"Every so often a true story comes along whose meaning extends far beyond the perimeters of its own time and place. In recent memory, Thomas Kenneally's Schindler's List was one such story. Michael D'Orso's Like Judgment Day is another. As a novelist might, D'Orso paints an intimate portrait of this proud town, gives voice to those who would perish in it. It is a painful, carefully rendered, deeply moving account of this country's silent holocaust against people of color. It should be required reading for all those who would call themselves Americans."
--The Boston Globe

"Extraordinary...D'Orso's book is graced with the sure touch of a natural storyteller, the discipline of an investigative reporter, and the word craft of a novelist."
--The Los Angeles Times

"Riveting, fascinating, utterly extraordinary. Adeptly juggling a large cast, D'Orso sustains the reader's interest throughout. He manages to keep us amazed at every step in a process that might have stumbled at any one of its numerous hurdles. Would that other such gifted writers tackle the thorny history of racial and sexual minorities and the justice system."
--The Washington Post

"The author keeps track of a huge cast of characters and delineates each one with the insight of a serious novelist."
--The New Yorker

"Magnificent,four out of four stars. Michael D'Orso is a natural-born storyteller with a sure feel for the foibles of human nature. He doesn't varnish his characters, and in the process, he makes the reader care deeply about them."
--The Detroit Free Press

"D'Orso's brisk narrative presents a story both shameful and triumphant. With a novelist's eye for detail and personality, D'Orso recreates the drama and the quiet dignity of gentle people who had lived for decades with poverty and one painful, suppressed memory."
--The Atlanta Journal/Constitution

"Absorbing, eerie, no-holds barred. A powerful record of one of the most grievous chapters in Florida history."
--The Miami Herald

"Riveting, the tension of a Hitchcock movie."
--The Seattle Times

"Scrupulously researched, astonishingly complete, a gripping drama."
--The Houston Chronicle

"Exultant, captivating, suspenseful, unsettling. D'Orso's book is more than the story of an isolated massacre beneath the tired cabbage palms and palmettos of Florida's Big Bend; it is the story of a nation struggling to emerge from its own rancorous darkness."
--The Oxford American

"Poignant, meticulously reported. D'Orso has learned the lesson that some of the masters of literary non-fiction --John McPhee, Jane Kramer, and Joan Didion-- have taught. In non-fiction, reality comes not from speculation, not from putting words in the mouths of characters, but rather from a precise structuring of an accumulation of profound research. The role that D'Orso assumes is, to use Dwight McDonald's phrase, that of the recording angel. His work is in the tradition of a Capote."
--The St. Petersburg Times

"Splendid. Like Judgment Day is a classic example of superior nonfiction writing. D'Orso's sure-handed treatment of the fragmented but richly textured material combines the skills of investigative journalist, historian and dramatist."
--Southern Changes

"Part history text, part political thriller and part courtroom drama, Like Judgment Day is as powerful as the shotgun blasts that scattered Rosewood's survivors into hiding and into silence. D'Orso has a sure feel for a South filled with old wrongs and restless ghosts. His writing rings crystal clear."
--The South Carolina State

"D'Orso has tackled what is probably America's thorniest problem --race relations-- and shown us a path from ruin to reconciliation."
--The Arizona Republic

A significant contribution to American history."
-- Publishers Weekly

"Mike D'Orso writes powerfully and poignantly with the best --Styron, Gaines and Morrison-- about our national nightmare, race hatred, and the only way to end it, human redemption."
--Wallace Terry, author of Bloods

"Like Judgment Day is scrupulous reporting that reads like a vivid novel. The Rosewood tragedy speaks to every American, and its survivors' patient struggle for redress forms the real heart of D'Orso's important book. "
--Morris Dees, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center