Title: The Murderess
Author: Laurie Notaro
Publisher: Little A
Pages: 367
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
When two stinking trunks make their way to Union station, the porters have no idea what they contain. Only that they are bleeding and that the stench is overpowering. Mrs Ruth Judd claims that the trunks contain books belonging to her husband, Dr Judd. But she doesn’t have the key to the trunks. When the trunks are opened, they are found to contain the bodies of Agnes Anne LeRoi and Hedvig (Sammy) Samuelson. Now Ruth is on the run, declared a fugitive and wanted for the murders of the two women.
But who is Ruth? Married to a much older
man, who she addresses as Doctor throughout their marriage, Ruth is swept into
an affair with Jack Halloran, the neighbour of the Fords, in whose household
she serves as a nanny. At the same time, she befriends Anne and Sammy, and the
three women help each other through challenges.
But as the heat rises in Phoenix, Arizona,
we see passions get inflamed, until the time comes when confrontation becomes
inevitable, leaving the police to probe the question of how Ruth came to be
responsible for the murders of two of her closest friends who she loved?
The greater part of the book is set around
the late 1920s and 1930s. the past tense omniscient narrative is interspersed
with newspaper stories and Ruth’s first person past tense account. Ruth’s
account takes us back to 1923, when she is a young girl, slowly leading up to
the present.
I was drawn to the book from the very
first paragraph when the trunks are found. Soon we meet Ruth and know that she
is responsible for this. The mystery lies in why she killed her two dearest
friends. What follows is an intense story of passion and intrigue, as the
police attempt to piece together the puzzle. This is the early 1930s, so a lot
of the forensic technology and techniques available today are not in place.
The period comes with its own challenges,
when tuberculosis could kill you. We learn about the challenges that Ruth
faces, her tuberculosis, her husband’s opioid addiction, her loneliness, among
other things. We learn also about the circumstances that people faced in that
time, with the Depression looming large, the challenges faced by single women,
the outlawing of homosexuality. In 1927, Ruth says, “people were still spending
money like mad then,” reminding us that the Great Depression is still in the
future.
The weather in Phoenix is as powerful as a
character, influencing and driving Ruth on. The weather, combined with her
loneliness, her struggle between choosing her own happiness with Jack and
worrying about her lack of faithfulness to her husband (she is, after all, a
pastor’s daughter), her dependence on substances to tackle the challenges she
faces and her failing mental health (the illness runs in the family; her mother
is eventually institutionalized too), all egg her on to make dubious choices.
The author pulls off the unimaginable,
helping us to see the murderess as a flawed human. Despite the gory nature of
the crime, the author treats it in a manner that is neither prurient nor base.
I couldn’t help feeling an inexplicable feeling of compassion for Ruth as she
slowly loses her mind. Ruth herself describes it as a ‘wire running through
her.’
The crime may inspire revulsion, but
Ruth’s story demands attention. Through flashbacks, we get to know how Ruth,
Anne and Sammy become friends. We see the exact moment at which the situation
changes for Ruth, hurtling her and the others to their inevitable fate.
Ultimately, the Murderess is one of us,
like us. The book reminds us, as it did the staff at the matrons in the prison,
how close we may be to having our own wires stretched too taut. It reminds us
that there is a very thin line between mental health and mental illness.
(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank
you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)
