Review: Lemberger, Crime of Magnitude

Crime of Magnitude: The Murder of Little Annie by Mark Lemberger

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is an excellent book about another forgotten "Crime of the Century": the unsolved murder of 7 year old Annie Lemberger in 1911. Lemberger puts forward a solution, and I think a great deal of what he says makes sense. (I'm dubious about a sidebar, but I think my doubt comes from Lemberger trying to save all the fireworks for last instead of explaining and supporting his thesis as he goes.) Ironically, the case has been solved all along: the man who was arrested, who confessed, and who was convicted of Annie 's murder was in fact the murderer, despite all the smoke and mirrors thrown up after his conviction by both him and another person who used the case for political capital.

Lemberger is a good writer, and he has dug deeply, patiently, and carefully into the bewildering records of the case, so that he clearly points out contradictions, mistakes and outright lies in the versions of the story that propagated like weeds. One of the things this book demonstrates is how easy it is for a brazen liar to be believed because so few people double-check what they're told--or even worse, what they read in the paper.



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