“She felt suddenly very alone, as though the person she married had never existed and she had woken up to a life she didn’t recognize, in the middle of a story she didn’t understand.”

Eighteen years after the release of the true-crime documentary about the murder of 18-year-old Holly Michaels, Samantha was introduced to the world and crimes of Dennis Danson. Before she knew it, Sam was obsessed with Framing the Truth: The Murder of Holly Michaels, the documentary made about the case. She knew Dennis didn’t do it. She just knew it. She spent countless hours on message boards dedicated to finding Holly’s real killer, diving deeper and deeper into the world of Dennis Danson. One day, Sam decided to write to Dennis, and to her surprise, a few weeks later she received a response from THE Dennis Danson. And so, as they say, the story began.

Soon after Sam and Dennis started their letter writing campaign, Sam flew to Florida from her home in England to meet him in person. With the help of Carrie, Framing the Truth‘s director who was in the midst of filming a follow-up documentary, Sam began a through-the-plexiglass relationship with the convicted murderer. It was everything she ever wanted and he was the man she was meant to be with. So, when Dennis proposed, Sam accepted without hesitation. They were married in the prison, separated by the ever-present plexiglass, with the new documentary’s crew around as witnesses. As the new documentary, A Boy From Red River, continued to take shape, the crew discovered some previously untested evidence and managed to successfully get Dennis’s conviction overturned, releasing him back into the free world.

Soon after Dennis’s release from prison, Sam started questioning her decision to leave her life behind for this man who, when she was honest with herself, she didn’t really know. After a few months of living the TV-interview high life, Dennis’s father passed away, leaving Dennis and Sam with the responsibility of cleaning out his house in the backwoods of Florida. But as time went on, Sam knew that something was just not right. Could Dennis have hurt that girl? And the others that went missing before Holly died? There’s no way — is there?

The Innocent Wife was a fun read. The story was compelling, especially in today’s world of constant true-crime exposure a la Making a Murderer. It explores the concept of what would happen if the person we championed for almost two decades turned out to not be the man we backed. The end of the story, however, left a little to be desired. There were a bunch of storylines that the author opened the door to, but never ended up going over threshold for. For example, Sam popped Vicodin for a good one-fourth of the book, but in the end it just sort of didn’t matter. Like… way to get my hopes up for some raunchy stuff, lady. There are other, more blatant plot holes, but #spoileralert. Let’s just say, the conclusion was rushed. And a little lackluster, to be honest. But the first 3/4 of the book was two-thumbs way up.

My favorite scene: The afternoon after Dennis got released from prison, the documentary’s crew threw a party for him. As he mingled with and met the people who made his exoneration possible, Sam started to realize that maybe she didn’t know what she was doing and maybe she didn’t make the right decision with her life. It was a turning point for Dennis, obviously, but also a turning point in the life that Sam had pictured with her once-obsession and now-husband. Just maybe not the turning point she had hoped it would be.

Grade: ★★★☆☆

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