Sebastian Junger Investigates The Boston Strangler

Opposite the title page of Sebastian Junger's new book, "A Death in Belmont," is a photograph from 1963 of the author, less than 1 year old, sitting on his mother's lap. Behind them are two workmen who had just finished building a studio behind the Junger home, an elderly man with a hammer in his front pocket and Albert DeSalvo, the man who confessed to being the Boston Strangler.

"Al and I are the only people looking directly at the camera," Junger writes, "and whereas I have an infant's expression of puzzled amazement, Al wears an odd smirk. His dark hair is greased up in a pompadour, and he is clean-shaven but unmistakably rough looking, and he has placed across his stomach one enormous, outstretched hand. The hand is visible only because my mother is leaning forward to look at me. The hand is at the exact center of the photograph, as if it were the true subject around which the rest of us have been arranged."

DeSalvo's hands -- and whether or not they killed a neighbor of the Jungers named Bessie Goldberg -- are the true subject of Junger's book, his first on a single subject since "The Perfect Storm." DeSalvo did not confess to Goldberg's murder; an African American named Roy Smith who cleaned her home the day of her murder was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Junger grew up hearing this version: DeSalvo killed Goldberg, and racism led to the wrong man being convicted. The drama was heightened for Junger because the family lore includes a chilling incident. One day while they were alone at the house, DeSalvo tried to lure Junger's mother, Ellen, into the basement. "He had this intense look in his eyes, a strange kind of burning in his eyes, as if he was almost trying to hypnotize me," Ellen recalls.