A Scream on the Water: A True Story of Murder in Salem

by Margaret Press, Joan Noble Pinkham

LURED ONTO A YACHT...
Although Salem, Massachusetts, once echoed with the screams of tortured women, it has long since been a quiet New England fishing village...until one warm summer day, when the peace was shattered by the cries of a young woman meeting a grisly fate.

TRAGICALLY CUT DOWN IN THE PRIME OF LIFE...
Happily married, Martha Brailsford was a lovely, talented young artist with a big heart who agreed to go for a sail with her neighbor Tom Maimoni. Little did she know that beneath his mild-mannered exterior, and behind his tearful tale of losing his wife to cancer, Maimoni was a cunning sociopath and pathological liar who had been married to four different women.

RUTHLESSLY PLUNGED INTO THE SEA...
The truth about Maimoni would surface only after Martha's body-- nude, skeletonized, and with an anchor wrapped around it-- turned up in the traps of a local lobsterman. As tranquil, idyllic Salem reeled from the shocking, sordid discovery, women began to come forward with their own tales of Maimoni's lies and depraved behavior.

Told with chilling detail, A Scream on the Water is the frightening account of a beloved young woman, a sadistic killer, and a violent struggle that ended in death on a dark and lonely Salem night.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

318 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read about a disgusting crime and the creepy, creepy, creepy guy who committed it. The tale is told in small bites, which is good because there's a lot here to absorb. It's one of those books that teaches you something about the world these people live in, the local culture, the local resources and the group personality of Salem, Massachusetts. It's a tribute to old-fashioned shoe-leather police work too. The expert analysis of the killer's personality is going to get a place of honor on my Shrink-Bashing shelf. This one is well worth seeking out.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well written book. I had Thomas Maimoni as an inmate when I worked as a Correction Officer. He was a tall dork. I enjoyed reading of his shame right in front of him. I have his prison I.D. as a book mark.

[Ronnie Cramer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book begins with a Salem, Massachusetts police captain asking a local witch for help in locating a missing person. This she does by puting 'her heavily ringed fingers to her forehead and [taking] a hard look at her mental screen.' Yikes! We had nowhere to go but up from here. The next few pages seemed very familiar and I finally realized that I had read it before as COUNTERPOINT.

[Mj · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a true story and one I remeber well. I was 6 when this happened and Martha was my neighbor. I don't know that I would recommend it becasue it's sad and true, but I read it of course being there and remembering the search for her. If you would like to be informed about what happened it is worth the read.

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book needed grammar editing! The errors were throughout the ebook, and it was a bit distracting. I like true crime and I do recall this well publicized local crime. This book was great to fill in a lot that reporting did not furnish at the time. I knew some of the people in this book, and many of the locations, so the local interest was a plus. Read for book club, and it was a good choice.

[Caroline Loves2Read · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of thoughts on this one. The writing was not the best, but the Marblehead lore was insane and now I will be forever freaked out but children’s island

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being from Boston's North Shore area, I wanted to read this book, as I remember when the crime and trial took place. Overall, I felt the book was well-written. I've seen other reviews criticizing the amount of trial information contained in the book, and the point is a valid one. I, however, did not find this to be a problem, as I felt it wasn't overly dry.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was awful what happened, but this managed to become one of the dullest true crime books I have ever read. I would highly recommend... putting it down.

[GABC · Rating 4 out of 5]

True story printed in 1997, hard to find this one but i managed. Definitely worth reading!

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many interesting things about this book. Real life characters and a real life event. Inside the mind of a narcissist and the kindness of empathetic women. A great book with lots of character studies.
I really enjoyed this book. Very detailed. I loved it as I had two special interests in the book. I lived and worked several years in Boston and my best friend that I met in Oklahoma just happened to be from the exact town where this even happened.

[Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written documentation of the investigation surrounding the disappearance of a young woman in Massachusetts. The author notes that most of the book is factual, with some fiction added to smooth the timeline. It delves into the mind of the perpetrator, so it can be dark. Not a glamorous story.

[Dianne]

Good, read more like a newspaper chronicle than a novel, but it was a telling of true accounts...

[Ronnie Cramer · Rating 2 out of 5]

A long-winded book about a marginally interesting case. The ebook version is loaded with weird typos, which look to be OCR errors.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unless you are a true-crime fan who lives on the North Shore, I would not recommend.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

did not like at all, too much court information, not enough crime story.