Internal Combustion is a book with a controversal topic which created a lively discussion. We truly enjoyed talking about Joyce Maynard and her personal life experiences, Judge McDonald who overturned the ruling, the two sons and their personalities and differing opinions of their parents, home depot,Julie Dumbleton, and many other topics that the book deals with.

Joyce Maynard is the author of TO DIE FOR, a book of fiction based on the Pamela Smart case in New Hampshire in which Smart has her teenaged lover murder her husband. In INTERNAL COMBUSTION, Maynard again is interested in a case of a marriage gone so bad that a woman wants her husband dead. Only this time she sticks with the facts, nonfiction, as she saw them over her summer’s-long investigation plus a few shorter trips before and after. And this time the unhappy wife does it herself.

This is partly the story of Nancy Seaman’s murder of her husband, Bob, in 2004; of Seaman’s murder trial; and of the effects of the Seaman marriage and murder on their two sons, Jeff and Greg. They lived in an upper-middle-class Detroit suburb, Farmington Hills, Michigan, and weren’t wanting for material things but were a tragic family nevertheless.

As previously stated, though, that story is only part of the book. More than that is the story of Maynard’s investigation into the lives of Nancy and Bob Seaman, including their childhoods. Along the way, she interviews and gets to know many different people and not only those in Michigan. But she never meets with Nancy, Greg, or Nancy's coworkers. Still, it is through this process that she comes to a decision not about Nancy Seaman’s guilt, which is certain, but whether she was justified, as a "48 Hours" episode had claimed.

Maynard should have stuck with the story of the Seamans, relating fewer incidents that exemplified their horrible marriage. It got tedious. But even all those examples aren’t as bad as going completely off the subject, which Maynard does several times.

At various points, Maynard sticks in her little jabs at Oakland County (where Farmington Hills is) and Farmington Hills for their racism and tells little stories of her trips to the city of Detroit, none of which have anything to do with “THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE AND A MURDER IN THE MOTOR CITY” (the book’s subtitle, which is inaccurate because Farmington Hills is not the motor city.)

I grew up and still live (minus a 20-year-long stay in California) right in the area Maynard speaks of. I even grew up in the same city where her ex-husband did. That’s why I picked up this book. I lived in California at the time this took place and moved back to Michigan around the time the trial ended. So I was unfamiliar with the story other than what I had seen on TV in California.

Although Maynard's impressions of Detroit and area suburbs are interesting, they have nothing to do with the reason I wanted to read the book. So I found it maddening that they were stuck throughout the book, kind of like padding.

Maybe if Maynard had been able to speak with Nancy, her son Greg, and the teachers Nancy worked with, she could have stuck with “THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE AND A MURDER IN” Farmington Hills.