I especially enjoy true crime books with a local connection, so I knew I needed to get on the wait list for Something Big: The True Story of the Brown’s Chicken Massacre (2025) by Patrick Wohl. This horrific crime occurred in January 1993, in Palatine, a northwestern suburb of Cook County. Seven people working on a snowy Friday evening at a Brown’s Chicken restaurant never made it home after all were murdered during what looked like a robbery gone terribly wrong. Wohl makes a point to not focus too much on the gruesome details, instead focusing on the victims and their families, and the nearly decade-long search for the killers. I was riveted the whole time while reading this story, and I was glad to have a better understanding of this crime that happened when I was a little kid but have never forgotten about.