June 10, 2013
The downsides of dramatizing a true crime narrative become abundantly clear in this dull reconstruction of a horrific 2004 murder in Sarasota, Fla. An overwhelming stench leads to the discovery of the butchered corpse of art gallery owner Joyce Wishart; she had been stabbed numerous times, nearly beheaded, and her killer had removed her vagina and lower abdomen. Six months after the crime, detectives get a DNA hit identifying Elton Brutus Murphy’s blood at the scene. Much of the book deals with the butcher’s vivid descent into madness and violence, culminating with his murder of Wishart. The dramatic prologue provides Murphy’s inner thoughts as he supposedly posed the corpse after the killing (to create his own “masterwork”) and prepared to make “the stew.” Yet later in the book, the author apparently quotes from his interviews with Murphy to note that the murderer laughed at the theory that his victim was posed in a particular way, and makes clear that there is no evidence of any kind that he cooked any part of her, not even in his confession. These conflicts ultimately undermine Benson’s (Betrayal in Blood) credibility, a fatal flaw in any work of nonfiction. Agent: Jake Elwell, Harold Ober Associates.