Dangerous Attraction by Robert Scott (May 2003)

What Was The Attraction?
Review by Kim Cantrell

Justin Merriman was a member of the white supremacists gang known as Skin Head Dogs in southern California.

Katrina “Trina” Montgomery, while not a member, frequently partied with the group and dated its members.

When Justin went to prison, Trina began to correspond with him. What initially started out as friendly banter between the two, quickly turned into a raunchy, torrid affair on paper.

Justin believed that Trina would be his girlfriend when he was released, but he was wrong.

He decided that if he couldn’t sway her, he’d just take her.

And when he was done, he killed her to keep her from telling.

But his raping. torturing and terrorizing didn’t end there, and it would take police four years and a great deal of maneuvering to get the evidence to put him on California’s death row; and his mother behind bars for her role in witness and evidence tampering.

Robert Scott’s 2003 book Dangerous Attraction, is quite the misnomer considering that Justin was not attractive and Trina, obviously, had none for him when he was on this side of freedom.

Yet that aside, the first 100 pages of this book are bam-bam-bam with the info, making a gripping page turner; but after that first 100, the remaining 155 just fizzle out with an occasional peak here and there.

Definitely not the best work of Robert Scott, and not even a story that is necessarily book worthy.

Recommendation: skip it.

Updates from this book:

Justin Merriman remains on California’s death row at San Quentin prison.

Ember Merriman Wymannow works for the Ventura Unified School District.

Deputy District Attorney Ron Bamieh eventually left the D.A.’s office and became a founding partner in the Bahieh & Erickson law firm.