I now know far more about Charles Manson than I ever thought I would. O'Neill's journalistic work is masterful and his persistence in trying to peel back the layers on this story is remarkable. His ability to distill quite a bit of disparate information into a coherent - and very readable - book is equally impressive.

One thing to warm interested readers, O'Neill refrains from making a declarative statement about what exactly happened. He assembles an impressive array of evidence but admits that there is still far more to the story and that much of the knowledge is gate-kept behind uncooperative actors and government protections OR has died out with time. If anything, the reader is left with more questions than answers at the end of Chaos.