Customer Reviews

With an Axe

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Having just gotten hold of a used copy of this book, I haven't had time to read each entry carefully, however, on its face, this is one of the rare instances where True Crime researchers or the merely curious can refer to a single boook covering the most peculiar and terrifying aspects of Axe Murders("axe" being the most common English spelling. "Ax" is more modern)

My interest in this book was piqued after viewing the revisionist suspense thriller THE WEIGHT OF WATER adapted from the novel of the same name by Anita Shreve. That Novel and Film dealt with perhaps New England's SECOND most famous Axe Murders, those that took place on Smuttynose Island in 1873 off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. Two Norwegian women were brutally bludgeoned and kiled there on a desolate night with the youngest, Anethe, suffering a brutal blow to the head from an Axe Blade. The killer, prseumed to be a disgruntled former tenant, apparently left one of the women, Maren, alive. She claimed to have escaped through a window and by hiding all night under a rock on the shore.

To this day, multiple theories abound as to what truly transpired on Smuttynose that night. Anita Shreve proposed a new candidate for the killer in her novel as opposed to the man who was tried and eventually executed for the crimes. Others have proposed even more fanciful theories. The entry in this book does a more than adequate job of evoking the milieu and the various issues of the case without drawing any new or startling conclusions and it is just as well. One would think that The Smuttynose Axe killings or "The Shoals murders" are they are sometimes called would have been an open and shut case due to the presence of an eyewitness, but even during the Trial, their were those unconvinced of the accused's guilt.

Of course, Lizzie Borden looms large over any discussions of Axe Murders and you will find a solid entry here on the case. In an interesting contrast to the Smuttynose killings, Lizzie was aqcuitted due to society's disbelief that a woman could commit such crimes while Maren Hotnett, the lone survivor of the Smuttynose night of horror has been singled out as suspect simply because she was a woman. It seems that Victoian times favored nice white women from well-off families but even in the face of damning evidence of a man's guilt, people were still ready to believe in the inherent wickedness of a young, immigrant woman living an antiquated existance that was barely sustaining.

The other essays appear well and good but it is almost always the two New England cases that draws readers to this anthology of Axe crimes. For some reason, we today are still terrified of any murders be they historic or current when the weapon is one so crude as an Axe. An Axe murderer is close enough to his/her victims for them to reach out and touch their killers, to look right into their very faces. Perhaps it is the intimacy of an Axe Murder that fascinates us so. Whatver your reason for lokking up this book, you'll find the accounts difficult to put aside. Each of the other cases presented take on larger significance since they are paired with the two most controversial killings of New England history. Overall, a fine collection of essays on the peculiar nature of Murder.. With an Axe.

I enjoyed this book very much, I thought the amount of detail was about right. In particular, I was interested in the Borden case, and enjoyed the transcript of Lizzie's court testimony which was included in the book.

There's nothing I enjoy more than true crime stories. Unfortunately, with a few notable exceptions, many such books are poorly written. But H. Paul Jeffers, in With an Axe, gives the reader both fascinating reading and top notch writing. It's one of those books you just can't put down! Another winner for Mr. Jeffers.