If tales of true
murder are your bag, then Rick Geary is your bagman. The veteran cartoonist
has written children’s books and adapted classic literature stories into
graphic novel format, such as Great
Expectations and The Invisible Man,
he’s best known for his accounts of true crime, namely The Borden Murder, The Beast
of Chicago, The Murder of Abraham
Lincoln, Jack the Ripper and The Lingbergh Child. (More info on his
works at his official site, here). The
excellently researched tales explore the details of the cases, offering plenty
of historical factoids along the way. They play out like Masterpiece Theatre versions of Unsolved
Mysteries, while Geary’s style – clean lines on white backgrounds with
detailed cross-hatching – is somewhere between Robert R. Crumb, Edward Gorey
and the Ripley’s Believe it or Not comic strips. Informative, engrossing and a
visual treat to take in, whenever I get my hands on one of his books I cruise
through it in a single sitting.
Geary’s latest is of particular interest to cinephiles;
called Famous Players: The Mysterious
Death of William Desmond Taylor, it’s about the murder of a renowned
director in the early, pre-talkie days of Hollywood.
Geary firmly contextualizes the atmosphere of the time by offering a
mini-history of how Hollywood came to be, from a “sleepy village nestled in the
foothills of Los Angeles” to the site of the birth of the motion picture
industry shortly into the 20th century, including the iconic figures
who opened the first studios. He also depicts early Hollywood as fraught with sex scandals, drug
abuse and other sensationalized crimes (make your own joke about Lindsay Lohan’s
great-grandmother).
He then dives into the crime, depicting how Taylor (pictured), a
wealthy filmmaker, was found murdered via gunshot by his servant, who arrived
in the morning. There’s a list of suspects fitting of an Agatha Christie novel,
including a spurned admirer, an angry mother, a thieving ex-employee, hard-partying
Hollywood stars, an estranged brother and a secret past life. Geary nails down
all the juicy details, from forensic evidence suggesting a certain starlette to
a look at each one of the suspects’ alibis. Just as interesting, though, is the
attention to the details of the case, such as how members of the press posed as
policemen and kidnapped Taylor’s
servant, going to ridiculous Scooby-Doo lengths to try to force a confession.
The crime took place in 1922 (before the notorious Hays Code), as Geary points out, and it was a wild place, even by today’s standards.
He doesn’t just offer a murder mystery, he’s giving you a Hollywood
history lesson, one that comes complete with a hand-drawn map of the area at
the time. I won’t ruin the ending, but I will say that Geary even follows the
case and its lasting effects up to now, which really gives one a sense of
history. On the way, he jumps from location to location, constantly moving
between the stories of the various, well, famous players in the story, which results
in a brisk pace and a very cinematic feel.
For more info on the Taylor
case, read this
Wikipedia entry. For more Geary books, go here.
-Dave Alexander
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