Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth by John Singer Sargent (photo: farm2.staticflickr.com)
Word is out that Norwegian thriller writer Jo Nesbø, who writes a mystery series featuring brilliant and unorthodox Oslo police detective Harry Hole, is developing a crime noir, prose retelling of Macbeth. It’s part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project in which noted writers—including Pulitzer-winner Anne Tyler, noted Canadian author Margaret Atwood, and Man Booker prize-winner Howard Jacobson–are reinventing Shakespeare plays “for modern readers.”
It will be hard for Nesbø to top mystery writer David Hewson and Shakespeare scholar A.J. Hartley’s Macbeth: A Novel, which I have endlessly encouraged my friends and readers to immerse themselves in—especially the initial, audiobook version narrated by Alan Cumming. As a person who has listened to several hundred audio books, I can attest that this is one of the Very Best. You’ll never feel the same about Macbeth or those three witches, hereafter.
By Adrian McKinty (narrated by Gerard Doyle) – In the bleak Belfast spring of 1981, hunger strikers in HM Prison Maze are starting to die. Paramilitaries are setting off bombs and gunfire rakes the streets at night. Police detective Sean Duffy–a rare Catholic in the Royal Ulster Constabulary–is presented with what looks like a “normal” murder case that soon blossoms into the possibility of a serial killer at work, targeting homosexuals. At that time, homosexuality was still illegal in Northern Ireland and not tolerated. In the mix is the apparent suicide of the beautiful ex-wife of one of the hunger strikers. Mysterious mail begins to arrive. The backdrop of violence is persuasively portrayed and hearkens back to real events and people. First of a trilogy (actually, now probably a quartet).
4-28-14 update – New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimates that the number of innocent people on death row is about twice that of previous estimates–or about 120 of the approximately 3,000 people on death row in the United States, as reported by TIME. “Each quest for mathematical clarity only serves to underline the troubling paradox at the heart of the modern death penalty,” says reporter David Von Drehle. “We want the option of execution (every poll confirms this, even as the percentages in favor of capital punishment appear to be trending downward). But we also want certainty.”
The Michigan Innocence Clinic, a project of the U-M Law School, takes on cases of individuals wrongfully convicted in the state’s courts. The Clinic is modeled on Innocence Projects in many other states, with one difference. (Check what’s going on in your state.) It’s the only project in the country that focuses on cases that cannot be solved with DNA evidence.
In most felony convictions, DNA or other biological evidence is simply not available, so investigators must dig for other causes of how a prosecution went awry. Typical flaws in cases are eyewitness misidentification—with the shortcomings of eyewitness testimony repeatedly demonstrated—improper forensic science, false confessions, prosecutorial misconduct, unreliable or coerced police informants, and bad lawyering.
Take as an example the prosecution that sent David Gavitt to prison for 27 years. In 1985, his wife and two young daughters died in an overnight fire at their home, and David was hospitalized with burns and cuts. Police and prosecutors spent their energies attempting to prove a case of arson. Arson science has come a long way in recent decades, and many of the old theories about the burn patterns of fires as they spread have been soundly disproved. The Innocence Clinic brought modern experts into the analysis of Gavitt’s case, which convinced the current county prosecutor to drop the charges and release him from prison. Despite his quarter-century-plus in prison, he was luckier than Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of arson in Corsicana, Texas, for a fire that took the lives of his three tiny daughters. The faulty evidence that convicted Willingham also was refuted by subsequent, more scientific investigators, but the State of Texas refused to reexamine the case and executed him.
The Michigan Innocence Clinic has received some 4,000 applications (each 20 pages long) from inmates, and has a more than a dozen active cases. It has succeeded in exonerating eight prisoners so far. For a case that has previously been unsuccessfully appealed to be re-examined, not only must evidence must be strong, it must fit certain legal requirements. A video shows the kinds of holes in the prosecution that the Clinic uncovers.
According to an article by Alice Rhein in the Spring 2014 Michigan Alumnus magazine, a Clinic staff member is creating a documentary about one of its successful cases. He is attempting to crowdfund it, and so far has raised about a third of the projected $25,000 budget.
If you don’t remember the 1940’s film noir classics Double Indemnity (Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (Lana Turner, John Garfield), you might enjoy the new suspense movie In Secret (trailer) more than I did. All three films share a basic plot line, with the latter based on the Émile Zola novel of obsessive love, Thérèse Raquin.
