Crippen: A Novel of Murder

Part murder mystery and part historical novel John Boyne's sensational Crippen: a Novel of Murder tells of the real Crippen murder case, which occurred in London in 1910. Boyne, in his story, beautifully brings to life this world in all its self-propriety grandeur, and in the process, emphasizes humanity's mordant desire to know the all the facts about the most macabre and chilling crimes such as this. Boyne presents Crippen as a complex and enigmatic man - whom although painted as a monster for murdering his wife, chopping her up and burying pieces of her under the stones in his cellar - was in reality a meek and harmless person who probably wouldn't hurt a fly. The novel traces the historical journey of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen from his childhood in Canada, where his worldview was shaped by his puritanical, severely religious mother. Desiring to become a doctor, yet unable to be given all the advantages of education so that he might escape his family, Crippen travels to America, eventually finding work as a medical assistant, his second rate qualifications obtained through correspondence courses. It is in New York where Hawley meets Cora Turner, a music hall dancer, who convinces him to take her to London so that she can fulfill her dream of becoming a famous diva. But Cora turns out to be a shrieking and violent harpy, a heartless, evil, nasty and manipulative witch, and a flagrantly vulgar, lustful and faithless wife who constantly hounds Hawley for not being socially good enough. Cora ends up abusing Hawley physically, unashamedly sleeping with other men in their house. At first, he was her way out of the gutter and she was someone who listened to him and said she believed in him. Their fights would often end with her screaming at him, berating him, threatening him with frying pans and pots, while he would eventually agree to do whatever she asked. Mostly their arguments were caused by Hawley's inability to fund the lifestyle that Cora thought she deserved. The macabre and the bloodthirsty always-fascinated Hawley. In fact, he was so proud of his abilities and so much in love with the art of medicine that for him "the music of pain was nothing more than a melody to work by." But was he evil enough to kill Cora and chop her up into little pieces? Social climbers Lady Louise Smythson and the Mrs. Margaret Nash certainly believe so. In fact, Louise Smythson is so convinced that Cora has met a nasty end in the hand of Hawley that she contacts Detective Walter Dew of New Scotland Yard to report what she think is a crime. Meanwhile, on the SS Montrose, Captain Henry Kendall becomes suspicious of two first class passengers, a Mr. Robinson and his son Edmund when he catches them in a romantic embrace. For Captain Kendall the hug of a man with another man, a love affair between a father and son, defies all logic and decency. Mr. Robinson is in fact, Hawley Crippen traveling with much-younger mistress, Ethel LeNeve disguised as a boy.

An absolutely brilliant effort. Tightly plotted, with characters that call to mind a long-past era, this is one of the best historically-based novels of the new millenium.

Crippen by John Boyne is a great fun read. It's based on the actual murder of Cora Crippen by her husband Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen in London in 1910 and the subsequent manhunt for him. Boyne has taken the core elements to the crime and fictionalized everything else, to great effect. He even manages to take a case where the outcome is known and put in an unexpected twist that will have the reader turning back the pages for clues. My one complaint with the book is that all of the characters are characters to the nth degree. They almost become caricatures. That said, Boyne does an excellent job with pacing and setting. He somehow manages to make this dastardly, gruesome crime fun to read about. Excellent writing, I look forward to more of his work.

John Boyne's "Crippen" is a superb historical mystery in which the author puts his own spin on a heinous crime that took place in Camden, England in 1910. Dr. Hawley Crippen is not really a doctor, but rather a mousy individual who has read up on medical subjects and taken some correspondence courses. However, Hawley is not averse to passing himself off as a doctor in order to eke out a living. He is incredibly unlucky with women. When he marries for the second time, he makes the mistake of choosing a harridan named Cora, who abuses him both verbally and physically when she is not busy taking other men into her bed. After Cora is found murdered and hacked to death in the cellar of the Crippen household, Hawley is the prime suspect. "Crippen" is a textured, involving, and suspenseful psychological study of how a mentally unstable parent can permanently damage her child, and how a monstrous woman can make her husband's existence into a living hell. In addition, Boyne brilliantly, and with mordant humor, analyzes the hypocrisy of the upper classes in England, the predatory nature of newspaper reporters, and the impossibility of ever fully understanding the complexity of people's motives, feelings, and desires. The author constructs his story meticulously, teasing the reader with bits of information that become meaningful later on in the narrative. He goes back and forth in time, creating a rich and colorful tapestry with fully realized and lively characters. Among them are the insufferable Antoinette Drake, a stuffy, self-absorbed, and obnoxious dowager, Captain Kendall, the skipper of a luxurious transatlantic ocean liner who is distracted by the illness of the first officer whom he adores, and Ethel LeNeve, a young woman who finds something of value in Hawley Crippen, and attempts to rescue him from his life of misery. John Boyne depicts Crippen as a marvelously complicated individual. Is he an innocent and self-effacing man who is desperate for affection and some peace of mind, or is he a conniving criminal trying to get away with murder? Boyne saves some tasty surprises for the dramatic conclusion of this terrific Dickensian tale of tortured love, heartache, and death.

In 1910 Camden, England, Scotland Yard Detective Walter Dew feels somewhat ill as he looks over the crime scene in the cellar of a family house. The victim is Bella Crippen, a former music hall singer under her maiden name Elmore before she married Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen. The obvious prime suspect is the husband, but he is nowhere in sight. A witness recognized jewelry that Crippen's female companion, who was not his wife, wore that belonged to Bella. The sleuth assumes Crippen is on the lam though possibly also dead if by some remote chance he is not the killer. At the same time that Walter heads the homicide investigation, in Antwerp, Belgium, Mr. John Robinson and his teenage son Edmund board the passenger ship SS Montrose to traverse the three thousand plus miles of the Atlantic to Quebec, Canada. In fact John is actually Hawley and Edmund is his lover Ethel LeNeve. Neither realize as they try to limit contact with the crew and other passengers that Dew continues to follow their trail. CRIPPEN is an intriguing historical fictionalized account of a real sensationalized at the time love-murder triangle. The tale moves back and forth between the present (circa 1910) and the late nineteenth century childhood of the title character. Though the insight into the pre-homicide Hawley is fascinating, that subplot also slows down an interesting Scotland Yard investigation. Still fans will gain insight into late Victorian and Edwardian England as well as what motivated Crippen to kill his wife and run off with his lover in an apparent crime of passion. Readers will appreciate this deep Edwardian tale, but struggle between the two appealing segues that take away from each other. Harriet Klausner