Deeply satisfying account of a rotten crime solved by chemical sleuthing.
The expertly told story of a murder and a molecule.
“Two lives, made and destroyed by DNA and by each other,” says British journalist Weinberg (Last of the Pirates, 1995) of the collision between Helena Greenwood, a British chemical pathologist working on various applications of DNA, and David Paul Frediani, the man found guilty of first her sexual assault and then later her murder. (Though the case can be made that Greenwood wasn't destroyed by DNA, but laid to a more peaceful rest by the apprehension of her murderer). Carefully and without melodrama, Weinberg follows Greenwood, Frediani, and their families and acquaintances through their lives, leading up to the sexual assault, Frediani's conviction, and then the murder, for which there was initially no evidence of Frediani's involvement. The author traces the evolution of elements of forensic pathology from fingerprinting to blood typing to the emergence of a spiraling ladder of protein as they replaced the smoking gun as prosecutorial manna. She fluidly handles the science behind the reliability of DNA profiling analysis and explains how inept handling by law enforcement can easily corrupt it. (Indeed, the whole history and mechanics of DNA are intelligibly presented.) Exhaustive trial scenes now and then bog down the story, but this comprehensive detail is critical to understanding the interplay between DNA evidence and all other forms of evidence, as well as the possibility that telltale DNA material may have arrived at the scene of the crime in altogether innocent ways. To help situate the Greenwood case within the history of DNA analysis, Weinberg reviews a number of high-profile DNA cases (O.J. Simpson and a handful of important others) and assesses the role played by archival homicide details both in apprehending criminals and in freeing innocent parties now serving time. But her main focus remains on the fatal Greenwood-Frediani conjunction.
Deeply satisfying account of a rotten crime solved by chemical sleuthing.Pub Date: April 16, 2003
ISBN: 1-4013-5195-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
"There's got to be something wrong with somebody who'd do a thing like that." This is Perry Edward Smith, talking about himself. "Deal me out, baby...I'm a normal." This is Richard Eugene Hickock, talking about himself. They're as sick a pair as Leopold and Loeb and together they killed a mother, a father, a pretty 17-year-old and her brother, none of whom they'd seen before, in cold blood. A couple of days before they had bought a 100 foot rope to garrote them—enough for ten people if necessary. This small pogrom took place in Holcomb, Kansas, a lonesome town on a flat, limitless landscape: a depot, a store, a cafe, two filling stations, 270 inhabitants. The natives refer to it as "out there." It occurred in 1959 and Capote has spent five years, almost all of the time which has since elapsed, in following up this crime which made no sense, had no motive, left few clues—just a footprint and a remembered conversation. Capote's alternating dossier Shifts from the victims, the Clutter family, to the boy who had loved Nancy Clutter, and her best friend, to the neighbors, and to the recently paroled perpetrators: Perry, with a stunted child's legs and a changeling's face, and Dick, who had one squinting eye but a "smile that works." They had been cellmates at the Kansas State Penitentiary where another prisoner had told them about the Clutters—he'd hired out once on Mr. Clutter's farm and thought that Mr. Clutter was perhaps rich. And this is the lead which finally broke the case after Perry and Dick had drifted down to Mexico, back to the midwest, been seen in Kansas City, and were finally picked up in Las Vegas. The last, even more terrible chapters, deal with their confessions, the law man who wanted to see them hanged, back to back, the trial begun in 1960, the post-ponements of the execution, and finally the walk to "The Corner" and Perry's soft-spoken words—"It would be meaningless to apologize for what I did. Even inappropriate. But I do. I apologize." It's a magnificent job—this American tragedy—with the incomparable Capote touches throughout. There may never have been a perfect crime, but if there ever has been a perfect reconstruction of one, surely this must be it.
Pub Date: Jan. 7, 1965
ISBN: 0375507906
Page Count: 343
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1965
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
At times slow-going, but the riveting period detail and dramatic flair eventually render this tale an animated history...
A murder that transfixed the world and the invention that made possible the chase for its perpetrator combine in this fitfully thrilling real-life mystery.
Using the same formula that propelled Devil in the White City (2003), Larson pairs the story of a groundbreaking advance with a pulpy murder drama to limn the sociological particulars of its pre-WWI setting. While White City featured the Chicago World’s Fair and America’s first serial killer, this combines the fascinating case of Dr. Hawley Crippen with the much less gripping tale of Guglielmo Marconi’s invention of radio. (Larson draws out the twin narratives for a long while before showing how they intersect.) Undeniably brilliant, Marconi came to fame at a young age, during a time when scientific discoveries held mass appeal and were demonstrated before awed crowds with circus-like theatricality. Marconi’s radio sets, with their accompanying explosions of light and noise, were tailor-made for such showcases. By the early-20th century, however, the Italian was fighting with rival wireless companies to maintain his competitive edge. The event that would bring his invention back into the limelight was the first great crime story of the century. A mild-mannered doctor from Michigan who had married a tempestuously demanding actress and moved to London, Crippen became the eye of a media storm in 1910 when, after his wife’s “disappearance” (he had buried her body in the basement), he set off with a younger woman on an ocean-liner bound for America. The ship’s captain, who soon discerned the couple’s identity, updated Scotland Yard (and the world) on the ship’s progress—by wireless. The chase that ends this story makes up for some tedious early stretches regarding Marconi’s business struggles.
At times slow-going, but the riveting period detail and dramatic flair eventually render this tale an animated history lesson.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2006
ISBN: 1-4000-8066-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
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