The new movie stars Elizabeth Olsen, Oscar Isaac, Tom Felton, and Jessica Lange in an affecting performance as a domineering mother-in-law who becomes sympathetic after a stroke leaves her unable to speak a terrible secret. In Secret is a period piece, set in 1860’s France (not only does mum-in-law smell a rat, we get to see them, too!), but the familiar plot made it less fun than it might have been. Rotten Tomatoes rating: 47.
Unbelievably (or rather, not), the Italian Supreme Court this week reinstated the murder conviction of American Amanda Knox and her Italian former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito for the 2007 murder of Knox’s British flatmate, Meredith Kercher, in Perugia, Italy. Knox and Sollecito’s original conviction was overturned in late 2011. The new verdict comes in spite of an overwhelming lack of evidence of the pair’s guilt and in spite of the conviction of another man for the crime, for whom plenty of evidence was present. His bloody finger and handprints were found all over the apartment and his DNA “inside” Kercher’s body. He has said, variously, that Knox/Sollecito are innocent, that they are guilty, and that he is innocent. He has told fellow inmates that he did the crime.
U.S. journalist Nina Burleigh’sThe Fatal Gift of Beauty provides an excellent rundown of the facts of the case, including some of the reasons behind the Italian media and public’s apparent eagerness that “Foxy Knoxy” be found guilty. The compelling insights of former FBI man, Steve Moore, in his “Mind the Gap” blog post provide some understanding of why the Kercher family has likewise maintained its vehement insistence on Knox/Sollecito’s guilt.
After the murder, Knox was subjected to repeated lengthy interrogations and, though treated as a suspect, no lawyer was provided her. Her Italian was not good, and the “translators” assigned to her was actually working with the police and were, Burleigh says, “inclined—at least after the arrest—to put a certain spin on her voluminous writings in English.”
The interrogations went on for hours and, according to Knox’s description, involved many of the intimidation techniques—techniques known to produce false confessions—described in a December 9 New Yorker article by Douglas Starr. “The interrogator’s refusal to listen to a suspect’s denials creates feelings of hopelessness,” Starr wrote, “which are compounded by [fake information] and lies about the evidence.” A session of all-night questioning produced Amanda’s description of a “vision” in which Meredith was murdered, but which she soon recanted, blaming her statement on exhaustion and confusion
Up until this most recent phase of the legal wrangling, the prosecution was handled by a poster-man for Italian jurisprudence gone off the rails, Giuliano Mignini, whose erratic logic was amply documented in Douglas Preston’s book, The Monster of Florence. Preston has said the case against Knox is “based on lies, superstition, and crazy conspiracy theories.”
This case has been interesting on so many counts. I read Preston’s book as I was starting to write Witness, a suspense novel set in Rome that involves a number of crimes, and a sense of the way Italian jurisprudence works was essential. Along the way, I also received help from several experts in Italian law in order to clarify the powerful role the pubblico ministero (Mignini) plays in an Italian courtroom.
The case is a tale with many confusing elements—Amanda’s changing story, which is one of the chief marks against her, the mistakes in securing evidence from the crime scene, the conflicting interpretations of the DNA evidence, the clash of cultures when privileged foreign students indulge their freedoms far from home, oblivious to their conservative environment.
The story has fascinating characters, irredeemable tragedy at many levels, and the ability to evoke partisanship for or against out of proportion to the definite facts of the case. Every court proceeding seems to muddy the water further. While Amanda believes the truth is out there and wants people to find it, I’m not sure it will ever come to light, although in a U.S.-based extradition hearing, it might.
