Similar Transactions: A True Story

Teenager Michelle Anderson disappears and the police detective carelessly writes her off as a runaway. Twenty years later S. R. Reynolds connects the dots and finds herself caught up in a real-life drama. Justice can come in many forms.

When the girl went missing in 1987, Reynolds, then a clinical social worker, warned the DA and police that the case was being mishandled. Michelle's classmates and her mother were unanimous in saying she had no reason to run away.

A decade later, after having moved from Knoxville, Tennessee to another state, Reynolds learns from a cold case TV show that Michelle’s skeletal remains had been found two years after she went missing.

Through a coincidental meet-up with her former professor, famed forensic anthropologist Dr. William (Bill) Bass, who had been interviewed on the TV program and who is the founder of the University of Tennessee's Body Farm, Reynolds's curiosity suddenly becomes a commitment when Bass offers to send her his files. It begins a saga in which she travels extensively to seek out and meet with surviving victims, the murdered girl’s mother, and former police and FBI investigators who worked on the case after the girl’s remains had been found.

As Reynolds presses neglected pieces of the puzzle into place, she unearths a string of brutal kidnappings and rapes across the South, crimes that span decades. Patterns appear and all evidence points to one man: convicted sex offender Larry Lee Smith. But Larry Lee is about to be released from a Georgia prison where he is serving time for a related crime—a similar transaction. We find that prison means nothing more to Larry Lee than waiting until he can repeat his actions.

During the seven years of pursuing this case, Reynolds joins with the victims and the mother to form The Band of Sisters to seek Justice for Michelle. As a result, the police department reopens the long cold-case. A savvy prosecutor enters the scene as they join together in this true life saga.

Similar Transactions is the recipient of the eLit Gold Award for True Crime, IAN True Crime Book of the Year, and is among the top five books named The Best of Everything Nonfiction by author, critic, and screenwriter Emilio Corsetti III.