It's a Crime
Lizzie Borden : The Untold Story. By Edward Radin. (Gollancz, 21s.) The greatest of all of America's classic unsolved mysteries is nothing like so titillating as ours, for it has no sexual element, whether, squalid or romantic, as has the case of 'Madeleine Smith or Jack the Ripper. All the same it is perpetually and pleasingly puzzling, and Mr. Radin has made a fascinating book out of restating it. Which is not to say that he hasn't restated it wrongheadedly: his `proof' that Lizzie Borden was innocent, and Bridget, the servant girl, guilty is just as con- sistent with Lizzie having done the job and made it worth Bridget's while to keep her mouth shut about how Lizzie cleansed herself and her clothes of her parents' blood. I, for one, will go on believing that it was Lizzie Borden, and none other, who took an axe, and gave her mother forty whacks. . . .
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