Group Reads -> December 2023 -> Nomination thread (True Crime - won by The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga)

[Nigeyb]

Every month we discuss a book on a specific era or a theme. This book will be the winner of a group poll.


Our December 2023 theme is...


True crime


Please nominate a 20th century book (either written in the 20th century or set in it) that is themed around true crime

Please supply the title, author, a brief synopsis, and anything else you'd like to mention about the book, and why you think it might make a good book to discuss.


Happy nominating

[Rosina]

I am going to push the boundaries of the criteria, and suggest The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer, Written in 2016, and about a crime committed in the dying years of the 19th century, the book does move from the crime into the 20th century, up to and beyond the Great War.

n the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes (age 13) and his brother Nattie (age 12) were seen spending lavishly around the docklands of East London -- for ten days in July, they ate out at coffee houses and took trips to the seaside and the theater. The boys told neighbors they had been left home alone while their mother visited family in Liverpool, but their aunt was suspicious. When she eventually forced the brothers to open the house to her, she found the badly decomposed body of their mother in a bedroom upstairs. Robert and Nattie were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at the Old Bailey.

Robert confessed to having stabbed his mother, but his lawyers argued that he was insane. Nattie struck a plea and gave evidence against his brother. The court heard testimony about Robert's severe headaches, his fascination with violent criminals and his passion for 'penny dreadfuls', the pulp fiction of the day. He seemed to feel no remorse for what he had done, and neither the prosecution nor the defense could find a motive for the murder. The judge sentenced the thirteen-year-old to detention in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Yet Broadmoor turned out to be the beginning of a new life for Robert--one that would have profoundly shocked anyone who thought they understood the Wicked Boy.

Feel free to reject the nomination if I've pushed the envelope too far!

[Nigeyb]

That works Rosina


Thanks for the nomination

I've already read the book and I really enjoyed it. There's lots to discuss too

[Nigeyb]

I've decided to nominate...



Killing Thatcher

by

Rory Carroll


I read a wonderful novel about this plot (High Dive) and have heard very good things about this new factual account and which is borne out by the 551 Amazon ratings (av 4.6 out of 5)



Here's more about the book...


Killing Thatcher is the gripping account of how the IRA came astonishingly close to killing Margaret Thatcher and to wiping out the British Cabinet – an extraordinary assassination attempt linked to the Northern Ireland Troubles and the most daring conspiracy against the Crown since the Gunpowder Plot.

In this fascinating and compelling book, veteran journalist Rory Carroll retraces the road to the infamous Brighton bombing in 1984 – an incident that shaped the political landscape in the UK for decades to come. He begins with the infamous execution of Lord Mountbatten in 1979 – for which the IRA took full responsibility – before tracing the rise of Margaret Thatcher, her response to the ‘Troubles’ in Ireland and the chain of events that culminated in the hunger strikes of 1981 and the death of 10 IRA men, including Bobby Sands. From that moment on Thatcher became an enemy of the IRA – and the organisation swore revenge.

Opening with a brilliantly-paced prologue that introduces bomber Patrick Magee in the build up to the incident, Carroll sets out to deftly explore the intrigue before and after the assassination attempt – with the story spanning three continents, from pubs and palaces, safe houses and interrogation rooms, hotels and barracks. On one side, an elite IRA team aided by a renegade priest, US-raised funds and Libya’s Qaddafi and on the other, intelligence officers, police detectives, informers and bomb disposal officers. An exciting narrative that blends true crime with political history, this is the first major book to investigate the Brighton attack.

[Roman Clodia]

Ooh, I'd love to read Killing Thatcher - great nomination, Nigey.

To add some variety, I'll nominate The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga, a memoir of her mother and sisters in the years leading up to the Rwandan genocide that started in 1994.

A moving, unforgettable tribute to a Tutsi woman who did everything to protect her children from the Rwandan genocide, by the daughter who refuses to let her family's story be forgotten.

The story of the author's mother, a fierce, loving woman who for years protected her family from the violence encroaching upon them in pre-genocide Rwanda. Recording her memories of their life together in spare, wrenching prose, Mukasonga preserves her mother's voice in a haunting work of art.

National Book Award Finalist for Translated Literature (2019), The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Nominee for Longlist (2022), Prix Seligmann contre le racisme (2008).

4.12 rating here on GoodReads, 4.5 on Amazon

[Susan]

I enjoyed Killing Thatcher.

[Ben]

Because mass gun crime and school shootings have so completely transformed the experience of attending school in America, I'll choose Columbine by Dave Cullen.

