Wambaugh's darkest nonfiction since The Onion Field: a sleek and steadily gripping chronicle of the rape/murder of two English girls and of the relentless manhunt for the killer, finally nabbed through the nascent technique of genetic fingerprinting. When pretty teen-ager Lynda Mann is found raped/strangled in November 1983 in the quiet English village of Narborough, police from the nearby county seat of Leicester mount a massive investigation. Led by bristly Inspector Derek Pearce, the 150-man murder squad follows up scores of leads, but a year later no probable suspect is in hand and the probe grinds to a halt. In July 1986, however, the killer strikes again—this time raping and strangling teen-ager Dawn Ashworth only a stone's throw from where he murdered Lynda. Moreover, this time the killer is apparently seen—and soon a churlish, slow-witted local boy, a kitchen porter, is confessing, albeit confusedly, to the killings. Meanwhile, however, British scientist Alec Jeffreys has devised a revolutionary new forensics technique whereby each person's unique (except for identical twins) DNA can be mapped into a distinct visual pattern. For the first time ever in a criminal case, Jeffrey's technique is applied, comparing the kitchen porter's blood with semen found on the two dead girls—and the shocker is that the DNA of the samples don't match: the kitchen porter is not the killer. Back to square one, Pearce and his men begin the greatest round-up in British crime annals, testing the DNA of the blood of over 4,000 men: Will the cops' biochemical net haul in the murderous sociopath who surely lurks in Narborough or one of its neighboring towns? A meticulous and suspenseful reconstruction that exchanges the sardonic humor of Wambaugh's recent work (The Secrets of Harry Bright, 1985; Echoes in the Darkness, 1987) for moralistic deep-delving into the suffering of the victims' families, the affectless sociopathy of the killer, and the gritty determination of the cops. A powerful and elegant police procedural.
Pub Date: Feb. 16, 1988
ISBN: 055376330X
Page Count: 428
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1988
IN THE NEWS
A smoothly readable account of the rapid rise and fall of a tough Vietnamese gang in New York City's Chinatown. English (The Westies, 1990) follows the life and criminal career of Tinh Ngo, a Vietnamese teenager who spent two years in Thailand's squalid refugee camps before coming to the US by himself at the age of 13. Like some other young Asian males in this country, he found in a street gang a sense of belonging that he was unable to feel in a series of foster homes and menial jobs. In 1989, at 17, he joined Born to Kill (BTK), a loosely knit but dedicated group of street toughs and petty criminals presided over by 34-year-old David Thai. BTK quickly became known and feared in Chinatown for its daring and violence, if not for the competence of its individual members (in one robbery, a BTK accidentally shot and killed another member). The gang specialized in terrorizing and robbing Asian-owned massage parlors and restaurants, especially those that were hangouts for rival gangs. In August 1989, media and police attention were finally galvanized when, in broad daylight on Canal Street, Lam Trang, 19, gunned down two 15-year-old Flying Dragons who had verbally insulted Thai. As the cops began to investigate his operations, Thai ordered the bombings of police vehicles. The violence reached its peak in 1990, when a young BTK shot up a tea room and killed two members of the Ghost Shadows, who retaliated by murdering Thai's right-hand man and opening fire on the mourners at his funeral. Tinh, arrested for robbery, had become sickened by the killing and aided prosecutors in securing convictions and hefty sentences for Thai and several of his followers. (Tinh is now living under an alias in an undisclosed location.) English's highly competent examination of an ongoing social problem provides an alarming portrait of what he calls ``a brotherhood born of trauma.'' (8 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Jan. 24, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-12238-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
This account of the Cambridge Spy Ring is so knowledgeable and full of insight that it sweeps the competition from the field. Modin has a unique perspective. As a young man in the KGB, from 1944 until 1947, he translated, assessed, and passed on the extraordinary output of the Cambridge Five: Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross. From 1948 to 1951, he was their KGB controller in London. During this time he got to know Burgess, Blunt, and Cairncross well, although he didn't meet either Philby or Maclean until later, in Moscow. What makes this memoir so superior is not just Modin's firsthand knowledge but the modesty and perceptiveness of his analysis. He describes Burgess—often portrayed by others as a drunken, lecherous homosexual—as the real leader of the group, who held it together and was in fact its moral center. Blunt, who later became one of the most famous art historians of his time, had ``an uncanny ability to win the confidence'' of colleagues in British counterintelligence, who spoke to him with appalling candor about their operations. Cairncross was the first agent to notify the Soviet government of the work being done to develop the atomic bomb. But Modin's highest accolades go to Philby, whom he thinks the greatest spy of the century for the thoroughness and accuracy of his information, and to Maclean, whose political intelligence may ultimately have been even more valuable. Modin presents the five as true believers in world revolution who were nevertheless aware, and highly critical, of Soviet imperialism. They remained, Modin says, passionately in love with England. As for himself, Modin is proud of the competence with which he and his spies performed. But time has clearly eroded his respect for ideology: In closing, he describes the Cambridge Five as men who ``chose to follow the greatest illusion of all, which is politics.'' Almost certainly the best book on this subject that we are likely to see.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-374-21698-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
