Customer Reviews

Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America's Heartland

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This book was a great read! It felt like I was reading fiction but was haunted knowing it was a true story. I couldn't put it down as I kept developing new theories about the who might have killed John Hossack or why -- thinking surely I could figure it out by the end. But I couldn't. The issues about women's rights, family violence, and the how the medical, mental health, and legal systems (or lack of systems) operated in 1900 are fascinating and made me think about what has and hasn't changed. The clear descriptions let me visualize the farmhouse and imagine every drop of blood and where it landed.

This book is a superbly researched account of the murder of John Hossack on Dec. 2, 1900, in Warren County, Iowa, and of the events that followed that murder. After you have read the book you will want to read the opinion of the Iowa Supreme Court in State v. Hossack, 116 Iowa 194, 89 N.W. 1077 (1902). I have never seen better research and insight into the legal events connected with a crime--actually more authentic than Capote's In Cold Blood. And it also throws light on the early life of Susan Glaspell as well--she was a reporter covering the trial of the accused murderer. You will not soon forget this well-written book.

This book grabbed my attention from the start. The authors have captured the details of a mysterious tragedy, extracting from the historic record the perceptions and experiences and the breathing presence of the participants, and woven a narrative fabric that is compelling and evocative.

During the description of the hours and days immediately following the murder, the story line is particularly vivid, and several pages into this section I realized that information derived from witness testimony had been ingeniously interleaved in the real-time hour-by-hour description of who saw and noticed what. For example, the handing around of the family axe among visiting neighbors, and observation of hair and blood on the axe, prior to its being secured by the sheriff, is told with an immediacy that is truly striking in its verisimilitude.

This retelling of the witness testimony as it was chronologically experienced by the witnesses prepares the reader for the drama of the courtroom scene, while tightening its narrative. The climactic description of the display of the murder bed by the prosecution lawyer, pulling aside the bloodied covers to reveal the "mass of blood showing where John Hossack's body had lain," highlights the conviction conveyed by this state attorney, who temporarily persuaded me of the wife's guilt, in the heat of his closing statement.

The best writing does not depend on surprising turns of plot to carry a tale, but comes to life in the reader's re-living the events in empathy with its characters. Rarely have I seen this successfully executed in a book of non-fiction: hats off to Patricia Bryan and Thomas Wolf! What's your next book?

I first encountered this book simply because the cover caught my eye in a local bookstore. I had never heard of the book, or its authors. When I picked it up and read the back cover I realized this book was about an Iowa murder. Being from Iowa, I was greatly intrigued. I think this is an interesting topic because it's not exactly like murder trials today. Taking place in the early 1900s, mass media is not what it is today. A murder trial of this caliber would be inundated with Court TV and other news outlets today.

Patricia Bryan and Thomas Wolf do an incredible job of investigating this gruesome murder. They also do an excellent job of retelling this relatively unknown story. This is a big piece of Iowa history, at least in my mind, and it is not a popular topic of conversation. I really enjoyed the family aspect, how a family will back one another and only they know the truth.

All in all, this is an excellent read, especially if you are an Iowan. However, it is also an excellent read for anyone who thinks our Criminal Justice System is perfect. The authors tell the story like it is, they show the gender differences that existed over 100 years ago, and perhaps still exist today. It was unheard of for a wife to brutally murder her husband then, and for the most part, it still is today.

In their exploration of the murder of Iowa farmer John Hossack in 1900, Patricia Bryan and Thomas Wolf examine not only the question of who killed Hossack, but the difficulties of farm life during that time, and the roles women played on the farm and elsewhere in society. They also provide readers with a fascinating description of the trials of Hossack's wife, Margaret, for his murder. So this single volume is an unsolved mystery, an eye-opening piece of cultural history, and a real courtroom drama. That it's well written and engrossing in its details, with all the legal issues explained in a comprehensible and appealing way, just adds to its appeal.

Bryan and Wolf also discuss the career of writer Susan Glaspell (who wrote about the Hossack murder herself when she was a reporter for the "Des Moines Daily News"), what prison life was like during the early part of the 20th century at the Anamosa State Penitentiary, and (my favorite part of the book) the markedly inferior CSI-like techniques used for criminal investigation during that period.

This book isn't just an assemblage of dry facts. The events in it actually happened and the people actually lived, so plenty of facts are reported, but Bryan and Wolf's descriptions make the scenes, whether of the Hossack farmhouse or of the courtroom, vivid and memorable. And the main players in this story are so finely drawn that you genuinely care what happens to them.

I expected this book to be interesting and informative, but it was also a pleasure to read. I always looked forward to returning to it.

I found this book to be a "good read" with plenty of action and suspense. It's a murder mystery, plus more. The writers pull us into the story of rural American life in 1900, and create a fascinating quilt of details surrounding the central unsolved murder. The biographical details of the key figures are meticulously researched and bring the characters to life. The writing is evocative, and I felt transported to the time and place of the murder and ensuing trial and its aftermath.

