Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World's Most Famous Detective Writer

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Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World's Most Famous Detective Writer Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Margalit Fox (Author), Peter Forbes (Narrator), Random House Audio (Publisher)

4.2 268 ratings

Editors' pick Best Nonfiction

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“A wonderfully vivid portrait of the man behind Sherlock Holmes...Like all the best historical true crime books, it’s about so much more than crime.” (Tana French, author of In the Woods)

A sensational Edwardian murder. A scandalous wrongful conviction. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the rescue - a true story.

After a wealthy woman was brutally murdered in her Glasgow home in 1908, the police found a convenient suspect in Oscar Slater, an immigrant Jewish cardsharp. Though he was known to be innocent, Slater was tried, convicted, and consigned to life at hard labor. Outraged by this injustice, Arthur Conan Doyle, already world renowned as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, used the methods of his most famous character to reinvestigate the case, ultimately winning Slater’s freedom.

With “an eye for the telling detail, a forensic sense of evidence and a relish for research” (The Wall Street Journal), Margalit Fox immerses listeners in the science of Edwardian crime detection and illuminates a watershed moment in its history, when reflexive prejudice began to be replaced by reason and the scientific method.

Praise for Conan Doyle for the Defense:

“Artful and compelling...[Fox’s] narrative momentum never flags....Conan Doyle for the Defense will captivate almost any reader while being pure catnip for the devotee of true-crime writing.” (The Washington Post)

“Developed with brio...[Fox] is excellent in linking the 19th-century creation of policing and detection with the development of both detective fiction and the science of forensics - ballistics, fingerprints, toxicology and serology - as well as the quasi science of ‘criminal anthropology.’” (The New York Times Book Review)

“Gripping...The book works on two levels, much like a good Holmes case. First, it is a fluid story of a crime....Second, and more pertinently, it is a deeper story of how prejudice against a class of people, the covering up of sloppy police work and a poisonous political atmosphere can doom an innocent. We should all heed Holmes’s salutary lesson: rationally follow the facts to find the truth.” (Time)

Listening Length

7 hours and 41 minutes
Author

Margalit Fox
Narrator

Peter Forbes
Audible release date

June 26, 2018
Language

English
Publisher

Random House Audio
ASIN

B07DQZD3F3
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	7 hours and 41 minutes
Author	Margalit Fox
Narrator	Peter Forbes
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	June 26, 2018
Publisher	Random House Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B07DQZD3F3
Best Sellers Rank	#160,082 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #24 in Forensic Science (Audible Books & Originals) #544 in Great Britain History (Audible Books & Originals) #582 in Biographies of Authors

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

268 global ratings

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Hande Z

Not so elementary my dear Watsons

Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2018

Verified Purchase

The reader might be forgiven for constantly checking to be sure that this is a non-fiction (it is) because the story is so incredible and so well written by Fox that it could easily have been another Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. This book, in fact, is a retelling of the true story of a German Jew who arrived in Scotland to start a new life under a new name – Oscar Slater – only to be accused of murder. Oscar Slater was an easy target for the law to make a convenient scapegoat. He was a tramp and suspected of pimping the woman he claimed was his mistress.

When a rich and elderly woman named Marion Gilchrist was found murdered, Oscar Slater was swiftly identified as the suspect. A brooch was missing from Gilchrist’s home; a brooch was found in Slater’s home. The police thought the case was closed, only to be told later that that was not the Gilchrist brooch.

As the author rightly repeated the question asked by Conan Doyle, why then did the police continue its investigation with Slater as the main suspect? The rest of the incredulous tale is best left to the reader to discover. It is sufficient to say that Slater was found guilty of Gilchrist’s murder and was serving life imprisonment after a commuted death sentence when he smuggled a note through a fellow prisoner who was released after his sentence had been served. It was almost 20 years when that note, was delivered to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with a plea for help.

