In Memoriam Dominick Dunne

Vanity Fair journalist and novelist Dominick Dunne passed away on Wednesday, August 26 of cancer. He was 83. Click here for his official website, which includes now a short obituary.

Born to a well-connected and wealthy family, Dunne frequently socialized with, wrote about, and was photographed with celebrities. He was an investigative journalist and wrote books and articles on events that happen where high society intersects with the judicial system. Again, he often wrote about what he knew. Sadly, in November 1982, his daughter, Dominique Dunne was murdered. Dunne attended the trial of her murderer and wrote the article "Justice: A Father's Account of the Trial of his Daughter's Killer" for Vanity Fair. Dunne went on to write for Vanity Fair regularly and fictionalized several real-life events for best-selling books. He eventually hosted the TV series Dominick Dunne's Power, Privileg, and Justice on Court TV (later truTV) in which he discussed justice, injustice and their intersection with celebrities. Famous trials he covered include those of O.J. Simpson, Claus von Bulow, Michael Skakel, William Kennedy Smith, and the Menendez brothers.

We currently have these Dominick Dunne books in HCPL:
Justice : crimes, trials, and punishments (also in audiobook)
"Here in one volume are Dominick Dunne's mesmerizing tales of justice denied and justice affirmed." (catalog notes)
The Way We Lived Then : recollections of a well-known name dropper
Another City, Not My Own : a novel in the form of a memoir
"Told from the point of view of one of Dunne's most familiar fictional characters-Gus Bailey-Another City, Not My Own tells how Gus, the movers and shakers of Los Angeles, and the city itself are drawn into the vortex of the O.J. Simpson trial." (catalog notes)
A Season in Purgatory
"They were the family with everything. Money. Influence. Glamour. Power. The power to halt a police investigation in its tracks. The power to spin a story, concoct a lie, and believe it was the truth. The power to murder without guilt, without shame, and without ever paying the price. America's royalty, they called the Bradleys. But an outsider refuses to play his part. And now, the day of reckoning has arrived. . . ." (catalog notes)
The Two Mrs. Grenvilles : a novel
"When Navy ensign Billy Grenville, heir to a vast New York fortune, sees showgirl Ann Arden on the dance floor, it is love at first sight. And much to the horror of Alice Grenville, the indomitable family matriarch, he marries her. Ann wants desperately to be accepted by high society and to become the well-bred woman of her fantasies. But a gunshot one rainy night propels Ann into a notorious spotlight--as the two Mrs. Grenvilles enter into a conspiracy of silence that will bind them together for as long as they live." (catalog notes)

Sir Isaac Newton - criminal investigator

Earlier today I posted news about the Royal Society Prize for Science Books. The Royal Society is the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth. Founded in 1660, the Royal Society counts many of the illustrious founders of modern science among its past fellows and members (read more). Sir Isaac Newton was one of the early presidents.

Currently I am reading an exceedingly fascinating book about Sir Isaac Newton. This work of nonfiction, Newton and the Counterfeiter : the unknown detective career of the world's greatest scientist by Thomas Levenson, reads easily, like fiction or like the best of true crime stories. Find this book in our catalog

In 1695, Isaac Newton, having lived reclusively in Cambridge for 30 years moved to London to take up the post of Warden of His Majesty’s Mint. He wanted a change of scene, but to move from Cambridge he needed some means of support other than his professorship: which perhaps explains why he took up this unlikely post. Newton could heve treated his post as a mere sinecure and left the duties of his office to lesser and ineffectual civil servants; however, during his three years in office he was notably successful in stamping out counterfeiting (pun intended!). This was vital to the economy of the time: money in the modern sense was just coming into being, but the official coinage was almost completely compromised by counterfeits. Newton brought all his genius to bear on the problem, using the new methods of science he had introduced to the world to detect, track down, prosecute, and convict many individual criminals from his office in the Tower. His chief adversary was a genius of a diferent kind: William Chaloner a brilliant counterfeiter and crime lord. In the courts and streets of London the two played out an epic game of cat and mouse.

There is much to enjoy: the readable, clear, yet technically well-informed style of the author and the extremely detailed, yet never boring description of the work of Newton and fellow natural philosophers; the rich details of society at all levels; the lively depiction of the underworld of London; the battle of the protagonists.

If you like historical true crime you will probably like:

The suspicions of Mr. Whicher : a shocking murder and the undoing of a great Victorian detective by Kate Summerscale.

If you like science writing that reads like fiction:

Longitude : the true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time by Dava Sobel.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: a shocking murder and the undoing of a great Victorian detective by Kate Summerscale

Do you like a classical murder mystery set in an English country house? What’s more, do you prefer your murder to be set in the Victorian era, when in upper and middle class homes complex and rigid social conventions only too often bred secrets and perversions behind closed doors? If you do, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher should be just the thing for you; despite the fact that it is not a fictional tale at all, but a true story that took place in England in an upper class country home in Wiltshire in 1860.

Ms. Summerscale, a journalist and former literary editor, has written an enthralling true crime story that encompasses all the details that fans of true crime stories find essential: the crime, the suspects’ actions, the police investigations, blunders, and breakthroughs, and also the detailed proceedings of the various court hearings. At the same time, she has managed to pen a story that draws you in with its narrative style and does not get bogged down in the detail. The book is very well crafted and leads the reader on, not only through the details of the case, but also through Ms. Summerscale’s argument. She argues that this case was the real case that gave rise to the conventions and popularity of country house murder fiction continuing today. Many of the real details of the case appeared in fiction in the years that followed; for example, the case influenced tales like The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. Mr. Whicher, one of the founding eight members of the Detective force at Scotland Yard, was the original popular heroic detective, and was interviewed and quoted by Charles Dickens. Like the fictional Cuff in The Moonstone, Whicher embodied for the public the archetype intuitive, intellectual detective, who caught criminals by using his powerful observation of people and clues. When Whicher’s long career was substantially ruined by this case in Wiltshire, there arose a further era of detective fiction where the detective is seen as either crass and inept, or as a dark influence, a lower-class intruder into the sanctity and secrets of the middle class home.

This book can be enjoyed on many levels. You can appreciate Ms. Summerscales’ scholarship in the infinite details of mid-Victorian English culture that she lays out for us, and in her deep knowledge of the crime fiction of the era and also of Scotland Yard and the judicial system. She writes perceptively of the people involved in the case, so that you soon begin to see that all the characters involved in the case are full of secrets. Ms. Summerscale compares this case to classical murder mysteries where everyone is a suspect with things to hide. The detective has to sift through all the secrets and see which suspect is hiding the fact that he or she is a murderer. In this case in Wiltshire, the person convicted may or may not have been the culprit. You will have to read the book to find out!