By Eleanor Catton – Narrated by Mark Meadows – 29 hours, 14 minutes — When will I learn I can read faster than I can listen? This book was an interesting choice for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, as its style is so “unmodern” and seemingly born of the era it describes: the 1866 New Zealand gold fields. Catton expertly weaves together the stories of a half-dozen principal characters and at least a dozen more half-principal (or half-principled) ones trying to unravel the mystery behind a series of local events–a disappearance, a possible attempted suicide, and the death of a drunkard with a fortune in gold hidden in his cabin. At first the story is a deliberate muddle, but as the seemingly disconnected actions of this multitude of characters is brought to light, the reader assembles a gigantic, delightful literary jigsaw. Mark Meadows does an amazing job developing a unique voice for each character and delivering the reading with pizazz. But it’s a lot to keep track of. Much as I admire his reading, I recommend the print version. (1/25)
“Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners” – by Alexandre Cabanel
“The Poisoner’s Handbook”—a perfect TV show for mystery writers–initially seemed an odd choice for one of PBS’s fine American Experience documentaries a few weeks back. It was based on the book by Deborah Blum, who appears among the show’s interviewees. About the book, Kirkus said, “Caviar for true crime fans and science buffs alike.” And so was the documentary, which you can watch here and which begins:
In 1922, 101 New Yorkers hanged themselves, 444 died in car accidents, 20 were crushed in elevators. There were 237 fatal shootings, and 34 stabbings. And that year, 997 New Yorkers died of poisoning.
Not all those deaths were intentional, it turns out. Ninety years ago, life was full of poisoning hazards at work and at home. You may remember the below-stairs tour of cleaning products, rat poisons, polishes, and “remedies” in the great home in the movie Gosford Park, all of which looked mighty suspicious when the master was murdered.
A major cause of death was carbon monoxide, an odorless, tasteless gas that got into the air thanks to leaky stoves and the piping for gaslights. Even today, when houses are shut up tight for winter, we still hear about deaths from malfunctioning space heaters or, difficult to believe though it is, charcoal grills people roll in to heat up the house. (In 2011, five members of a Long Island family were hospitalized when the 43-year-old mom actually did this.)
Poisonings are so much rarer today, the PBS program explained, because in 1917 New York City hired Dr. Charles Norris to be the city’s (and the nation’s) first chief medical examiner. Norris, born into a wealthy family, was one of those larger-than-life characters who create their own weather. Norris, in turn, hired Alexander Gettler to head the City’s first toxicology laboratory. Gettler and his staff built the field of toxicology from scratch, and he and Norris created modern forensic science. CSI fans are grateful.
Gettler soon realized that he and his staff had to conduct definitive studies of the way different poisons killed, their symptoms in various concentrations, and how they could be detected. Murder by poison, which had been difficult to diagnose in many cases, especially if it wasn’t suspected, became less and less feasible.
In 2011, I read The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy by Adrienne Mayor, a finalist for the nonfiction National Book Award in 2009. During his lifetime (120-63 BCE), Mithradates Eupator fought some of the most famous Roman generals, mostly successfully. At the height of his career, he governed 22 nations around the Black Sea and could speak all of their languages. He was an infamous poisoner. He believed his mother murdered his father by poison, and, to protect himself, he learned as much as he could about them.
One protection he engaged in was to take small doses of certain poisons every day to build up his tolerance. (Anyone familiar with Dorothy L. Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey mystery Strong Poison is familiar with this strategy.) As a result, when Mithradates’ enemies at one point gave him a lethal dose of something, it had no effect, which didn’t hurt his reputation for invincibility. In the region where Mithradates ruled, there was a body of water made poisonous by a deadly plant. Many ducks lived there and fed on the plant, unharmed. Mithradates prepared a great banquet for his enemies, featuring—you guessed it—those self-same ducks, and, by morning, his guests were all dead. He also developed a “universal antidote” to poison, still of scholarly interest. When the Romans finally captured Mithradates, he tried to commit suicide by poison, but his protection worked too well, and he was ultimately stabbed to death.
Gardeners may have noticed the King’s name is familiar: Eupatorium is a genus of flowering plant with several hundred species, including (and in my garden) Joe-Pye Weed. One of its species is, of course, poisonous to humans.
Circling back to American Experience, the underlying message might be that, much as Americans complain about “government regulations,” in the 1920’s before the Food and Drug Administration took dangerous patent medicines off the drug store shelves, before there was a Consumer Product Safety Commission, and before the workplace safety rules that protect people like the poor young women who worked as radium dial-painters and died horribly of jaw and bone cancer, everyday life was full of deadly hazards, and mystery writers had one more handy tool in their store of potential mayhem-makers.
