A Review of Thomas H. Cook's "Sandrine's Case"

Seldom has a book moved me to tears, but Sandrine's Case did because of the beauty of its prose and its exquisite ending. Do NOT read the ending first!

Professor Sam Madison is on trial for the murder of his wife, Sandrine, who was found dead, naked, in their bed in a posed position. But did he murder his 46-year-old wife, who was also a professor at Coburn College in their small Southern town, or did she commit suicide?

While this book might be called a mystery, it is

actually more of a character study of Sam Madison. It is also the story of a marriage, an institution best understood by the participants and largely judged or misjudged by those on the ouside observing the marriage. This is especially true in the small town of Coburn. At one point his daughter, Alexandria, tries to define marriage. She says, "Maybe that's why married people try so hard to make things work. It's not that they love each other every day, right? It's that they love each other enough to stay through the days they don't." The Madison's marriage and their history are tightly wound around the outcome of Sam's trial.

Through Sam's thoughts and seamlessly perfect prose journeys back and forth in time, we learn the story of Sam and Sandrine's marriage and their history together. Hardly dead in the true sense of that word,

Sandrine is a living presence in Sam's mind and in the story. She was lovely, vivacious, brilliant, utterly dedicated to her students, and kind.  So what had attracted her to Sam Madison, who is so cold that she calls him a sociopath shortly before her death? What are we to think when he begins to suspect that his dead wife has actually put into motion a plan that will frame him and lead to his own execution and his loss of their daughter's love?

Each chapter of the novel is another day in the short murder trial of Sam Madison, a trial seen through his eyes. Despite Cook's flawless prose, Madison is hardly a narrator we can like. Cold and cynical, he has always thought of himself as far superior to other Coburn inhabitants. As each neighbor, lover, or co-worker testifies, we actually hear his/her testimony from Sam's point of view. Sam's dark thoughts seem to lend credence to the theory of the police detective sworn to pin the murder on him. Cook creates suspense as only he can, and the reader is turning pages quickly to find out whether Sam will be found guilty.

As the trial plays out, the reader goes back and forth.

Did he do it? Did she do it? Who is guilty and who is innocent? How do their past and their marriage play such a significant role in the final outcome of the trial? In the end this beautiful novel is a story of redemption. I loved Thomas H. Cook's The Chatham School Affair, but his lyrical prose, his flawless movement back and forth in time, his utterly surprising ending, and his masterful use of suspense put Sandrine's Case at the top of my list.

Murder as a Fine Art

     Murder as a Fine Art, by David Morrell, is part historical novel, part mystery, part thriller, and wholly enjoyable. It contains real people--essayist Thomas de Quincey--and fictional counterparts, like his ahead-of-her-time daughter, Emily de Quincey. The atmosphere of fog-shrouded Victorian London in 1854 is researched down to the last weapon and sewer detail, and we are steeped in the atmosphere of that time with tidbits like the 37 pounds of clothing women wore with their corsets and pantaloons. But, most importantly, Morrell has based his plot on a real set of ghastly East End murders called the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811. If you look on the internet you can even hear a folk song about those murders.

   

 It is 1854 in the East End of Victorian London and a series of murders has occurred that exactly duplicates the Ratcliffe Highway murders forty-three years earlier. Unfortunately for Thomas de Quincey, his writings described those murders down to the smallest detail and now someone is using them as a blueprint for murder. De Quincey wrote the memoir Confessions of an English Opium-Eater which was so scandalous that everyone read it. Now he becomes the major suspect in these 1854 murders.

     

     The killer seems to be using de Quincey's essay, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts, as a manual for the killings. (De Quincey's essays influenced such classic mystery writers as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, and Edgar Allan Poe.) This sets up a superb plot involving two intrepid Scotland Yard detectives, de Quincey, and his daughter, Emily. They struggle to prove his innocence and find the real killer. Time is of the essence because the vicious murderer is set to strike again.

   

David Morrell is known for his Rambo novels and his thrillers, but he has taken a totally new turn in writing historical fiction. However, his research is meticulous and the reader feels like she is in the streets of London dashing through the fog; watching the police department of that time; seeing the work of fledgling detectives; speaking to the prostitutes who know the streets; learning about the opium trade, whalebone hoops, and corsets; visiting prisons with horrible living conditions; and seeing how the lower classes live. All of this is told in dramatic style and is never pedantic.

     The point of view is actually one that is prized by Victorian novelists: an omniscient narrator who can give us background on the details of the plot. And Morrell does this in a masterful fashion. Obviously, this was a deliberate choice on his part to echo the books of that time. It reads like spun silk.

   

     I have always liked novels with "spunky" heroines who figure out how to solve problems head on. Murder as a Fine Art has one of the best in the form of Emily de Quincey. She took off her corset, wears bloomers so she can keep up during the chases, and does not act at all in appropriate Victorian female style. While others raise their eyebrows at this behavior, her father supports her unflinchingly. She is ahead of her time. She acts in defense of her father and literally saves the day on many occasions because she uses her wit, feminine wiles, and intuitive empathy to figure out what has to be done. She is a wonderful creation.

   In short, this is an entertaining read, a page turner,

and a book you won't be able to put down.

     

A Real Life Mystery: The Search for Amelia Earhart

        Sometimes the most fascinating mysteries are the ones that make up real life historical events. An expedition from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery is currently on the way to check for remains of the Lockheed Electra aircraft that carried Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, across the Pacific before it disappeared from sight. This enterprise is one of six that have attempted to solve the mystery of what happened to Ms. Earhart and her plane. Perhaps six will be a charm.

        Seventy-five years ago--1937--Earhart set off to become the first woman to fly solo and circumnavigate the globe. Already a huge presence in the minds of Americans, she had accomplished great navigational feats in a male- dominated industry that captured the public's imagination.

        In 1937, she and Noonan flew from California to New Guinea and then began a difficult leg of the trip to Howland Island in the central Pacific. Her plan was to use the equator, but the navigational maps were not always clear and radio communication was sketchy at best. When her plane did not arrive at Howland Island, a wide ocean search began but turned up nothing. Thus began the mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart.
        The current expedition is centering on an island called Nikumaroro in the Republic of Kiribati. The searchers are attempting to locate, identify, and photograph any wreckage.

from the TIGHAR.ORG website

        Over the years a numbers of items of interest have been found on this island. Explorers have discovered fish and bird bones, eaten as if Westerners were dining. Bottles wrapped with wires that might have been used to boil water to make it safe are also part of the discoveries. Most recently a 1930's U.S. makeup compact, a flight jacket zipper from the 1930's, and a jar of freckle cream (Earhart was known to have freckles) are all products found on the island. 
        The new expedition--at a cost of $2.2M--is hoping to find wreckage of her plane that could possibly have slipped off the reef near the island. The group left Honolulu on July 3 and should arrive at Nikumaroro on July 9.  They are banking on the possibility that Earhart and Noonan may have been alive for several weeks or months on what was then an uninhabited and largely uncharted island. Skeptics, however, believe the plane would have broken up from the ocean waves. Sonar will be used to determine whether the new theory is correct. You can follow their daily reports here.

Earhart and Noonan

        Earhart's life and her disappearance have been celebrated in books, movies, and even on the website, Pinterest. If you are a Pinterest.com member and put her name in the search box, you will find pages of photos of Ms. Earhart. Her navigational feats remain a story for the record books and her untimely disappearance may forever be a mystery--unless the newest expedition's theory turns out to be true. That happened with the discovery of the Titanic; perhaps the Earhart disappearance will be one less mystery after this summer.