Summer Wind: Thomas Capano and the Murder of Anne Marie Fahey

The twisted tale of a young woman who said "no" to an obsessive, overbearing boyfriend, The Summer Wind recounts the sad, prematurely shortened life and death of Anne Marie Fahey and the clinically detached attempts by the man who shot her--politically well-connected Delaware lawyer Tom Capano--to wriggle his way out of responsibility for the deed. Anastasia's account begins during the summer of 1996, when Capano enlisted the help of his brother to help dump Fahey's body, stuffed into a large Igloo fisherman's ice chest, off the mid-Atlantic coast. When the chest wouldn't sink, Capano's brother fired into it with his shotgun; although blood spurted from the hole, the chest still refused to sink, so Capano finally tied an anchor to it. Fahey's body was never found, but the ice chest was recovered--which proved to be Capano's undoing. Much of the book is concerned with the fascinating psychological games Capano had used on Fahey during a relationship that spanned several years. Alternately cajoling and threatening her, he emerges as a truly vile character through Anastasia's steady case building. When Fahey turns up missing and is ultimately presumed dead, authorities immediately suspect the Machiavellian Capano, a behind-the-scenes power player of lasting notoriety on the Delaware scene. His attempts to cover up the crime and later to shift the blame to another mistress are shockingly repellent: Capano, it appears, was born without a conscience. An effectively written tale, The Summer Wind is a textbook example of good you-are-there journalism. --Tjames Madison