Murder on the Home Front (37 page)

The hooked knife with which Sangret stabbed Joan Pearl Wolfe.

August Sangret

Albert Pierrepoint, the public executioner

The assistant chief constable of Kent, K. Horwood; Dr. Simpson; and Chief Superintendent F. H. Smeed on their way to the scene of a crime.

The River Lea, where Mrs. Manton’s body was found. (The stake was placed by the police to show the exact spot.)

The police slide shown in local movie theaters.

The body of Robert Smith in Kempston Ballast Hole.

The stake with which Smith was killed. Inset shows enlargement of hair adhering to the stake.

Alec de Antiquis lying shot on the pavement. (A photographer who happened to be passing took this picture.)

Charley Brown’s. The door through which the stabbing took place.

Reuben Martirosoff

Frank Everitt, otherwise known as the Duke

Acknowledgments

The author wishes especially to thank Dr. Keith Simpson for generously allowing her access to his records.

Acknowledgments are due to the following for permission to use photographs in their possession: to Thomas Fall for the photograph of Dr. Simpson; to Mr. G. H. Higgins for the photograph of de Antiquis; to Express Newspapers for the photographs of Frank Everitt, Reuben Martirosoff, Auguste Sangret, and “Charley Brown’s,” and for the photographs of Assistant Chief Constable Horwood, Dr. Simpson, and Chief Superintendent Smeed.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. Early in the first chapter, the author writes, “There are people who say corpses don’t talk, but indeed they do. They talk of easy lives in pleasant homes, of hard, dirty lives in rooms where lice crawl up and down the walls and the ceiling drips, like a decaying skin, in clammy stinking drops to the floor.” Is this statement reflective of a major theme in the book? Why or why not? 

2. Does Miss Molly’s choice to work for Keith Simpson strike you as brave? What do the reactions of her family and friends tell you about the choices available to women at the time? 

3. Some of the cases Lefebure discusses are cut-and-dried, while others are quite complicated. Which stories resonated the most with you? Why? 

4. How does the author give you a sense of the Blitz and the setting in which her story unfolds? 

5. There are moments in
Murder on the Home Front
that are quite funny. Do you think that humor can ever counteract the sadness of death? 

6. In some of these cases, notably the trials of McDonald and McKinstry, the guilty evade punishment in the legal system. Do you think that Lefebure implies that they’ll meet with another form of justice? 

7. Lefebure writes, “Nobody could look into the murderer’s mind and probe the quick and heart of the matter…It is this ultimate secrecy of each one of us which makes the story of everyday life so fascinating.” Do you agree with the second part of her statement? Why or why not?