wealthy New York City native and niece of fashion designer Liz Claiborne, was in the midst of a vicious divorce from her husband, Fotis Dulos, when she dropped off their five children at their private school in New Canaan, Conn. She was never seen again. Soon, however, police found blood and evidence that someone had tried to clean up blood in Jennifer's garage and car. Investigators were quick to identify several possible motives Fotis may have had, including a contentious custody battle and conflicts over his failing real estate business. Four years after Fotis died by suicide just before he was scheduled to stand trial in 2020, his lover, Michelle Troconis, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Cohen goes deep on each of the central players, painting a painstaking portrait of Jennifer's charmed but lonely life before and after she met Fotis, and compiles enough damning evidence to convince readers that the case is closed even though Dulos's body has never been found. It's a riveting true crime tale. Agent: Todd Shuster, Aevitas Creative Management. (May)

A story of calculated, premeditated violence shaded by its relationship to a precariously idyllic world of wealth. Jennifer Farber Dulos' disappearance and probable murder (no body has been found) at the hands of her husband in May 2019 captured headlines and rocked the suburban Connecticut town where she lived. Cohen reported on the murder and the ensuing trials of Fotis Dulos and his paramour in a series forAir Mail. In this book, he compiles and supplements his reportage to dive even deeper into the story of Jennifer and her Turkish-born Greek husband--"a schemer, climber, and possible psychopath." In snipped sentences of tight prose with the suspenseful pacing of a thriller, the author mines everything from court documents to conversations with school friends to examine the Dulos marriage and its decline from every angle. He builds portraits of the main actors and the world in which they moved with breathtakingly exhaustive detail, reaching into their childhoods, the interplay of Jennifer's family wealth and history with their respective dreams, ambitions, and insecurities and the disintegration of their relationship even before the terror turned physical. Cohen says he became "fixated" on the story because of its proximity and familiarity to his own and suggests that fascination with the case might stem from a sense of commonality when violence permeates insulated worlds of wealth and privilege. The bodyguards, expensive court orders, and time-consuming drama of the Dulos divorce are hardly "quotidian" to most people, but the failures of these protections terrifyingly emphasize the insurmountable threat of a determined killer. In the end, perhaps the most tragic devastation comes from the way her persistent "childhood dream of perfect matrimony"--considered shallow by some and fiercely defended by her--was hijacked by its pursuit. A scintillating, chillingly compulsive, utterly heartbreaking read. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.