Murder, Secrets, and Scandal in Glitter Ball City: A Dark Room in Old Louisville

Barry Royalty: A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City is a riveting and wonderfully creepy true crime story. But it also serves as a lens through which the reader can peer into the sometimes eccentric culture of the Old Louisville neighborhood and of the city at large -- both past and present.

David Domine paints vivid pictures with his writing. His ability to describe fine details of the scenes in his story made me feel as if he personally took me with him on his journey. I was there alongside him at Dale and Bill's party mingling among the personalities there, almost able to taste the pimento cheese sandwiches and bourbon balls. From my virtual seat in the courtroom, my mood and anxiety levels fluctuated with the ebbs and flows of the trials.

As an intensely curious person in my own right, I prodded him through the spooky floors of the house at 1435 South Fourth Street. I felt the visceral conflict within myself between the yearning to search for answers and the fear of getting caught in the act. And curiosity always wins out -- for better or for worse. To the delight of Domine's readers, it is for the better.

Domine wrote that he wondered if he had what it took to write such a...

United States on Oct 14, 2022

Exeter: If the author hadn't described old Louisville architecture so frequently, this book could have been 50 pp. shorter and, perhaps, read as a true crime novel. There is a gay love triangle (and it certainly doesn't help that the three main characters all have bisyllabic names beginning with J) and a murder, which is not exactly solved. The writing is good as well as imaginative, but the writing and the excessive description distract from the plot. In essence, this novel is an homage, even a love letter, if you will, to Louisville. It seems that every fact that the author knows about the city lies somewhere in the book. Some are wholly irrelevant, as Louisville is the "Town that Tom Cruise Famously Ignores." (Cruise's parents were from Louisville, the actor was born in Syracuse, but never lived in KY.) This novel is, more than anything, all things Louisville, relevant or usually not. The characters, as much as the author may have tried in some cases, do not come to life and are not developed well. If you want to read a true crime novel with highly interesting and quirky characters and a tight plot, read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Its author, John Berendt, knows what he's...

United States on May 17, 2022

Jodie Butler: A heartbreaking true crime tale told in a way that only David Domine can tell it. A diligent researcher, hard worker and an A class Louisville buff, David will transport right into his neighbourhood as usual.

I was lucky to hear a reading of this early on and it has me intrigued since day one! He makes wonderful reading of a heavy subject in his signature style.

United Kingdom on Jan 22, 2022

Steve H: This book is often compared in reviews to "Midnight In the Garden of Good And Evil" and it's right up there with that one. A creepy old house, murder, a corpse buried in the basement, strange relationships and all of it taking place in a city of Southern eccentrics - abbondanza!, as Mama Celeste would say. A good read if you like your nonfiction to have a plot.

United States on Jan 18, 2022

Daniel R. Layman: I have enjoyed this book in both audio and hard-copy formats. The audio narration is so good that it felt almost like live theater, so I have both read the print and listened to the audio versions of this book.

This book is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil updated for the 21st Century, with an equally compelling cast of eccentric characters - gay and straight, high-society and denizens of the street - but occurring in 2010-2014 era Louisville, KY rather than in Midnight In the Garden's 1980s-90s Savannah, GA. A Dark Room tells the tale of the kinky and gruesome 2009 murder of drug dealer and drag performer James Carroll by two 30-something gay male partners, owners of a spooky and infamous old mansion that once housed a creepy sanitorium in the city's Old Louisville historic district. The plot and drama in A Dark Room recalls not only Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but also the 1920s-Flapper-era Chicago saga of Clarence Darrow's defense of Leopold and Loeb for the murder of Bobby Franks.

One of the suspected murderers and gay couple - Joseph Banis - is a Mohawked, hyperkinetic, meth-addled bartender at one of Louisville's popular gay clubs; he's also...

United States on Dec 05, 2021