Masquerade [Hardcover]

Lowell Cauffiel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1988

This true crime account unravels the bizarre circumstances surrounding the hideous mutilation murder of Dr. Alan Canty, a respected Detroit psychologist. Obsessed with a teenage hooker named Dawn Spens, Canty found himself caught in a horrifying world of double identities, drug addiction, and blackmail, which ended in his brutal murder at the hands of Dawn's pimp boyfriend, John "Lucky" Fry. Photo insert.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Detroit psychologist Alan Canty maintained a second identity as "Dr. Al Miller," an alleged physician who was drawn to the Motor City's lower depths. He began an affair with 19-year-old prostitute Dawn Spens and got to know her ex-convict pimp, John Fry; both of them were heavy drug users. The analyst lavished great amounts of money on Spens, well over a hundred-thousand dollars, all but bankrupting himself; his wife, also a psychologist, had no inkling of his double life or of his burgeoning debts. Finally, when Dr. Miller tried to break off the relationship, the pimp killed him. Cauffiel, who covered the Fry murder trial in 1986 for Michigan magazine, does not attempt a psychological profile of Canty, but he suggests that a poor self-image may have been at the root of the duality. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 343 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (July 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385237723
• ISBN-13: 978-0385237727
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #314,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A deadly Detroit triangle, October 20, 2005

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Masquerade (Mass Market Paperback)

In a way, I'm glad I moved out of Detroit before I read Lowell Cauffiel's true crime book, "Masquerade." I spent most of my career working, going to school, and socializing in and around Cass Corridor, which is where this book's characters spent their lives getting high, turning tricks, pimping, and oddly enough, practicing psychology.

Detroit's Cass Corridor is an urban slum, made up more of apartment buildings, pay-by-the-hour hotels, and deteriorating storefronts than free-standing houses. Of those who live there, 73 percent are black, 49 percent have graduated from high school and almost all -- 98 percent -- are renters. It encompasses Detroit's biggest drug houses, the most hookers, the best Chinese restaurant, the world's largest Masonic Temple (where we used to go see performances of the Metropolitan Opera on Tour), and a gaggle of Wayne State University students who want to live close to campus and are too poor to look elsewhere. If you stand out in the middle of Second Avenue, the street that runs right through the Corridor (careful, you might get solicited by a cruising john), and look north, you will see what one local radio station insists on calling the 'Golden Tower' of the Fisher Building.

This book is about a single murder in 1984 that stood out amongst Detroit's 600+ murders that year because of its brutality, and because of the odd character of the victim, who was a successful psychologist and marital counselor.

The murder itself is an anti-climax and occurs near the end of the book. There is no mystery about who is going to kill whom. The meat of "Masquerade" lies in the interactions between pimp, hooker, and sugar daddy. How did a psychologist with a thriving practice in the 'Golden Tower' of the Fisher Building and a six-bedroom, six-bathroom Tudor in Grosse Pointe Park become so involved with an ordinary streetwalker and her pimp, that he spent over $1,000/week on their drug habits? How did he manage to keep his life in Cass Corridor a secret for over a year from his psychologist-wife?

I can't remember the last time I read with such fascination about lethal relationships and the destruction they wrought on seemingly good marriages and friendships. Everyone involved ended up with nightmares, even the jurors.

Many chapters begin with an ironic quotation from the lectures and books of the murder victim or his psychologist-father. Even though it isn't a whodunit, you're likely to form an obsessive-compulsive relationship with "Masquerade" once you begin reading it.

