By Mary Louise Ruehr
Murder, They Wrote Reading about murder — real or imagined — can be engrossing, thought-provoking, and even unsettling, but it is hardly ever dull. True-crime fans will appreciate Murder at the Supreme Court: Lethal Crimes and Landmark Cases by Martin Clancy and Tim O’Brien. The authors describe “the difficult road the Court has set for itself in allowing states to go forward with capital punishment,” citing actual Supreme
PAGE 30
MARCH 7, 2013
Court cases in which the justices examined verdicts and sentences involving murder and other “horrendous crimes.” Among other things, the Court has had to consider mitigating circumstances (such as childhood abuse), cruel and unusual punishment, race, mental incapacity, punishment of juveniles, ineffective counsel, and the death penalty, including forms of execution. For some questions, there are
no easy answers: What exactly is cruel and unusual punishment? When should the death penalty be used? (The two accepted social purposes of the death penalty are retribution and deterrence.) Of the 15 cases cited by the authors, 10 split the Court 5-4. There’s a lot of death in this book. For each case, the participants are introduced, the crime is described, and the trial is recalled, along with the verdict and any appeals. If the condemned person is executed, that’s described. The book includes some disturbing photographs and, indeed, disturbing text, particularly in scenes of crimes and executions. For those who want even more, the authors offer links to videos on their website. The Supreme Court decisions are told in understandable language. In fact, there’s surprisingly little legalese. It makes an interesting read. On the fiction shelf, there’s plenty of fodder for crime buffs. The Nightmare by Lars Kepler (the pseudonym of a Swedish husband-and-wife writing team) is part of the recent invasion of Scandinavian
crime novels. And it’s powerful. A young woman is found dead on a yacht drifting near an island. She was drowned; her hair is wet, but her clothes are still dry. How is this possible? An older man is found hanged in his apartment, an apparent suicide. But there’s no ladder, no chair for him to have stepped up on. How could this be? Are these two deaths somehow related? Call in the very clever Detective Inspector Yoona Linna, who solves crimes by brilliance and intuition. Linna is a fascinating character, and he’s joined by several major female characters. I don’t normalVolume 4 • Issue 24