Facing the Wind is about the murder of a family by their beloved and seemingly stable patriarch. In 1978 Bob Rowe killed his wife, two sons (one who was disabled) and adopted daughter with a baseball bat. He was found to be not-guilty by reason of insanity (some of the best parts of the book deal with the insanity defense and how his lawyers plot their case). This is an incredible true crime book written with the participation of many people who’s lives were touched by the tragedy, including the cooperation of the woman, Colleen, who eventually married Rowe years after he was released from the mental hospital. It is this massive scope that is both what recommends the piece as well as its downfall.
As a reader one is unsure what statement the authors are trying to make, you’re unable to be righteously angry at Rowe, since it is amply evident that he truly was suffering a debilitating mental illness, but at the same time you feel that his successful treatment and life after his family’s monstrous murders is unfair. The fact that he is able to recover, remarry, and have a daughter with his new wife fills you with questions about the lives he took. This book challenges it’s readers to see beyond simple categories of good and evil and confront the humanity within atrocities that is sometimes experienced by both the victim and the perpetrator. I whole-heartedly recommend this book to people interested in true-crime not for it’s sensationalism, but for the truths behind the headlines.
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