{"id":815,"date":"2018-06-25T13:51:55","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T18:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/?p=815"},"modified":"2018-07-07T19:24:32","modified_gmt":"2018-07-08T00:24:32","slug":"review-the-life-and-times-of-dinah-marton-by-r-f-bruce-the-story-of-a-multiple-murderer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/?p=815","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Life and Times of Dinah Marton by R. F. Bruce, the story of a multiple murderer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

R.F. Bruce\u2019s The Life and Times of Dinah Marton<\/em> is the story of a multiple murderer.\u00a0 So let me start by telling you that I\u2019ve never seen a single episode of Dexter<\/em>, what I\u2019m told is a series about a \u201cgood\u201d serial killer.\u00a0 On the other hand, I have seen Downfall<\/em>, the 2004 movie about Hitler\u2019s last days in the Berlin bunker. That movie was criticized by some for humanizing Hitler \u2014 since, in looking at him as a man, not a cartoonish monster, the movie generates a kind of sympathy and acceptance or understanding of the man.\u00a0\u00a0 R. F. Bruce\u2018s Life and Times of Dinah Marton<\/em> raises the same question \u2014does presenting a monster as human lead us to acceptance and even sympathy?<\/p>\n

This novel is indeed captivating in many ways, a big part being Dinah\u2019s conflicted, often contradictory nature which does make her all too human.\u00a0 In taking us from Dinah\u2019s early days, when as a child she is the sole survivor of a car crash that kills her family (which she apparently blames herself for), through high school and her first murder, and on to her apparent end following conviction for literally hundreds of murders (by the way I\u2019m not giving anything away here since the book starts with Dinah on Death Row) it paints a picture of a very ordinary, albeit very intelligent, young woman with a glaring hole in her personality. \u00a0She is independent and self-reliant in the mode of most young female heroes, while at the same time having a bit of vulnerability \u2013 she\u2019s often conflicted, seeks to be loved, and wants to eventually have a family.\u00a0 Yet there is a huge gaping hole of amorality in her make-up \u2014she\u2019s a merciless cold blooded killer.\u00a0 Maybe \u201cmerciless\u201d is the wrong word, because Dinah alternately sees herself as a vigilante \u2014she refers to it as \u201ctaking out the garbage\u201d\u2014or someone just doing a job.\u00a0 Where most people find the idea of killing another human being abhorrent, Dinah has a big blind spot due to the fact that she enjoys killing, especially the hunt leading to the killing. Also, in an odd twist, it is her sense of protecting some people that leads to her eventual downfall. On the one hand, she can kill a good person without any qualms as a part of her \u201cjob,\u201d but she then goes through an agonizing rejection by her adoptive parents\u00a0 because she changed her last name just to protect them (they, of course, have no idea why she did it).<\/p>\n

All in all, Bruce writes very well in painting a picture of Dinah and her associates as seeing what they do as just a job.\u00a0 Sam, an EMT, is a serial killer who also \u201ctakes out the garbage,\u201d while Andy is a cold blooded killer for hire. Sometimes what they do saddens them a bit, but, hey, who hasn\u2019t done something in their job that saddened them a bit? In that, Bruce gets it exactly correct.\u00a0 I just read James Comey\u2019s A Higher Loyalty<\/em>, and in one chapter he describes mafia hit men, who refer to themselves as \u201cMen of Honor,\u201d not seeing anything wrong with killing, exactly because it\u2019s their job.<\/p>\n

You can read The Life and Times of Dinah Marton<\/em> as a detailed character study, or you can read it as a crime story \u2014either way I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll find it thought provoking and disturbing, but in the end you\u2019ll enjoy it for the well written novel it is.<\/p>\n

So in the end, does Bruce humanize a monster?\u00a0 Do we feel sympathy for Dinah?\u00a0 It will probably depend on the reader.\u00a0 To me, what I found the most worrisome was the thought that there is a bit of Dinah in all of us \u2014 after all, ordinary people are capable of horrible things.\u00a0 Just watch the evening news.<\/p>\n

A side note: Bruce has chosen to self-publish, and as with all self published books it suffers from the occasional typo which would have been caught by a line editor.\u00a0 If such things bother you, well you\u2019ve been warned. They were occasionally annoying, but never hindered my enjoyment of the book.<\/p>\n

The Life and Times of Dinah Marton<\/em> is available through Amazon, just click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Read my interview with R.F. Bruce.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R.F. Bruce\u2019s The Life and Times of Dinah Marton is the story of a multiple murderer.\u00a0 So let me start by telling you that I\u2019ve never seen a single episode of Dexter, what I\u2019m told is a series about a \u201cgood\u201d serial killer.\u00a0 On the other hand, I have seen Downfall, the 2004 movie about…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,79,80,1],"tags":[49,27,69,8,82,21,83,81],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-photophoosk100","post-815","format-standard","category-book-review","category-r-f-bruce","category-the-life-and-times-of-dinah-marton","category-uncategorized","post_tag-book-review","post_tag-book-reviews","post_tag-crime-novel-review","post_tag-novel","post_tag-r-f-bruce","post_tag-reviews","post_tag-serial-murder-novel","post_tag-the-life-and-times-of-dinah-marton-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}