📚 Book Review: A Rip in Heaven by Jeanine Cummins
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ (3.5/5)
Genre: True Crime / Memoir
Trigger Warnings: Rape, murder, racism, police brutality, false confession, grief, suicide, capital punishment, trauma
🧠 Overview (Spoiler-Free)
A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder and Its Aftermath is Jeanine Cummins’ deeply personal recounting of a horrific crime that tore through her family in 1991. Her cousins, Julie and Robin Kerry, were raped and murdered on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri, while her teenage brother Tom Cummins barely survived the attack—and was then wrongfully treated as the prime suspect.
The book isn’t your standard true crime read. It’s not focused on sensationalizing the killers or unraveling a mystery. Instead, it’s about grief, injustice, and how trauma reshapes a family’s entire world. Cummins chooses to center the victims’ lives and the emotional wreckage left behind.
But here’s the thing: while it’s well-written and clearly well-researched, I had some issues that ultimately impacted my enjoyment and rating.
⚖️ My Thoughts (Mild Spoilers Ahead)
Let’s start with what worked:
This book is undeniably powerful and heartbreaking, and I appreciate Cummins’ effort to honor her cousins rather than focus on the monsters who took their lives. The details are thorough, the emotional insights are raw, and the injustice Tom faced after surviving such a trauma is infuriating and heartbreaking in equal measure.
That said… I had a hard time staying engaged.
Despite being only around 300 pages, it felt like a slow read. The pacing dragged, and I found myself putting the book down more often than usual. The writing style—while vivid and thoughtful—sometimes wandered too much, especially into subplots that didn’t feel as urgent or necessary.
One of my biggest hang-ups?
Cummins often refers to herself in the third person. Instead of saying “I,” she uses her nickname at the time, Tink. Same goes for her family—she says “the family” instead of “my family.” It’s an unusual choice for a memoir. She explains that it’s meant to give a broader viewpoint, but I found it a bit jarring. It kept pulling me out of the story and made me feel a little disconnected from her otherwise strong emotional voice.
Also, a lot of the book is about her brother Tom, which makes sense since he survived and was wrongfully accused—but I wanted to hear more about Julie and Robin, or even some deeper exploration into the men who committed the crimes. Not to excuse them (obviously!), but more context would have helped create a fuller picture of the case and the system.
📖 Full Plot Summary (🚨 Spoiler Alert)
On April 4, 1991, cousins Julie and Robin Kerry and their cousin Tom Cummins snuck out at night to visit the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis. Julie, an aspiring poet, had previously painted a poem on the bridge and wanted to see it again.
While on the bridge, they encountered four young men. At first, the meeting seemed harmless, even friendly—until it turned into a brutal, senseless attack. The men raped Julie and Robin, then threw all three cousins into the Mississippi River. Tom, the only survivor, made it to shore and called for help.
Instead of treating him as a victim, the police treated Tom like a suspect. After hours of interrogation, no medical attention, and no sleep, Tom failed a polygraph test, and police took that as enough to book him for two counts of murder. They lied to him and to his father and twisted his words into what they called a confession.
Eventually, due to a lucky break involving a flashlight left at the crime scene, the police caught Antonio Richardson, one of the four attackers. One by one, the four men were arrested: Richardson, Marlin Gray, Reginald Clemons, and Daniel Winfrey. Winfrey took a plea deal in exchange for testifying against the other three. The rest were convicted and sentenced to death.
But even with the convictions, the trauma didn’t end. The media turned the trials into a circus, painting Richardson as a misunderstood Black teenager, which added insult to the Kerry and Cummins families’ already overwhelming grief.
Eventually, Jeanine’s brother Tom becomes an attorney and finds a way to move forward. The family begins to heal—but they never forget.
✍️ Final Thoughts
This is a raw, personal, and emotional read, and I commend Jeanine Cummins for opening up such a painful chapter of her life. It’s an important story, one that sheds light on the failings of the criminal justice system, racial bias in the media, and the devastating ripple effects of violence.
But for me, the third-person narrative and slow pacing made it less gripping than I expected. I wish the focus had been more balanced between Tom’s experience and the other pieces of the tragedy, including the victims' lives and even a more thoughtful examination of the killers and how they came to commit such an atrocity.
⚖️ Bottom Line:
A Rip in Heaven is worth reading if you’re a fan of true crime that leans into emotional aftermath rather than procedural detail. Just be prepared for a slower pace and a perspective that might not quite match what you expect from a memoir.
🔖 Buy the Book
Grab your copy of A Rip in Heaven on Amazon (affiliate link)
📚 You Might Also Like
If this one intrigued you, you might also enjoy:
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If You Tell by Gregg Olsen – A gripping true crime about survival and sisterhood
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The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich – A memoir meets true crime courtroom drama
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I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara – A riveting investigation into the Golden State Killer
Let me know in the comments—have you read A Rip in Heaven? What did you think of the narrative choice?
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