Doyle did not disappoint. The book traversed the crime as it happened, Slater’s arrest and trial, and the efforts to prove his innocence. Did Doyle succeed? Was there a twist at the end? The story has many amazing turns of events – all the way to the end. As good as any Sherlock Holmes mystery.

14 people found this helpful

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amachinist

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains however improbable must be the truth."

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2019

Verified Purchase

In 1908, 36 year old Oscar Slater, nee Oscar Lechzinos, was arrested for the brutal murder of Marion Gilchrist, an 82 year old wealthy Glasgow spinster. The accused was a German, Jewish immigrant. From the very beginning there were irregularities in Slater's arrest, witness identification, trial, prosecution and imprisonment. A combination of police incompetence, anti-semitism, scapegoating and xenophobia resulted in Slater's incarceration for over 18 years for a crime he never committed.

Like most Victorian Britains, Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous physician and detective novelist, was mesmerized by the case. It had been dubbed "the Scottish Dreyfus case." After a thorough study of the murder, collected evidence, trial proceedings and verdict, Doyle wrote to the London Times that it was " as brutal and callous a crime as has ever been recorded in those black annals in which the criminologist finds the materials for his study." Embodying the very techniques of the detective of his own creation, Doyle spent the last 20 years of his life trying to prove Slater's innocence. He used Sherlock Holmse's techniques of observation, review of the minutest details, precise sequencing of the events of the crime, "negative" evidence and "abductive" reasoning. In 1912, to drum up support for Slater's cause, Doyle published an 80 page book called The Case of Oscar Slater. This book indeed generated new interest. Slater, through the ingenuity of a released prisoner, sent a personal note to Doyle, pleading for his help. Doyle raised funds and contributed over 500 pounds to pay for the best criminal lawyer in London to retry the case on Slater's behalf. Slater's release was finally obtained in1927.

Fox's book is about so much more than this murder case. It paints a detailed picture of the mores of Victorian Britain. It tracks the evolution of criminology which was in its infancy in the early 20th century. It fleshes out the career and character of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from his childhood, through his medical training in Edinburgh, under Dr. Joseph Bell, on whom Sherlock Holmes was based, to his service in developing the home-guard reserves during WWI. Doyle thought Slater was a "scalawag", but Doyle's sense of duty and seeking justice outweighed his beliefs about the accused's character. The author includes copious notes, photographs, a glossary of Scottish terms, and a list of the many characters who appear and reappear throughout the course of the initial trial and retrial. There are times when the writing is repetitive, but Fox, an award winning author and journalist, is perhaps trying to be true to the style of both Doyle and Holmes: seeking the truth and achieving justice by a constant examination and reexamination, many times over, of the facts.

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Thaddeus Tuffentsamer

A wonderfully crafted historical narrative.

Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2018

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Being an enormous fan of the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a published Sherlock Holmes author, anything about the man who created the legend arouses my immediate attention. I have read of the times that Mr. Doyle helped with cases, but never to the depth that was covered in the book. It was comprehensive, without being wordy, gave backstory without dredging on, told of events without superfluous content.

It was a well crafted tale that wa well paced and kept you intrigued until the finish of the tale. I am a fiction writer, but even I can appreciate the sheer amount of work that had to be done to write this novel, the thousands of articles of information that had to be condensed into a concise accounting of events.

This was indeed, very well done. If you are interested in history, or are a fan of the Great Detective and the man who brought him to life, you will be pleased with this novel.

Edit:
Thank you, Margalit E. Fox, very much for taking the time to reply. I in no way tried to imply that this was anything less than a real event narrative in the life of Conan Doyle. I apologize if it came across that way, or if anyone who read my review felt it was thus implied.

You have done an exhaustive amount of research and I can only imagine the task it was to consolidate so much information into this book. I thank you for making this available for us fans of Conan Doyle. I myself as a Sherlock Holmes author, still found fresh information in this about Conan Doyle that I had not known.

If you would ever wish to collaborate on a Sherlock Holmes story, it would be an inestimable privilege.

6 people found this helpful

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