Whimpulsive: The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime that Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins

The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime that Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins

Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Crown Publishing
Publication Date: 2011
Pages: 270
Source: Library

The Short Version:
It’s part true-crime and part history of the ongoing battles between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst in 1890’s New York

Why I Read It:
The author is a local college professor and when the review in the local paper caught my eye I did a little more checking and decided to read it.

The Book:
From the publisher:

On Long Island, a farmer finds a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discover a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oil cloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumble upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime are turning up all over New York, but the police are baffled: There are 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 baffling murder mystery. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus. Reenactments 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-a hard-luck cop, a cub reporter, and an eccentric professor-all raced to solve the crime.

My Thoughts:
I enjoyed this book. The true-crime part about the murder, the investigation and the trials could not be separated from the story of the leading newspapers of the time.

A headless torso and later other parts of a body are found in several locations. The police are desperate for clues and the identity of the deceased. The leading newspapers in New York see a story that will sell papers. The competition between the police, and the staff of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal make for a three ring circus of chasing leads.

The book intertwines the investigation of the murder by both the police and the newspapers. I found both sides of the story interesting. I think the newspaper wars interested my inner Citizen Kane fan and the murder investigation and prosecution fed my mystery loving side.

All in all it’s an interesting story but because it’s pretty complex and involves a lot of people it can be a bit difficult to track along the way. As far as narrative non-fiction goes it’s good but not excellent. I liked it well enough but had no trouble putting it down when interrupted.

I enjoyed the historical time period and the story about what might be he beginnings of tabloid journalism. What really struck me is that the current trend of entertainment being more important than actual news is really not a recent development at all.

In the words of William Randolph Hearst: