Kev,
Re your response to my comments below:
> >My problem with the theory is Al puts forth in
that
> >novel is that it depends on too many people to
be
> >participants in the conspiracy of
silence,
> including
> >people Al himself credits with being persons
of
> high
> >integrity who gave no evidence in other aspects
of
> >their lives of being willing to keep quiet while
an
> >innocent man was executed.
>
> Not speaking to that case specifically, but
given
> even recent
> history in places like Illinois and Oklahoma,
it
> doesn't always seem
> to require a huge conspiracy for an innocent man
to
> be sentenced to
> die (or even merely be convicted) -- more
a
> combination of
> overzealous prosecution, incompetent
counsel,
> misleading (or
> dishonest) witnesses, vested interests,
ulterior
> motives, corner
> cutting, bad luck and other tragic errors
and
> occurrences.
There's a difference between overzealousness and honest, good
faith errors, and DELIBERATE silence in the face of a man one
knows to be innocent being put to death.
In the context of Al's fictional depiction of the Lindbergh
case (and it's damned compelling as fiction; I regard STOLEN
AWAY as one of his best books), the only way the conspiracy
can work, as it's set up, is for men like Elmer Irey and
Frank Wilson, lawmen whose whole reputation was built upon
the rock-solidity of their integrity, to knowingly
participate in the conspiracy, and I just don't believe that
happened.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Just as a trivia note, Al was not the first to assign
responsibility for the Lindbergh kidnapping to the Capone Mob
in a fictional depiction of the case.
An early continuity in the DICK TRACY comic strip involves
the kidnapping of a baby from his hom that was obviously
modeled on the Lindbergh case. In that story, Tracy discovers
that the man behind the abduction is none other than the Big
Boy, Tracy's very first, and most persistent, foe, who, as
Tracy-philes know, was deliberately modeled on Capone.
Another fictionalized version of the Lindbergh case is, of
all things, Agatha Christie's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS,
in which the murder victim is an American Mafia figure
believed to be (but not proven to be) the man responsible for
the kidnapping and murder of a famous British aviator's
child.
JIM DOHERTY
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