Robert Traver Anatomy of a Murder

Anatomy of a Murder

Robert Traver

St. Martin's, Aug 2005, $13.95, 448 pp.

ISBN: 0312033567

In Thunder Bay, Michigan, hotel and bar manager Barney Quill violently rapes Laura Manion. Laura's spouse Army Lieutenant Frederick Manion explodes into a rage; he fires five shots at Quill killing him. Witnesses saw the homicide and Manion confesses to the crime. The police arrest Manion for murder

Former county Prosecutor Paul Biegler heads up the defense team; his opponent is the lawyer who replaced him as the prosecutor, Mitch Lodwick, also assisted from the Michigan Attorney general's Office. Knowing his client is guilty of the act and in spite of also loathing Manion, Paul hopes to legally defend the murder in the minds of twelve strangers. His plan is to claim his client suffered an "irresistible impulse", an insane rage to get back at the violator of his wife. However, as Paul digs deeper into the background, he begins to uncover other information that puts a different light on the deadly triangular relationship between his client, his client's wife, and the deceased.

This reprinting of a terrific 1950s legal thriller that some insist established the sub-genre (Christie aside) holds up nicely five decades after its initial publishing and movie were made. The storyline focuses for much of the first half of the insightful plot on the defense team investigation and building its plea, but though interesting is slow as readers see first hand the strategy and discourse they take; the latter half is the trial with both sides verbose as they make points. Though incredibly perceptive with what happens on a highly charged murder case, talking is not as exciting as performing. Still the tale retains its discerning insider's look at the legal process.

Harriet Klausner