VANITY: Jodi Arias (True Crime Worldwide Book 4)

True crime maestro Lisa Wilson and photojournalist Nick van der Leek are finally back with yet another installment in their bestselling series covering Jodi Arias. How is VANITY different to AUTHENTICITY? VANITY is perhaps the most intimate look into the lives of Jodi and Travis to date. The authors have painstakingly combed through hundreds of new communications, many provided courtesy of Beth Karas, to bring you the reader an inside look at Travis’ life, not told through Jodi, but through Travis’ own words.

In Book 3 of the series, AUTHENTICITY, the importance of one-upmanship for Jodi is emphasized. She must win, she must have the last word, and she must satisfy her ego that she has gained the upper hand. According to Jodi the majority out there is evil, and Jodi is good. Not only is Jodi good, but according to Jodi’s first letter sent from Perryville, prison is damn fine too. In VANITY the authors visit Jodi’s cell and it’s not only clean, she even has pets to play with! It’s a major improvement on her last location. Errr… no Jodi, it’s jail, and your newfound obscurity is getting old fast. Perhaps now at last Jodi has begun to reflect on her transformation: from obscure waitress to killer chameleon.

Going where angels might fear to tread, VANITY ventures boldly into brand new territory. The authors show a side to Travis that has rarely been seen before including detailed discussion about six of Travis’ women.

The narrative also provides the most unambiguous signal from Jodi thus far, for what was brewing inside her, why it was, and how she dealt with it. Why did Jodi become a cunning chameleon? Why, despite her downward spiral was Travis unable to stop sleeping with Jodi? Why was he trying to sleep with so many women? What was driving Travis?

“In order to understand the darkness in ourselves it helps to examine the darkness in others. Jodi’s weaknesses, like it or not, are also our own. We all want a white picket fence, a home to call our own. It’s the how we go about it that is always less certain.”

“Travis had weaknesses too, make no mistake, and our refusal to see or acknowledge those mistakes is a major weakness. I don’t know if it is conceit, or arrogance, but the need to vilify Jodi and canonize Travis speaks volumes of our own schizophrenia, our own fragmented attitude to ourselves.”

The main question the authors interrogate is this: If Jodi’s sin was vanity, then what was Travis’?

VANITY is a cautionary tale, and the warning is clear. Can we master ourselves and our appetites, or are we doomed to lose everything we have?