All-American Murder: The Rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez, the Superstar Whose Life Ended on Murderers' Row

Written by James Patterson, Alex Abramovich and Mike Harvkey

Narrated by Peter Coleman

This New York Times bestselling memoir examines an NFL player's rise and fall from the Patriots to prison, recounting the first-degree murder conviction that led to his untimely death—and shocking posthumous CTE diagnosis.

Aaron Hernandez was a college All-American who became the youngest player in the NFL and later reached the Super Bowl. His every move as a tight end with the New England Patriots played out the headlines, yet he led a secret life—one that ended in a maximum-security prison. What drove him to go so wrong, so fast?

Between the summers of 2012 and 2013, not long after Hernandez made his first Pro Bowl, he was linked to a series of violent incidents culminating in the death of Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player who dated the sister of Hernandez's fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins.

All-American Murder is the first book to investigate Aaron Hernandez's first-degree murder conviction and the mystery of his own shocking and untimely death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Release date: Jan 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781478999034

Reviews for All-American Murder

[purple_pisces22 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pretty good. Not much of a football fan, buy I enjoyed the story and my dad would be proud that I did learn something about football. This was nicely put together as far as being a believable true crime story.

[dara85 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Aaron Hernandez was so talented. He was worth millions playing football, but he was also a drug user, hot head, and a thug, who showed no remorse. What a waste of someone, who could brought joy to those who love football.

[rmarcin-630843 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

After reading this book, I am even more disgusted with football. The coaches, college and professional, cover up for bad behavior. Many of the players are thugs, violent and mean, and they believe themselves to be above the law. Sadly, many people revere them and their behavior. Add drugs and money into the mix and it is a recipe for disaster.
The authors do a good job of laying out all the issues and the problems of the life of Aaron Hernandez. Sadly, this was a young man with a great deal of athletic ability that got involved with drugs and gangs, and liked to go everywhere with guns.

[jeffv_19 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was somewhat aware of the Aaron Hernandez trial, but don't follow sports news all that closely anymore. While this is ostensibly a non-fiction book that tells the rise and fall of a superstar, the narrative includes elements of speculation not proven in the court of law. One might then consider this to be a storyfied account of Hernandez and the people he killed (or presumably killed).

The story itself, despite whatever liberties with the facts, is a good one and well told. I already knew how it ended, so the fascination was in the progression. It was suggested in the story that Hernandez probably suffered brain injury similar to what caused Dave Duerson and Junior Seau to kill themselves. Probably the only thing this story doesn't elaborate on, however, is Hernandez' injury history. The conclusion, therefore, is just more speculation and more of a means to make sense of a life that should have followed a far better script.

[arielfl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a straightforward telling of the tragic story of Aaron Hernandez. Aaron was an extremely gifted athlete who threw away his talent in favor of living the thug life. He had everything going for him and through bad luck, bad choices, and the possible destruction of his brain through repeated hits to his head his life went into a downward spiral of drugs and eventually murder. This book didn't do a great job of developing all of the characters like the best true crime books do. After finishing it I didn't feel like I really knew any any of the people involved. It told the story more like an episode of 20/20 or Dateline. It also showed how we put our sports heroes up on pedestals. Aaron Hernandez got away with so much for so long because he was good at throwing a football. A spotlight was especially thrown on the football culture at the University of Florida. On the surface this was a sad tale of someone who had everything and managed to throw it away. Look deeper however and you see yet another NFL player with brain trauma. Repeated concussions have been shown to alter brain function. Until this issue is properly addressed it may only be a matter of time until another Aaron Hernandez tragedy plays out.

[clue_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This turned out to be different than I thought it would be. I had heard James Patterson interviewed and thought it was going to be about both Aaron Hernandez and CTE. As it turned out, it was 99% about Aaron Hernandez and the lifestyle that brought him to suicide in prison at the age of 27. A well known Boston researcher is quoted as saying the Hernandez brain had more CTE damage than any 27 year old brain he had previously seen and a picture of the brain is included. That's about the extent of scientific information. There is no attempt to connect Hernandez's outrageous behavior to CTE.

Aaron Hernandez was an outstanding football player at an early age. Unfortunately his father died when he was in high school and his mother seems to have been unable to give Aaron the support he needed, she had some pretty big behavior problems herself, and his older brother was in college in Connecticut. Aaron did get support from a group of undesirables that led him to drug use and a disrespect of the law. They continued to influence him through the next ten years of his short life.

The book chronicles Hernandez's experience through college, the NFL and his drug fueled and volatile personal life including trial for 3 murders.

I don't want the book to be true because it comes down to a kid that didn't have the adult guidance he needed as a young adult. At least that's how it seems in Patterson's telling of the "facts."