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Summary
In Long Island, a farmer found a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discovered a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumbled upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime were turning up all over New York, but the police were baffled: there were no witnesses, no motives, no suspects. The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives headlong into the era's most perplexing murder. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus. Re-creations of the murder were staged in Times Square, armed reporters lurked in the streets of Hell's Kitchen in pursuit of suspects, and an unlikely trio-an anxious cop, a cub reporter, and an eccentric professor-all raced to solve the crime. What emerged was a sensational love triangle and an even more sensational trial: an unprecedented capital case hinging on circumstantial evidence around a victim that the police couldn't identify with certainty, and that the defense claimed wasn't even dead. The Murder of the Century is a rollicking tale-a rich evocation of America during the Gilded Age and a colorful re-creation of the tabloid wars that have dominated media to this day.
Summary
When body parts are found in various locations around Long Island in 1897, police begin to investigate one of the grisliest, most puzzling crimes of the era. The murder becomes a media sensation fueled by competing media giants Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. As armed reporters scour Hell's Kitchen for suspects, three unlikely characters attempt to solve the crime, resulting in a startling revelation and a sensational trial.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A dismembered corpse and rival newspapers squabbling for headlines fuel Collins's intriguing look at the birth of "yellow journalism" in late-19th-century New York. On June 26, 1897, the first of several gory bundles was discovered: a man's chest and arms floating in the East River. The legs and midsection were found separately and "assembled" at the morgue for identification. The two most popular newspapers-William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's New York World-devoted entire issues to the corpse, sending reporters out to shadow police and offering dueling rewards for identifying the man. Hearst even formed the "Murder Squad," reporters who were often one step ahead of the cops. Eventually identified as William Guldensuppe, the Danish immigrant had been caught between his landlady (and lover) Augusta Nack and her new suitor, Martin Thorn. Though both were suspects, only Thorn was tried and executed, after Nack cut a deal. Collins (The Book of William), founder of McSweeney's Collins Library imprint, gives an in-depth account of the exponential growth of lurid news and the public's (continuing) insatiable appetite for it. B&w illus. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Collins (English/Portland State Univ.; The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Changed the World, 2010, etc.) unpacks a sensational 1897 murder case that fascinated the public as it played out across the front pages of the New York City's leading newspapers: Joseph Pulitzer'sNew York Worldand William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal.The tabloids would go beyond mere coverage of the story; the white-hot rivalry between the papers led to an astoundingly proactive agenda that saw reporters actually outflanking the police investigation and effectively solving much of the case. After a group of children discovered the ghastly severed trunk of William Guldensuppe, a Turkish bath-house attendant, the rival news organs spared no expense to ferret out the culprits, eventually tracking the purchase of an oilcloth used to wrap the torso to Mrs. Augusta Nack, a German immigrant midwife and rumored back-room abortionist. Guldensuppe had been Nack's lover before being replaced by Martin Thorn, a hotheaded barber. Things failed to progress smoothly. The manipulative, spider-like Nack and the handsome, violent Thorn are compelling villains, and other players, such as Thorn's grandstanding lawyer William Howe (a vain, corpulent charlatan of oratory brilliance), the pathetic John Gotha, Thorn's former friend and the prosecution's chief witness and the maniacally ambitious Hearst round out a thoroughly engrossing cast of characters. The narrative is wonderfully rich in period detail (readers may gag at the description of the rat-induced stench that filled the courtroom during the trial), salacious facts about the case (Guldensuppe's killing and dismemberment was a truly heinous crime) and infectious wonder at the chutzpah and inventiveness displayed by Pulitzer's and Hearst's minions.Both a gripping true-crime narrative and an astonishing portrait of fin de sicle yellow journalism.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Collins, the literary detective often featured on NPR's Weekend Edition, has constructed a gripping work of narrative nonfiction. He revisits 1897 New York, where the discovery in the East River of a male torso with arms was first dismissed as a medical-student prank. But other findings of body parts soon convinced experts that a grisly murder had been committed. The public became galvanized by the horrific crime, in large part because of the spotlight turned on the case by the two masters of yellow journalism, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. Collins shows how the press sensationalized both the crime and the hunt for the murderer. More than a good true-crime story, this is absorbing social history, especially of the tabloid press of the time, including good portraits of Hearst and Pulitzer. Collins was able to draw on many eyewitness accounts as recorded by the contemporary press, which add greatly to the book's immediacy.--Fletcher, Conni. Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In the sticky summer of 1897, New York City was rocked by the discovery of a human torso wrapped in oilcloth floating in the river. A second bundle wrapped in the same fabric was found, then a third. Who was the dead man, and where had his head been dumped? The murder terrified the populace but galvanized the newspaper tabloids. Upstart New York Journal, run by a very young William Randolph Hearst, took on the champion New York World, under Joseph Pulitzer, in a circulation duel to the death. The rival papers sent out investigators, hounded the police, and offered substantial rewards, not in the service of justice but of circulation. The dogged search eventually produced suspects, but how do you get a conviction when you can't even identify the body? Collins (The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World) utilizes newspaper accounts from more than a dozen dailies to bring this tale of sex, murder, and yellow journalism to life. VERDICT This intriguing case, sensational at the time but now long forgotten, will appeal to fans of early 20th-century social history and crime.-Deirdre Bray Root, Middletown P.L., OH (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
