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Both NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday and Fresh Air featured The Murder Room, about Philadelphia’s Vidocq Society, which meets monthly to try to solve some of America’s cold cases.
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S&S Audio; Read by: Adam Grupper; 12 disks; 9780743532648; $39.99
Large Print; Thorndike;11/1/2010; 9781410430960; $31.99
August 28th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Here’s what I have to say about that….
I feel creepy saying I loved this book that deals with murder. Maybe a better word would be fascinated but even that sounds crude in light of the subject matter. I know I’m not alone in wanting to know what makes someone who can kill, tick. I also have a thing for cold cases in both fiction and non-fiction so when I heard about The Murder Room by Michael Capuzzo, I knew it would be on my list. I had read Capuzzo’s Close to Shore about a series of shark attacks in 1916 on the Jersey shore. Having read that I felt he had the credentials to pull this one off.
The subtitle of The Murder Room, The Heirs of Sherlock Homes Gather to Solve the world’s Most Perplexing Cold Cases is an excellent description of the premise of this look into the sleuths of The Vidocq Society. The society was the dream of three men, William Fleisher, Richard Walter, and Frank Bender, possibly the best of the world’s crime solvers. Named for Eugène François Vidocq, the ground-breaking nineteenth century French detective who helped police by using the psychology of the criminal to solve “cold case” homicides, NPR calls this a dedicated group who solve mysteries over soup. Part one of The Murder Room invites you to a luncheon like no other. After a 5 course meal including such gourmet food as pork and mallard duck sausage hosted in an elegant hall with glittering eighteenth century chandeliers, coffee is served to backdrop images of the battered remains of a blond young man cast aside in a restaurant alley. I’m hooked.
Capuzzo’s style here, give the reader a teaser in each chapter, leave em’ hanging for the outcome, and then providing closure somewhere down the road, if known, can be a bit frustrating at times. But liken this to the “not knowing”that the families of cold case victims live each and every day, sometimes forever, and I decided Capuzzo’s method was fitting, if not a dead on perfect way to format this book.
The Murder Room outlines many gut wrenching cases with many being solved but not all. What hits home loud and clear is the dedication and drive of the men and women who make up The Vidocq Society; professionals who will not rest until the case is closed, justice is done and the families know the victims have not been forgotten. Fascinating reading it is!