I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure what happened on the night of February 3, 2003 in Phil Spector’s castle-like home in Alhambra, CA.  But we do know he has since been convicted of second degree murder for the death of Lana Clarkson that occurred that night, and will most likely be in prison for the rest of his life.  The book Reckless by Carlton Smith purports to shed some light on the event, but may leave you wanting to know more (if you wanted to know any of it to start with).

In Reckless the author initially provides a brief (3-1/2 page) overview of what happened at Phil’s home that fateful night.  Then he delves into the history of the greater Los Angeles as a center of pop culture. From here Smith briefly describes how the death of Lana Clarkson was reported in the media and the reaction to her death in the entertainment community.  The book started out OK but seemed to go off the rails soon thereafter. That was when Smith spent nearly the next 200 pages of Reckless describing Phil Spector’s life – from birth – and all through his salad days of the 1960s-1970 and up to the early 2000s.

One thing that became clear in that Spector had a very troubled life, almost from day one. He was raised in The Bronx, NY in a dysfunctional family. His father committed suicide and that facts surrounding his death were swept under the carpet. A few years later his family moved to southern California, where Phil did not fit in at all with the trendy students in the area. He had few friends and few talents. Eventually Phil drifted into the music business and discovered he did have some talent there, and he eventually became a music producer for some of the biggest names in the business, including the Beatles.

The author provides a much briefer overview of Lana Clarkson’s life. She was a California native who worked very hard at developing an acting career. Although she has some successes, she never broke into the ‘top tier’ of the film industry (her most famous role was in the film ‘’Barbarian Queen’’).  She had some personal setbacks as well and gradually drifted into the restaurant/nightclub industry, where she eventually met Spector at The House of Blues.

It’s only in the last 60 pages of this 343 page book does the author really delve into the crime that occurred at Spector’s home.  He explains how associates and supporters of Spector spread false information about the victim. Clarkson’s death was reported as ‘not inconsistent with suicide’, to raise doubts about her mental stability. Lana was denigrated by some print media as being a struggling B-film actress whose career was on its last legs.  Eventually the author gets to details of the night she died, but none of the information seemed particularly earth shattering. You could probably find it all doing a quick Google search.

Overall I though Reckless was a below average true crime book.  The author spent way too much time discussing Spector’s early life (and all his successes and failures), and not very much time actually investigating the case. There are about a dozen black and white photos included, but most are mediocre in quality.  So while I did learn a little bit about the death of Lana Clarkson in this book, I cannot recommend it because the author spent most of the book talking about events in Spector’s life that were unrelated to the case.

Recommended: No