A disturbing examination of judicial negligence and bias.
Accusations of child sexual abuse upend a small town and begin a 30-year search for the truth in Miraldi’s nonfiction account.
In Lorain, Ohio, in the early ’90s, Nancy Smith, a single mother and preschool bus driver, and Joseph Allen, a handyman with a criminal record, were investigated under the suspicion of sexually abusing children. The story begins with Marge Bronson (a pseudonym), a single mother, alleging that her daughter, Nina (also a pseudonym), had been sexually abused by Smith and Allen. The book recounts the initial investigation and trial (in which four children testified), largely told through the testimonies of the children and their parents. Miraldi provides context that supports his view of how poorly the case was executed, from the ways witnesses were vetted to the interviewing of the kindergarten-age victims. The author asserts, “Lorain police had broken almost all of the fundamental rules for questioning young children about potential sexual abuse,” to the point that there was “no way these interrogations could have produced reliable and valid information.” It took nearly 30 years to fully unveil the flaws in the investigation and clear Smith and Allen. Miraldi’s industrious reporting and clean prose pull from public records and direct interviews with many of those involved to lay out the case and its repercussions; unlike the prosecution, he does not use coercive language or make baseless claims. The result is an indictment of the system in which two innocent people were victims of collective paranoia and potentially insidious motives for financial gain—Bronson had hired a lawyer, likely to sue Smith’s employer for financial damages. This account reminds the reader that, in an era of mass disinformation and fake news, it behooves us to examine every angle, consult every piece of evidence, and do our best to discredit agendas that service personal gain.
A disturbing examination of judicial negligence and bias.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9780998918945
Page Count: 441
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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