By Sherry Joyce – Very interesting to read the first romantic suspense novel from a new author and see her struggle with the same kinds of issues that I do. How to plant clues, how to keep the plot moving logically and organically, creating 3-dimensional characters. She picked an interesting setting, and creates a believable sense of place. Some first-timer rough patches, but congratulations to her for finishing (how many novels languish, half-written, in the bottom drawers of people’s desks?) and getting into print! (1/5)
The mystery genre has retained its popularity over the years. Whether a classic “whodunit,” a cozy, a police procedural, or some new hybrid of mystery/suspense plus fantasy, sci-fi or horror, crime fiction still draws a strong audience of readers.
Surveyed for Library Journal’s annual round-up of trends in the mystery genre, more than half of the 232 librarians polled say mysteries are the most popular book genre they offer, as measured by circulation, shelf-space—accounting for almost a quarter of their print fiction materials—and e-collections, making up more than 20% of libraries’ ebooks.
While e-collections are growing (and most publishers have finally agreed to sell ebooks to libraries now), which e-mysteries they buy depends heavily on patron demand and costs. Ebook purchases are now about 6% of libraries’ acquisitions budgets, up from 1% three years ago.
“E-books aren’t the future of mystery, they’re the present,” said Soho Press publisher Bronwen Hruska. They accounted for two-thirds of the sales of the Soho Crime imprint in 2012 and half or more of sales by another mystery publisher, Minotaur. Sisters in Crime’s recent interviews with publishers revealed that while e-books are “the fastest growth sector for publishing revenues,” the effect on income—publishers’ or authors’—is not yet clear.
Amazon’s heavy promotion of low price-point books for the Kindle through various deals and free offerings has helped even a few new writers achieve electronic sales that outsell print. An example is when Leonard Rosen’s debut thriller, All Cry Chaos, was picked as a Kindle Book of the Day and sold 7,000 electronic copies and 4,000 print.
Presumably, it helps to write a good book, too. But quality—good or bad—isn’t a guarantee of sales numbers when so many books are free or $.99.
Paris in the 19th and early 20th century was in creative ferment and in love with modernism—and the scandalous. In areas like Montmarte, “people went to abandon their inhibitions”; low-rent neighborhoods attracted people on the brittle edge of society; guillotinings were held at odd hours in the vain hope of reducing the crowds of spectators; crime stories were insanely popular; and real-life criminals and anarchists were hailed as heroes.
The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection, by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler describes this world and the ongoing war between the criminals and the Sureté detectives intent on stopping them. They anchor their story with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa and loop backward from there to trace the increasingly scientific methods used to identify malefactors. One of the most successful was a system of measuring and classifying facial and other physical features created by Alphonse Bertillon. By 1900, detectives throughout Europe and the United States used “bertillonage” to identify criminals until the system was replaced by fingerprinting. A reference to Bertillon even appears in The Hound of the Baskervilles, as a rival to Sherlock Holmes.
History, in its tendency to repeat itself, is reviving Bertillon’s concept as biometrics; in today’s incarnation, computers much more accurately measure facial data points. The Mona Lisa was recovered in 1913, and the Hooblers present several plausible “who, how, and why” scenarios, but it’s clear that if the man who possessed it hadn’t turned it over to art experts in Florence, the skills of the detectives of a hundred years ago would never have found it!
Genealogical footnote: When the Mona Lisa went missing, the authorities stopped all ships leaving France and notified destination ports of ships recently departed. When the German liner Kaiser Wilhelm II steamed into New York harbor some days later, U.S. authorities searched the ship and passengers thoroughly. The Kaiser Wilhelm II was the boat on which my grandfather emigrated from Hungary in October 1906. Alfred Stieglitz’s famous photograph below, The Steerage, suggests what his voyage would have been like.
June 2013 Update: a remarkable show of drawings and prints by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec appears this summer at the Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, and is one of the first museum’s outside Europe to host this large collection. The show includes some recently found print of famous works that have retained their color–looking as fresh now as they were when pulled from the presses 120 years ago! Lautrec captured the world of Montmartre the Hooblers describe–the singers and dancers, the whores, the denizens of the bars and cafes–to a greater degree than most artists would, because he was as attentive to depicting members of the audience as the was a black-gloved chanteuse. If you can’t visit in person (exhibit available until September 1), you can read about it here.
Unbelievably (or rather, not), the Italian Supreme Court this week 
