UBC twofer: Geary, The Bloody Benders; Madeleine Smith

The Saga of the Bloody Benders by Rick Geary

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a well-researched charmingly drawn and carefully impartial account of the Bender family (who may not have been a family and may not have been named Bender), who set up an inn in Kansas in 1870 so that they could murder their customers for their cash, valuables, horses, wagons, and anything else they happened to have. I always think, reading about the Benders, that somebody must have invented them, they're too perfectly horrible to be real. But they were real, and nobody knows what happened to them. Geary does a fantastic job.



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The Case of Madeleine Smith by Rick Geary

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


All the usual superlatives for Geary's work, plus he captures the fascination of the did she or didn't she? beautifully. Madeleine Smith may or may not have poisoned her lover in 1857. The jury at her trial came back with the Scottish verdict "Not proven," which is like the perfect commentary on the case. Madeleine had all the motive in the world to kill Emile l'Angelier, and she was proved to have purchased arsenic (for cosmetic purposes! no really!), but the prosecution could not prove that she met Emile on the night that he died. Geary traces the progress of Madeleine and Emile's relationship, the ins and outs of the trial, and then what happened to Madeleine afterwards (she moved to London, married, and became a prominent Fabian; after her first husband died, she moved to New York, married again, and died at the age of 92 in 1928). Geary does such a beautiful job.



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