The tragedies keep coming. As we reel from the latest horror . . . " So begins a new epilogue, illustrating how Columbine became the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders." It is a false script, seized upon by a generation of new killers. In the wake of Newtown, Aurora, and Virginia Tech, the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this plague grows more urgent every year.

What really happened April 20, 1999? The horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we "know" is wrong. It wasn't about jocks, Goths, or the Trench Coat Mafia. Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on scene, and spent ten years on this book-widely recognized as the definitive account. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists, and the killers' own words and drawings-several reproduced in a new appendix. Cullen paints raw portraits of two polar opposite killers. They contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors.

[Susan]

I have never read Columbine, Ben, and would be interested to do so.

[Roman Clodia]

I also considered Columbine which I haven't read so great choice, Ben.

[Roman Clodia]

A child murderer, assassination, school shooting and genocide: we'll be a happy bunch of readers that month.

[Kit]

^ right haha.
I'm trying to be positive. But I find true crime so seductive?? to read but it can be depressing ultimately.
On the other hand really convincing crime reads that are fiction are jaunty reads for me..

[Ben]

I have a number of special interests in that book. I used to live nearby, although not at the time of the shooting. And having attended "state school", I'm (morbidly) curious about how this has changed in the USA.

[Roman Clodia]

What does 'state school' mean in the US?

[Ben]

I was using the English term. But I went to what in the US is known as a public school and here as a state school. The term state school isn't used in the US, as far as I know

[Nigeyb]

Nominations so far...


The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale (Rosina)
Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll (Nigeyb)
The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga (Roman Clodia)
Columbine by Dave Cullen (Ben)


Anyone else nominating?

[Jan C]

Only state schools are on the university level - University of Michigan, etc. Otherwise I've no idea what a state school is.

[Jan C]

One I've been meaning to get to is I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara, who died suddenly. So I'll nominate this.

The haunting true story of the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California during the '70s and '80s and of the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case - which was solved in April 2018.

[Barbara]

What a great theme for the holidays!! Haha. These all sound quite interesting.

[Susan]

Too much, tinsel, Barbara. We need to bring a little darkness and reality!

[Ben]

Jan C wrote: "Only state schools are on the university level - University of Michigan, etc. Otherwise I've no idea what a state school is."

Absolutely right. I hadn't been thinking of university level.

[Nigeyb]

Thanks Jan


Nominations...

The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale (Rosina)
Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll (Nigeyb)
The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga (Roman Clodia)
Columbine by Dave Cullen (Ben)
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara (Jan)


I'll get the poll up, tomorrow, on Tuesday morning, UK time - so about 24 hours left to nominate

[Nigeyb]

Time to vote...


https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...


Nominations...

The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale (Rosina)
Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll (Nigeyb)
The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga (Roman Clodia)
Columbine by Dave Cullen (Ben)
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara (Jan)

[Roman Clodia]

So many great nominations (again!) - I'd happily read any of these.

[Susan]

I have read three of the above and liked them all.

[Roman Clodia]

Which three have you read Susan?

[Susan]

Oh, actually I have read two:
The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale (Rosina)
Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll (Nigeyb)

[Nigeyb]

Three way tie so far...


The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale - 2 votes, 25.0%
Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll - 2 votes, 25.0%
The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga - 2 votes, 25.0%
Columbine by Dave Cullen - 1 vote, 12.5%
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara - 1 vote, 12.5%

[Nigeyb]

Barefoot Woman currently out in front by one vote...


https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...



Pollwatch...

The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga - 3 votes

The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale - 2 votes
Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll - 2 votes

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara - 1 vote
Columbine by Dave Cullen - 1 vote

[Roman Clodia]

Ooh, that's a surprise! I thought I was pushing the boundaries of what's usually in the 'true crime' genre - but reckoned that if genocide didn't count, that would be weird.

[Nigeyb]

No change so it's looking likely that The Barefoot Woman (2008) by Scholastique Mukasonga has got this


c24 hours left to vote/change your vote


https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...




The Barefoot Woman ....

A moving, unforgettable tribute to a Tutsi woman who did everything to protect her children from the Rwandan genocide, by the daughter who refuses to let her family's story be forgotten.

The story of the author's mother, a fierce, loving woman who for years protected her family from the violence encroaching upon them in pre-genocide Rwanda. Recording her memories of their life together in spare, wrenching prose, Mukasonga preserves her mother's voice in a haunting work of art.

[Nigeyb]

It's The Barefoot Woman 👏🏼


Thanks everyone for getting involved

Here's to another stimulating book discussion