History, Medicine, and Science: Nonfiction and Fiction discussion

Who's reading/already read this book?

I just picked it up from the library but I am still working on the Poisoners' Handbook. :)

I read it a couple of months ago.

My library has a long waiting list. It may be months before I get it.

Gwen - what did you think of it?

I'm into Part 2 - Death of a B Girl - and I'm starting to get hopeful about it. The prologue and The Murder Room were badly written, coming off as the worst kind of pulp fiction/comic book writing. The main three of the Vidocq group (Fleisher, Walter, and Bender) were repeatedly held up as incredibly brilliant, incredibly flawed and obsessed nebbishes. Despite the fact that two of them are married with families, I have yet to experience them as anything but 2D.

I have always wanted to know more about the Vidocq Society, so was really excited to read it. However, the book left me wanting more, like Robyn said, there are repetitive phrases about Fleisher, Walter, & Bender that come off sounding like a bad Dashiell Hammett story, and there was no real conclusion.

I liked it, it just could have been so much more.

Finished it today.

Frank Bender died when I was reading this last month which made me rather sad (though I had known he was dying). I wanted to like this more than I did. It wasn't awful but it was unbalanced. Frank and Walter seemed to engage the author more and there was much more about them than there was of Fleisher who was the real driving force behind the Society so that annoyed me.

Caputo was overly in love with Frank's polyamorous life style and spent way too much time on that and took away from the crime aspects to spend it on who Frank was sleeping with now. I have a full review up on goodreads.

Cornerofmadness, I couldn't agree with you more on the over abundance of material on Frank and his lifestyle. Who cares???

yeah it felt extraneous to the extreme after the third or fourth mention but it was pretty obvious Caputo was captivated by it

While I thought that the juxtaposition of what we have in our mind about those that fight crime or are "super detectives" with Frank's lifestyle was interesting...I do agree with ya'll, the constant mentions of his free love was over the top.

I've just begun reading this book, feeling a little lost at times, wondering about the organization of material, and so turned to the group to see what was being said. I'm glad to see it isn't just me. I confess I like a more focused story and dislike being pulled in several different directions. The writer took on a huge subject, three larger-than-life men and many fascinating cases they solved, and I admire his attempt! But personally, a closer focus on the solving of the crimes and far less repetition about these brilliant-flawed men would probably hold my attention better.

I think I would have liked more focus on the solving of the cases and a little less hero worship.

Phylwil wrote: "I think I would have liked more focus on the solving of the cases and a little less hero worship."

Perfectly stated!

I think that this book wanted less focus on the cases and more on the men. I hear often we know more about the killers than the men bringing them to justice. I was okay with that. Heck, I was hoping for that since I have half these cases memorized but Caputo didn't do a good job with that since he focused only on one aspect of each man, repeating it ad nauseum

Gwen wrote: "Phylwil wrote: "I think I would have liked more focus on the solving of the cases and a little less hero worship."

Perfectly stated!"

True that. And I would have not minded better writing or more coherent structure. I did like it, in a pulpy way, but oh boy, this book would have really needed a good editor.