Luggage by Kroger: A True Crime Memoir

Gary Taylor
iUniverse (2008)
ISBN 9780595530304
Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (3/09) 

Gary Taylor’s “Luggage by Kroger” recounts a true crime story in which the author was involved in the late 70s and very early 80s. While working as a reporter for one of the main Houston newspapers, Gary met Catherine Mehaffey, a young and attractive attorney, who has been one of the main suspects in the brutal murder of her common-law husband, Dr. George Tedesco. Tedesco had been found dead shortly after Mehaffey started the court proceedings to acquire half of everything he owned. Fully aware of Catherine Mehaffey’s story and the potential implications, Taylor got involved with her and spent four incredibly intense and rather insane months in a weird relationship with a clearly unstable and dangerous woman. While it is obvious from the story that nowadays Taylor realizes that what could have passed for affection, infatuation or even love was Catherine’s truly insane need to possess and control, I could not help but wish he would have figured that out sooner. But then there would have been no story… and what a story it turned out to be!

First things first – Taylor can definitely write. Starting from the intriguing title, the book pulls the reader in and does not let go. Taylor’s writing is rich and powerful, almost brutal at times and always direct. There’s no whitewashing going on – the language is oftentimes graphic and adult, and some of the sex scenes quite explicit. The violence abounds, both direct and implied. The suspense is tangible. All of that is nicely balanced with Taylor’s sense of humor and his ability to laugh at himself – often.

For some strange reason – and one I cannot figure out exactly – I felt detached from the story and I did not get as emotionally involved in it as I would have expected to in the case of a true crime memoir. Part of it might have been the abundance of background stories on the author himself with the minute details of his earlier life, which I found too loosely connected to the main story to be of real interest to me and as such I’d prefer to have the book shortened by a good 100 pages and more condensed. The other part was probably my sheer disbelief in view of all the warning signs that Taylor chose not to really take into account, plunging into great tumult and endangering not only himself, but also all those near and dear to him. It is not that I do not believe that the story really happened – it has been documented enough to be extremely believable, it is more that I’d prefer to think that humans would be able to think just a bit more clearly at all times.

Although Gary Taylor’s “Luggage by Kroger” is a self-published book, it is extremely professionally done. There is no doubt that it was edited, copyedited and proofread. The potential for another great movie is there as well and it would not surprise me to see it on the big screen one of those days. Gary Taylor certainly deserves that.

 

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