Yesterday, an email landed in my inbox that made me do a little happy dance 🎉.
BestThrillers.com, the site that named Chained Birds a Finalist in its 2024 Best Thriller contest, has posted its editorial review of The Jacklighter. Their bottom line: “A powerful and compulsive true crime epic that demands a screen adaptation.” 🥹
The reviewer says I “effectively” build scenes around character, behavior, dialogue, and physical detail while letting the legal machinery unfold alongside the suspense. They also singled out the hook that opens the doctor’s ex-wife’s storyline, and they praised the photographs, the glossary of characters (down to the coroner), and the epilogue from my 1997 book proposal. Those extras, the reviewer writes, transcend all expectations for a conventional true crime book. I included them for readers who, like me, want to see the whole dossier.
Then came the note from BestThrillers manager Bella Wright. I don’t think she’d mind me sharing that she called it an amazing book and said she’s tripling down on her hope that I land screen rights. She added that it seems like a no-brainer for Netflix, which leads in true crime limited series. Netflix, if you’re reading this, my inbox is open. 😉
I’m especially happy that this review comes from a site that has supported me since Chained Birds. I’ve also entered The Jacklighter in BestThrillers’ 2026 Best Thriller contest, so fingers crossed.
I’m delighted to share the full review below, which will be posted to the BestThrillers.com website during launch week when The Jacklighter releases Oct. 27, 2026.
Hardcover, paperback, and ebook preorders are live now and will be delivered on launch day 🚀
The Bottom Line: A powerful and compulsive true crime epic that demands a screen adaptation.
Carla Conti’s THE JACKLIGHTER begins in 1976 in Montrose, Pennsylvania, where young attorney Martin “Marty” Dillon leaves town for an afternoon of skeet shooting at his family’s remote hunting camp with Dr. Stephen Scher. The doctor eventually arrives alone at a neighbor’s house, bloodied and shaken, saying Dillon accidentally shot himself.
The explanation might have ended the matter quickly if not for the scene itself: ammunition that does not fit the recreational shooting setup, a suspiciously arranged bootlace, a weapon lacking expected blood evidence, and Scher’s extraordinary decision to smash the shotgun against a tree.
Then Conti delivers the bombshell: investigators learn that Scher has been having an affair with Marty’s wife.
You might be wondering why Conti, whose last book CHAINED BIRDS won multiple awards, has focused on an investigation that began five decades ago. The answer is that three decades after Conti first created a book proposal, the twisty case repeatedly refused to stay closed. What begins as a suspicious death keeps changing shape as old evidence is reexamined, witnesses offer conflicting accounts, long-buried details resurface, and legal outcomes that seem final prove to be anything but.
Conti approaches the case as narrative nonfiction supported by a massive dossier of facts and evidence (bonus detail: the forensic pathologist for the defense was a member of O.J. Simpson’s “Dream Team”). Conti effectively builds scenes around character, behavior, dialogue, physical detail and carefully timed backstory while allowing the legal machinery to unfold alongside character-driven suspense.
Conti repeatedly forces the reader to reconsider what was known, when it was known, and whether the system ever had the full picture. By the time the narrative reaches its later stages, the case has produced enough reversals and withheld information to make the decades themselves fly by.
Along the way, Conti continues to plant hook after hook, not least of which is one that hits like a sucker punch in the early going: “While the two hunters loaded up their weapons and hamburger provisions at Steve’s, Ann Scher, the doctor’s wife, was busy planning her suicide.” With that line, the story of Ann Scher becomes one of the most fascinating and unpredictable components in the book. Again and again, Conti shows how grief, suspicion, memory and self-interest can occupy the same space, while the legal system requires evidence that can survive scrutiny.
Photographs, a glossary of characters (down to the coroner) and a chapter from Conti’s 1997 book proposal transcend all expectations for a conventional true crime book. The book is nothing short of an exceptional experience.
Carla Conti is a journalist and the award-winning author of Chained Birds: A Crimemoir. Her next true crime book, The Jacklighter, is set for release in 2026. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, who supports her true crime habit.
