Lizzie by Evan Hunter
Lizzie was Evan Hunter (Ed McBain)’s attempt at solving the Lizzie Borden mystery. Did she in fact take an ax and give her mother forty whacks? He mixes speculation about a trip she took to Europe with testimony from the actual trial. So the facts of the murder are real but the story of the European trip is conjecture except for the fact that she did take a trip to Europe. Then at the end he ties the two together in his explanation of what actually happened.
The trial testimony is kind of boring. That’s the trouble with working from fact. He doesn’t repeat it all in Q & A form – he summarizes so you get the key points – but he doesn’t dramatize it either. The European trip chapters, interspersed, are much more interesting but a little transparent. You do know where it’s leading and of course you know how the trial comes out as well. The last chapters – his reenactment – are the best ones but it’s a lot of reading for a short payoff.