Midnight Assassin is an all-too-rare piece of historical research, in that the authors seem to have no personal, political, or philosophical axes to grind (pardon the pun). While they do discuss the gender expectations and roles that bore heavily on this case, they do not depart from the facts in order to enter into a conventional feminist polemic. Nor do they offer, or even subtly imply, their own conclusions about this apparently unsolvable mystery. The reader is given a detailed picture of rural Iowan life at the turn of the last century - the sort of life led by many of our ancestors - and a poignant portrait of a woman who, innocent or guilty, suffered unnecessarily. The story becomes only more moving as the authors describe the fates of the children of this unhappy couple. And it somehow seemed most moving to me that the authors conclude their publication with a thank-you to their sons, who apparently grew up hearing about this case and have their own theories about it. That the story continues to be told and discussed, and is of interest even to children, shows its inherent power, and the authors do not distract us from this inherent power with social commentary. The authors' lawyerly focus on and respect for the facts and feelings that gave rise to this small but haunting human drama make them trustworthy guides. There are moments in our past that, foreign as they may seem now (in a world that cannot say, even if it still believes, that a woman can act more or less womanly), need to be brought to light. I hope that Bryan and Wolf will continue to investigate and publicize these moments.

This book grew out of an article that Patricia Bryan wrote for the Stanford Law Review. John Hossack, whose head was split open with an axe as he lay sleeping in a farmhouse packed with people, wasn't a pleasant man, but he didn't deserve to be murdered so brutally. His wife was arrested immediately after the funeral.

Bryan and Thomas Wolf show us how the USA was still reeling from the Lizzie Borden case, in which similarly people were shocked at trying to imagine a respectable woman wielding an axe and killing another famly member. They argue that Borden was acquitted solely to her gender, and that immediately afterwards people in Fall River, even the jurors, began to feel that they had been mistaken and that Lizzie was indeed guilty. In Warren County, they were not about to make the same mistake. Jurors had already sent to prison another woman who had killed her husband, the infamous, sexy Sarah Kuhn, who poisoned her impotent husband to make way for a new lover on the side.

Bryan and Wolf have little direct testimony from Margaret Hossack, beyond her appearances before the grand jury and at her trials, but what they produce in its stead is a fine recap of another woman's diary, Emily Gillespie, whose life parallels Margaret Hossack and who kept a detailed diary of the awful life farmer's wives had to face in the period. Unlike Margaret Hossack, Gillespie got out and managed to divorce her abusive husband before an act of violence could be enacted.

There were some plausible suspects, and Bryan and Wolf add suspense to their story by dangling some of them in front of us like carrots to a donkey. My pick is John Haines, the farmer neighbor who went mad after being questioned by the sheriff and was clapped into the insane asylum after raving mad, thus preventing his testimony at the first trial. To me, he certainly seemed capable of killing John Hossack. I think he was probably the son of either John or Margaret, and carried a grudge against them for giving him away.

The prosecution pulled out all the stops, arguing that Margaret Hossack was the next thing to Satan. Harry McNeil, the DA, stated, "Never since the crucifixion of Christ has there been a crime of more hideous nature than this." Whoa!

The odd thing is that a great American writer was on the scene, working for the Des Moines News as a cub reporter. And years later she, Susan Glaspell, wrote up her memories of the Margaret Hossack trial into a controversial play, "Trifles," and a stunning short story, "A Jury of her Peers." These works of enduring genius are what first attracted Bryan's attention to the long ago case, and she and her husband have written a book that, while no masterpiece itself, is worthy of being placed on the same shelf as Glaspell's originals. MIDNIGHT ASSASSIN is continually interesting, from page to page, chapter to chapter. It is subtle and it is delving. It doesn't take the easy way out, but continues asking the difficult questions. Like other reviewers, I hope they write another book together soon.

I bought this book because of my love of true crime. What I came away with was much more than a story of an ax murder in 1900 Iowa. The author's paint a vivid picture of the dismal life and the hardships of the wive's of farmers during this era, and the farmer's themselves, as they weave their story with true accounts of the actual investigation and trial.

Midnight Assassin is an easy read and real page turner. What I wasn't expecting was the portrait of desperation, fear and isolation that made this book so much more than a true crime story. "Little House on the Praire" this was not and is a must read!

This is a well-written book that casts the reader back into the lives of prairie farmers at the beginning of the 20th century. It shows the dark side of Little House on the Prairie.

It is especially good at introducing the reader to the plight of many farm wives in that era. Through the trial of Margaret Hossack for the ax murder of her husband, we get a feel for the isolation and desperation of these women. The man a woman married was her whole lot in life. It was strictly the luck of the draw for her. If a husband turned out to be cold and abusive, as it seems Mr. Hossack was, his wife had little recourse but to suffer through it to the end. Although Margaret may not have suffered in complete silence, since there was ample evidence of how often she had rushed to her neighbors to complain of her husband's foul, dangerous moods - there was little anyone else could or would do to help. As this book keenly points out, the code of being a good housewife and a "lady" constrained women to their places and prevented others from interceding too effectively. The book poses the question - Did Mrs. Hossack ultimately engage in self help?

The book's other purpose is to juxtapose the lives of two women situated very differently in 1900. On the one hand, there is Mrs. Hossack, confined to her meager, loveless life on the prairie. On the other hand, there is Susan Glaspell, the liberated young reporter who covered Mrs. Hossack's first trial. I would have liked to have read more details about Glaspell's early career as a crime reporter in a man's world. But perhaps that would have been spreading the content of this book too thin. The author does circle back at the end of Midnight Assassin to provide a follow-up on Glaspell's writing career. Trifles, the play Glaspell eventually wrote, based loosely on the Hawkin's trial, has a heart-wrenching conclusion. It's worthwhile reading this book for that dramatic take on the caged lives of these farm women alone.