Monday, July 16, 2018

Conan Doyle for the Defense by Margalet Fox

Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World's Most Famous Detective Writer by Margalit Fox --- 319 pages, including Author's Note, Introduction, Acknowledgments, Cast of Characters, Glossary, References, Notes and Index.

The most famous author of detective stories in the world, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was a celebrity who did not hesitate to lend his fame in support of social and political causes. Probably the most famous of these causes was Oscar Slater, a Jewish immigrant from Germany who was pursued, tried, convicted and nearly hanged for the murder of an elderly Glasgow woman in 1908. Malfeasance on the part of the police and the courts combined with racial and religious bigotry and resulted in an innocent man serving twenty years at hard labor for a crime he did not and could not have committed.

In this book by turns fascinating and dismaying, Fox tells the story of how Conan Doyle came to take an interest in the case, and how he and other worked for years to clear Slater's name and secure his release.

Click HERE to read the review in Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Click HERE to read the review from the New Republic.

Click HERE to read the review from the Economist.

Click HERE to read the review from The Scotsman.

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