Emma Flint (1)

I went into this novel thinking that it was a thriller, but it is much more than that. Rather than focussing on the crime or the whodunnit, it concentrates on Ruth Malone, the main suspect.
Ruth's young children are killed during a hot summer night in 1965, and the police quickly believe her to be the killer. The main reason is that she does not behave like a grieving mother should according to public opinion - or like a woman should at all. She drinks, visits bars, has lovers. She is strikingly beautiful and cares for her appearance, turning heads wherever she goes.
Pete Wonicke, a reporter working on his breakthrough, covers the case and soon becomes entangled in the story.

To me, the core of this novel is Ruth's femininity and how men see her. The male gaze, the judgement of the public and her own belief system of how she has to behave, created by her mother when she raised her, weave a net that Ruth can hardly escape and that makes it impossible for her to truly be or even feel herself. When she tries to break free, she uses unhealthy mechanisms that lead to disaster. On the other hand, all the men try to do is to control her power, to break her because they cannot stand her innert strength and her lure.
Like this, the novel paints a picture of society in 1965 that feels like a punch in the gut. Yet, I could not stop reading and would probably have read the book in one sitting if I had had the time. The story and the characters totally engrossed me and I am sure that they will haunt me for some time to come.

The novel was based on a true murder case. Alice Crimmons was convicted for the murder of her children, but the (re)convictions were overturned several times. She was paroled twelve years after the murder and to this day it is not certain what really happened.… (más)

Little Deaths by Emma Flint is a novel based on a real life murder case. It was a difficult read as the murder victims were two young children but at the same time, it was so well written that I couldn’t put it down. Set in the summer of 1965, Ruth Malone, wakes up to find that her two children are missing. After searching the neighbourhood and calling her separated husband to ensure the children are not with him, the police are called. Unfortunately, by mid-day they find the first body and a few days later the second child’s body is discovered. Ruth is a very private person and holds her emotions deep inside herself but unfortunately this made the police feel that she didn’t show enough grief. They take a closer look at her, discovering some empty liquor bottles in her garbage, and love letters from more than one man in her bedroom, with this scanty information about her the main detective decides that she murdered her children. From then on the police only looked at her and didn’t follow any other leads.

A great deal of the story is told through the eyes of Pete Wonicke, a reporter. This is his first big assignment and at first he goes along with the convenient solution that everyone seems to be pointing at. But as he continues with the case, he begins to have serious doubts as to Ruth’s guilt. He discovers that some witnesses are being manipulated, and others seem to be actually lying. The police do arrest her however, and she is put on trial.

This story mirrors the true life case of Alice Crimmons but whereas both Ruth and Alice always maintained their innocence, this fictional account does give us a plausible answer. The author has delivered an excellent story about a woman who was judged guilty due to her lifestyle and her detached manner. Little Deaths is an atmospheric and wrenching read that totally engrossed me.… (más)

A fictionalised version on the real life conviction (and release and reconviction and eventual parole) of Alice Crimmins for the murder of her two young children in 1965. There was never any real evidence that Alice was guilty and she was judged and condemned more for her lifestyle and for not behaving like a 'good mother'. Emma Flint follows the facts of the case closely while introducing a creepy reporter who falls for the desirable but detached woman and engineers a sadly all too believable answer to who killed children, when in reality the deaths of the Crimmins' children went unsolved.

For most of the story, and before researching the original murder trial, I was gripped and even tempted to skip to the end and find out if Ruth was actually guilty! She is clearly devastated by the brutal deaths of her children, plummeting into a black hole of grief while trying to numb the pain with sex and alcohol, but Flint keeps the depth of Ruth's feelings and motivations from the reader and makes her appear callous on occasion. The pseudo investigation into the murders is less convincing. Pete the rookie reporter, who switches from dishing the dirt on Ruth to pretending he is on a quest for justice - or, as a fellow reporter wryly observes, 'you're following your dick' - manages to coax lengthy interviews from unlikely witnesses, which fill in a few necessary blanks but don't really move the plot forward. Also, while talking to one of Ruth's lovers, a married cop silenced by the detective leading the investigation, Pete is told that Ruth danced 'like white ribbons in the dark'. I mean, what? I had to laugh at that break in characterisation. The pacing, leaning heavily on Pete's wet dreams about a woman he doesn't really know, slows to a crawl and then suddenly Ruth is in court at the mercy of a last minute witness and Pete's ingenuity. The revelation of who killed the children - which was my first thought but cleverly sidelined by Flint's portrayal of the characters - was a solid if not satisfying ending.

Also, bonus points for a British author writing so convincingly about 1960s New York!… (más)