thanks for ping ES. Had not heard of movie or him/her..
I liked the book a lot. The author, however, does take liberties in the book, as he discloses in the Afterword. From wikipedia:
The book's plot is based on real-life events that occurred in the 1980s and is classified as non-fiction. Because it reads like a novel (and rearranges the sequence of true events in time), it is sometimes referred to as a "non-fiction novel" or "faction", a subgenre popularized by Truman Capote and Norman Mailer. (Booksellers generally feature the title in the "true crime" subsection.)The author also uses pseudonyms for some of the characters in order to protect their privacy.