An uneven but well-documented mix of forensic science, narrative nonfiction and criminal psychology.
Important developments in 19th-century forensics and criminal justice are interwoven with the killing spree of French serial killer Joseph Vasher.
Starr (Journalism/Boston Univ.; Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce, 1998) ushers readers into a French society in which criminals were not only becoming more violent but also more sophisticated. Meanwhile, the criminal-justice system was hampered by outmoded methods of investigation, dated autopsy procedures and often inappropriate dispensation of justice. The author situates his studies where forensic science and criminal-justice theory began to catch up with increasingly frequent and complicated 20th-century crimes. Then entering the picture are forensic scientists Alexandre Lacassagne and Cesare Lombroso. Lacassagne believed that criminals were shaped by sociological factors, while Lombroso insisted that crime was caused primarily by biological factors—criminals were “born,” not made. Intertwined with the intermittently compelling story of these scientists’ achievements is the more gripping account of “Killer of Little Shepherds” Vasher’s murderous rampage outside Lyon, France. Vasher was an honorably discharged sergeant who also happened to be a homicidal maniac. After a short stay in two different asylums, he was released, and the “cured” Vasher embarked on a series of gruesome murders that surpassed even Jack the Rippers’ in quantity and brutality. Although Starr’s heavy immersion into forensics and investigative procedure makes interesting reading for CSI fans, his focus too often meanders—from autopsies to “root” causes of crime to, finally, an inconclusive look at the sticky business of separating “insane” murderers from “sane” ones. Ironically, the evidence leading to Vasher’s capture and murder conviction had little to do with the forensic advances of either Lombroso or Lacassagne. Through a particularly cagey mode of psychological trickery, private investigator Emile Fourquet finally elicited a murder confession from the long-elusive killer.
An uneven but well-documented mix of forensic science, narrative nonfiction and criminal psychology.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-307-26619-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
An acerbic period sketch and a readable tale of pure Gothic horror straight from the heartland of America.
The ghoulish saga of Dr. H.H. Holmes, the dapper devil who established himself as America's first serial killer 100 years ago.
Schechter (American Literature and Culture/Queens College, CUNY; Deranged) offers a disjointed opening before settling into his tale. He begins with a dramatic depiction of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. He then writes of a New Hampshire boy named Herman who is 11 years in 1871; Herman has a penchant for skinning and deboning live animals. The next time we see him, it is under the alias of Dr. H.H. Holmes, venturing into the Chicago suburb of Englewood to weasel a profitable drugstore from its dying patron and his overworked wife. Holmes then constructs a three-story castle containing such delights as a greased shaft that ends in a dark cellar filled with vats of chemical corrosives; this labyrinthine chamber of horrors becomes one of his murder devices. Under investigation by the government for financial irregularities, Holmes sets fire to the castle, flees Chicago, and launches a series of insurance scams. He murders his oafish assistant, Benjamin Pitezel, and forces one of Pitezel's four threadbare children to identify her father's decayed body so that he can collect a $10,000 life insurance policy. Eventually Holmes is discovered and several decomposed bodies are exhumed from under the remains of the castle. In custody, Holmes confesses bluntly, "I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.'' With a total of 27 victims, Holmes was tried (the case became a public sensation). After his conviction for Pitezel's murder, Holmes confessed to 26 other killings—some for insurance money, some out of sexual jealousy, others for fear the victims would give him away. Rather than psychoanalyzing his psychotic subject, Schechter sticks firmly to the gory narrative of his crimes, in which the description of the murderous castle stands as a spectacular centerpiece.
An acerbic period sketch and a readable tale of pure Gothic horror straight from the heartland of America.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-73216-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
This exacting book adds a cogent historical investigation to the relatively few intelligent books about the father of all serial killers. Sensationalistic distortion and overimaginative theorizing have been part of this anonymous criminal's history since the first contemporaneous tabloid stories on the Whitechapel murders and continue in the inquiries of modern ``Ripperologists.'' For example, the letter signed ``Yours truly, Jack the Ripper'' that christened the legend was probably a journalist's headline-grabbing forgery, perpetuated in more hoax letters from the Ripper-crazed public. British historian Sugden corrects such myths and errors with donnish competitiveness, spending only a little time dispatching the more bizarre hypotheses (such as the recent Ripper diary hoax, the fanciful implication of the royal family in the murders, and the innumerable post-Victorian pseudo-suspects). Avoiding the penny-dreadful archives of Ripperology, he diligently approaches the voluminous police work and forensic evidence on the ``canonical'' four victims, all prostitutes, and an equal number of possible ones. Drawing on previous research and his own, he reexamines the eyewitnesses' testimony, inquest reports, newspaper accounts, and police leads (and red herrings). Although the material is still compelling and timely after a century, Sugden's sometimes sluggish prose and narrative do not bring to life the panicked atmosphere of the East End or the tensions within the police department. In the end, though many inconsistencies are swept away and many ambiguities left warily intact, Sugden produces an approximate modus operandi around which a convincing psychological profile can be constructed. His examination of suspects exonerates previous favorites, such as Michael Ostrog, whom Assistant Chief Constable Melville Macnaghten called a ``mad Russian doctor''; but with even his preferred suspect, a Polish con man and poisoner, he reaches the verdict ``not proven.'' Sugden's factual treatment of the murders provides a meticulous and reasoned profile for readers and future detectives. (Photos and maps, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1994
ISBN: 0-7867-0124-2
Page Count: 512
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
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