A true tale of murder most foul in Regency London in which James' mystery-writing witchery is joined with Critchley's police history know-how. In December, 1811, seven members of two households were bludgeoned to death in the dock area of east London. The murders of Timothy Marr, his wife, 3(apple)-month-old baby and shopboy in Marr's Ratcliffe Highway drapery shop and second-floor lodgings sent a shockwave throughout England. Murder was rare at the time, especially within the sanctity of respect-able homes, and the death of an innocent babe raised specters of maniacal fiends stalking the blameless and unwary. The later massacre of John Williamson, his wife and female servant in their public house near Ratcliffe Highway fed rumors of a Popish Plot and impelled a terrified citizenry to arm themselves. Local authorities (there was no Metropolitan Police force at the time) had no idea how to proceed with a murder investigation. Rewards were posted, which netted droves of "suspects" fingered simply because they were Irish, foreign-born, had acted peculiarly, or had gotten bloodied in brawls. One of these was a good-looking, somewhat dandyish, sailor named John Williams, who had been drinking at Williamson's pub the night of the murder and who, when he returned to the nearby Pear Tree public house, had asked the man whose room he shared to blow out the candle (presumably to hide his bloody clothes). When it was learned that the maul (a ship carpenter's mallet) used in the Marr murders came from a tool chest stored at the Pear Tree, Williams became the prime suspect. While the authorities were assembling more (and mostly unconvincing) circumstantial evidence, Williams hanged himself in his solitary cell. After sifting through the available evidence, James and Critchley conclude that Williams was probably innocent; and, if guilty, had operated with an accomplice. They weigh the evidence against other more likely suspects and even consider the possibility of an innocent Williams being strangled, then hanged, by prison authorities. In this way, a besieged government could declare the case closed (sound familiar?) and a terrified and outraged populace could once more rest easy. This one's a winning combination: a spellbinding mystery replete with authentic historical minutiae, and a brooding, teeming early-19th-century locale.
Pub Date: March 25, 1986
ISBN: 0446679216
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1986
Grippingly written, compellingly told, Mean Justice makes other tales on the miscarriage of justice look like pleasant little fairy tales. In the legal world crafted by the founders of the Constitution, a series of checks and balances exist to ensure that innocent people don’t go to jail. The crater-size cracks in the criminal justice system today, however, are disturbingly clear in this page-turner by Pulitzer Prize—winning journalist Humes (No Matter How Loud I Shout, 1996; Mississippi Mud, 1994; etc.). Patrick Dunn is a retired school principal whose wife, Sandy, mysteriously disappears during one of her regular predawn walks. Although Dunn reports her missing, he becomes the prime suspect—indeed, the only suspect—based almost solely on a gut feeling by one of his closest friends, a younger woman who as an appointed official in Bakersfield, Calif., has the clout and stick-to-it-iveness to push the local police and district attorney’s office to go after Dunn. Not that they need much prodding. As Hume so carefully chronicles, this is a suburban town that already has a well-documented history of convicting innocent people and, worst of all, making these crimes stick for years. Bakersfield, after all, was one of America’s prosecutorial hot spots in seeking out supposed child molestation rings in the 1980s. Humes displays his award-winning style here as he lays out both Dunn’s sad tale—he is ultimately convicted with virtually no evidence pointing to him as the killer—and the background that so chillingly puts Dunn’s story into perspective. Especially distressing is Humes’s research indicating that cases such as Dunn’s are occurring with increasing frequency. Dunn, meanwhile, remains in jail. An eye-popping tale of justice miscarried that will shock anyone who believes our criminal justice system still works just fine.
Pub Date: Feb. 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-83174-0
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
Wecht, a forensic pathologist and lawyer (Cause of Death, 1993), provides disappointingly little insight into some sensational trials and tragedies of recent years. Wecht is often called in as an expert when local coroners have trouble establishing a cause of death or when attorneys need a fresh take on the record of an autopsy. But rather than concentrate on the interpretive abilities that have made him professionally so well known, Wecht includes a curious amount of padding here and even, in one chapter, offers transcripts of television interviews he gave on a case. Equally disappointing is his approach to some of the famous cases on which he's been consulted. Wecht provides page after page of gelatinous information about the Simpson case, including much rehashing of familiar material; along the way, he shares his personal beliefs about the Holocaust and offers an apologia for Johnny Cochran's use of bodyguards supplied by the Nation of Islam. As for forensic insight, he states two ``startling truths'': O.J. may have done it, and the police may have planted evidence. As for the deaths of David Koresh and his followers in Waco, the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton by Chicago police in 1969, the mysterious death of White House counsel Vincent Foster (it was, Wecht decides, a suicide), and the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Kentucky in 1977, in which over one hundred people died—the author's takes frequently seem terse or incomplete, rough drafts for a memoir rather than detailed records of investigations or explanations of forensic science. He concludes with a curiously indecisive take on the so-called ``alien autopsy'' film screened on television last year. A sloppy, dissatisfying work from an author who has done better. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1996
ISBN: 0-525-93974-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
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