Wasted: Inside the Robert Chambers–Jennifer Levin Murder

By: Linda Wolfe

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Synopsis: A New York Times Notable Book: Acclaimed true-crime journalist Linda Wolfe delivers a riveting, comprehensive account of the Preppie Murder, a crime that shocked a city and a nation. It was called the Preppie Murder—a killer and a victim who were attractive, smart, privileged teenagers. On an August night in 1986 Jennifer Levin left a Manhattan bar with Robert Chambers. The next morning, her strangled, battered body was found in Central Park. Linda Wolfe, hailed by critic John Leonard as &“one of our best reporters,&” goes beyond the headlines and media hype to re-create a story of privilege and excess, sex and partying—of a teenager whose immigrant mother was determined to make a better life for her son, a petty thief and drug user who&’d been expelled from the best schools. It&’s all here, from the initial police investigation, during which Chambers claimed Levin died accidentally during rough sex, to the media frenzy of the courtroom, where Chambers took an eleventh-hour plea. Wolfe also delivers heartbreaking portraits of Levin&’s grief-stricken father, Chambers&’s in-denial mother, and the women who dated the accused Preppie Killer while he was out on bail. A finalist for the 1990 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, Wasted also powerfully depicts the freewheeling 1980s society that spawned a generation steeped in violence and the fatal impulses that drove Robert Chambers to kill.

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