THE WOMAN IN THE CASE

Strong proof that the weaker sex provides particular interest in murder cases, whether as victim, instrument or accused, is the result of these four studies of English and Scottish trials. Alma Rattenbury was acquitted, but not before she had tried to protect her lover from the charge of murdering her husband; Helen Lambie was the witness who helped to manufacture a case against the suspected killer of her aged employer; Harriet Staunton was the victim of her husband and his family, and the causes of her death aroused such medical concern that the four who conspired against her were reprieved; Madeleine Smith was the enigma whose jury's verdict of ""Not Proven"" neither cleared her of guilt nor established her innocence in the poisoning of her discarded lover. These reconstructions and analyses, arguments on the potency of misconceptions, explorations where doubt exists, are cognizant of the facets of personality of each subject, the drama of forensic conflict, the possible errors of police and courtroom proceedings, and the author, as one man judge and jury, offers telling points. Superior true crime coverage.