While recovering in hospital, Inspector Morse comes across an account of the investigation into a murder from 1849, a crime for which two people were hanged. When he is discharged he can prove that they were convicted wrongly.
American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century
It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men, machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air.
On a beautiful summer day, crowds lined up outside a theater witness a sudden act of extreme road rage: a tap on a fender triggers a nearly homicidal attack. Jackson Brodie, ex-cop, ex-private detective, new millionaire, is among the bystanders.The event thrusts Jackson into the orbit of the wife of an unscrupulous real estate tycoon, a washed-up comedian, a successful crime novelist, a mysterious Russian woman, and a female police detective. Each of them hiding a secret, they all play a role in driving Jackson out of retirement and into the middle of several mysteries that intersect in one sinister scheme.
A fresh analysis of both the hidden and explicit philosophical ideas to be found in crime literature Josef Hoffmann covers influences and inspirations in crime writing with references to a stellar cast of crime writers including Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, Dashiell Hammett, Albert Camus, Borges, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Ted Lewis. Hoffmann examines why crime literature may provide stronger consolation for readers than philosophy. In so doing, he demonstrates the truth of Wittgenstein's claim that more wisdom is contained in the best crime fiction than in philosophical essays.
Jefferson Hunter examines English films and television dramas as they relate to English culture in the 20th century. He traces themes such as the influence of U.S. crime drama on English film, and film adaptations of literary works as they appear in screen work from the 1930s to the present. A Canterbury Tale and the documentary Listen to Britain are analyzed in the context of village pageants and other wartime explorations of Englishness at risk. English crime dramas are set against the writings of George Orwell, while a famous line from Noel Coward leads to a discussion of music and image in works like Brief Encounter and Look Back in Anger.
