DNF. This author clearly has as chip on her shoulder against people from the past, which I can understand to an extent, however she is clearly out of her depth. There is a place for criticism, but they weren't as stupid and idiotic as Fox would have you believe.

I came here to read about Conan Doyle and the murder, not about how the expulsion of Jews by Edward I in 1290 meant that antisemitism was pertinent in 1908 (Of course it was, but Fox could have picked a more recent and pertinent example, this being said, the summary of antisemitism in Britain was more or less butchered) ( )

I enjoyed knowing this part of Arthur Conan Doyle’s life simply because I love Sherlock Holmes. Sir ACD was so well known for his intelligence in writing the Sherlock stories, that the “real world” took him seriously. Police forces and courts changed their practices based on methodology that “Sherlock Holmes” used. I mean come on…that’s cool.

That being said, even though the research that went into this book was super solid and the information was interesting, I felt like it took way too long to get to the conclusion. A cool (and unbelievable) story was given light, but the author really dragged the details to get you there.

So who is your favorite portrayal of Sherlock Holmes??? ( )

Conan Doyle for the Defense written by Margalit Fox is a true and delicious tale about how Oscar Slater, a German Jewish immigrant living in Scotland, was falsely accused of murder. Antisemitism and a corrupt legal system were the culprits. With the writer of Sherlock Holmes having to solve a real case, you are in for a fascinating read. Even when his sentence was commuted, they couldn't release Oscar because his German citizenship had expired and his innocence would never be accepted by the public. It was amazing the lengths British government would take to frame the “Other”-Jewish German and even sentence Oscar to death. It makes one question whether things have improved today with the flourishing of Antisemitism. ( )

Margalit Fox is probably my current favorite non-fiction writer. She has an unrivaled ability to both tell a very detailed story and also provide a context that makes it meaningful. In this case, the story is the wrongful imprisonment of the Jewish German immigrant Oscar Slater, and the navigation of his subsequent release by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The context chapters are wide-ranging, for instance: the history of criminology versus true forensic science (the former assumes the type of person a criminal is, then looks for clues to support it, while the latter uses abductive reasoning to come to a conclusion), Victorian sensibility and the life and times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who apparently really hated being called Arthur casually). But the bulk of the context chapters focus on the xenophobia of Victorian Scotland with a particular focus on their anti-semitism and abject hatred of immigrants. Obviously, I found this highly relevant to current events.

I felt like she had a little more zip when writing about linguistics in her two previous books. I also missed the formal alternation of chapters -- in Conan Doyle for the Defense there's a poor balance of thematic chapters and plot chapters in some sections. Nonetheless, I learned a lot and really enjoyed the narrative while doing so. ( )

4 stars for the writing, but I bumped it up .5 star because I learned a lot I didn’t know before I started.

The title is something of a misnomer, as it implies that Conan Doyle was an active participant in the defence of Oscar Slater, and he wasn’t – he didn’t involve himself until several years after Slater’s conviction and incarceration. Once he did, however, he did it to devastating effect, but to no avail; it wasn’t until he renewed his efforts some 15 years later, in partnership with an investigative journalist, William Park, that the gears of justice finally started to grind.

As much as this book is about the gross injustice served upon Oscar Slater (it was indeed Scotland’s Dreyfus affair), it’s also a revealing look into Scotland at the turn of the century, when science was just beginning to gain its capital “S” but society still stood firmly in the class and morality rigid past. The level of anti-Semitism was profound, something I would never have associated with Scotland, such is my ignorance of history.

In my status update, I had gotten just to the point in the book where it looked like the author was going to make an argument for pre-meditation on behalf of the Glasgow police, in framing Slater for the crime, while at the same time detailing the force’s stupidity. Her argument didn’t proceed quite along the lines it looked to be headed, but she did, in the end, paint the force as being results-oriented to the point of gross injustice. It’s clear that the only concern was not only an arrest and conviction, but an arrest and conviction of somebody deemed undesirable; an effort to kill two birds with one stone. That they were willing to forge documents and browbeat witnesses into perjury is clearly documented and the only greater injustice than the one done to Slater is that those most guilty were all dead before they could be held to account for their own crimes.

Because the story of just Conan Doyle’s participation in releasing Slater would have been more a pamphlet than a book, the text is liberally padded with small biographies of Slater, Conan Doyle, and Joseph Bell, as well as chapters detailing the types of reasoning used for investigation, and previous cases where Conan Doyle’s assistance prevailed in either convicting the right man, or releasing the one wrongly convicted. A small detour towards the end is made into Conan Doyle’s foray into the paranormal, and the author tried to tie it into the book by speculating that it might have negated his influence with the Scottish authorities, a justification that I don’t think she really established.

I feel like this book is one packs enough into a seemingly straightforward narrative as to offer almost endless avenues for discussions covering a wide variety of topics. As I said at the start, I learned a lot (granted I wasn’t starting from a very learned position); I found the narrative easy to read and much more engrossing than I originally expected and I came away with an even deeper respect for Conan Doyle than I started with. ( )