A Tale of Two Murders: Guilt, Innocence, and the Execution of Edith Thompson by Laura Thompson is, remarkably, a blend of all these: escapism, a search for justice, and an attempt at realizing, as fully as possible, the essence of a real person — and that very person's search for herself through words.
London, October 1922. Edith Thompson and her husband, Percy, were on the way home from the theater. A man, Freddy Bywaters, came out of the shadows and murdered Edith’s husband. It turned out that Bywaters was Edith’s lover; they were both charged with Percy’s murder, and they were both convicted and executed. In this intense and precise account of the case and its aftermath, the author explores the possibility that Edith was unfairly convicted; Freddy claimed several times that Edith wasn’t involved, and it is quite possible he was telling the truth, not merely lying to save the life of the woman he loved ... A terrific book: compassionate, nuanced, and thought-provoking.
Thompson provides the definitive look at a British cause célèbre in this riveting and multifaceted study of the notorious Thompson-Bywaters murder, the first such study to make use of all the Home Office files on the case ... Thompson’s detailed description of prevailing attitudes about the role of women in British society gives the book a broader social relevance than most true crime books.
Moving beyond the standard courtroom drama, Somerset Maugham Award winner Thompson painstakingly details the life and death of Edith Thompson, an Essex woman who gained notoriety in 1922 as she and her lover stood trial for the murder of her husband ... elaborately chronicled by the author, who displays a profound sympathy for her subject, Edith's own words were enough to condemn her in the court of public opinion well before she was sentenced to death in a court of law ... This meticulously researched account of a fatal love affair carefully questions the nature of guilt and capital punishment in polite society, offering up a more profound lesson than is likely to be found in a typical true crime novel.