The book does sag a bit as it inches toward the murder, and it is depressing as hell to read, but I've already searched the internet to see if I can get another fix from this author.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Detroit's Own "Blue Velvet", August 25, 2002

By 

Frank Booth (Southeast Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Masquerade (Mass Market Paperback)

Mr. Cauffiel does an excellent job describing the ghetto that is, and has for a long time been Detroit. "Masquerade" was like our own little real-life "Blue Velvet". If you always thought that psychiatrists usually get into the business because they're half-nuts themselves, this book will reaffirm that notion. I think the story would make an excellent movie. Dennis Hopper as John Fry?? Angelina Jolie as Dawn Spens? Samuel L. Jackson as Mark Bando??? As far as "Where Are They Now?" The other reviewer was mistaken. Fry was not "released" in the usual sense of the word. He was "paroled" to the hereafter......he died in prison of that ...disease, Hepatitis C. John Woodington retired from the Detroit PD and is doing accident investigation work. Mark Bando retired after 25 years with the Detroit PD and is an accomplished writer, having authored 4 published works on the 101st. Airborne Division and the 2nd. Armored Division in WWII. Sell your Ambrose books and buy Bando's. ...
Don't miss the "forum" section. Maybe Bando could do a "Masquerade" tour of the Detroit ghetto? Kind of like that guy in NYC does "Seinfeld"? ...

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Double life gone awry, November 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Masquerade (True Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is much more than a routine "by-the-numbers" crime story; it's a compelling psychological thriller that conjures up images of Hitchcock and Freud, and yet, it's horrifying because it's unfortunately all too real. Alan Canty was a psychologist with all the right credentials; nevertheless, he considered himself a fraud, not least because of the emotional baggage he carried throughout his life. "Masquerade" is a very appropriate title, since Canty spent most of his life "playing roles", as adolescents do, "testing" different character types, usually James Dean or the "hip criminal insider". Author Cauffiel gives vivid descriptions of Alan's early life with his indulgent mother and distant father, who was a criminologist. The implication is that Al's fascination with the seamy, dark world of psychopaths was partly out of identification with his father, and was partly stemmed out of rebellion. Decades later (at age 50), with a bright, loving, beautiful wife and a grand Tudor in Grosse Pointe, Al made the fatal mistake of seeking thrills in the heart of the Cass Corridor, where he encountered an 18-year-old prostitute named Dawn Spens. Dawn and her boyfriend, a pimp nicknamed "Lucky" Fry, would prove to be an endless source of fascination for Canty because of their lawless, greedy lives; a fatal attraction indeed.

What makes the book such a page-turner is the manner in which it's written. Cauffiel fills the book with mere snippets of chapters that are tantalizing. Characters from every walk of life are introduced, from Al's wife, mother, and patients to the circle of prostitutes and drug fiends that make up Lucky and Dawn's crowd. One young woman, Lucky's ex-girlfriend Cheryl, has a story interesting enough to rate her own book. Others, such as Al's wife, Jan, show astonishing courage and strength in a crisis.

Cauffiel pulls no punches with any of the main characters. Al Canty is showcased in all of his obsession and selfishness, as well as his understanding and generosity. His need to control and play the "Henry Higgins" role to a succession of young proteges stemmed from his deep insecurities; most of his life he apparently continued to believe that perhaps he wasn't really necessary to anyone. However, even in spite of his treatment of Jan, and his indulging Dawn in heroin and other drugs, Canty is shown to be a pitiable figure. His self-esteem came from "hangin'" with criminal types and playing the great benefactor, literally showering the perpetually ungrateful Lucky and Dawn with money. Dawn is shown to be a manipulator and a tough, hard-as-nails con artist; several of her evaluators, including Jan Canty, saw only the frail, drug-abused young adolescent with liver disease that she appeared to be at the trial. John "Lucky" Fry looked and behaved like the textbook description of a psychopath; throughout the book, he is shown to be consistently self-centered, with no empathy for others and no conscience whatsoever. Even his affection for children, such as his nieces and nephews, does not inspire caution or responsible behavior on his part.

Maybe another reason this is such a fascinating story is because of that famous saying, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." Canty's tragic death forces everyone to take a look at their own lives, and to wonder if there is anything they can possibly do to prevent a similar tragedy.