I don't like to leave things hanging and I thought
it might make it a little less hard to retire if I got
this thing settled.
-Andy Rosenzweig,
A
Cold Case
In this short but surprisingly affecting book, Philip Gourevitch examines
just one "cold case", a twenty seven year old double murder that has bothered
Andy Rosenzweig since it occurred. In 1970, after an argument in
a bar, Frank Koehler met the two men he'd been in the earlier confrontation
with and left them, Richie Glennon and Pete McGinn, dead on the floor of
McGinn's apartment. Koehler then disappeared. Rosenzweig was
just a patrolman then, but Glennon had attended his wedding, so the failure
of police to ever capture Koehler was galling. In 1997, with his
retirement just around the corner, Rosenzweig was on his way to the doctor's
office and passed by the restaurant where the original argument had occurred,
recalling, for the first time in a while, that Koehler had still never
been brought in, Rosenzweig, by now the chief investigator for the Manhattan
District Attorney, determined to finally close this case in his waning
days on the job.
This is an unusual kind of crime story. There's no mystery : we
know who the culprit is in the first few pages. All the violence
and most of the action takes place early on too. There's a little
bit of courtroom drama, but it's mostly kept off stage. Instead,
the book is mostly a profile of a few fascinating characters. Rosenzweig
dominates the book's first half, a nearly perfect cop--honest, hardworking,
and dedicated to the ideal of justice. It is his personal obsession
with seeing that Koehler pays for the murder of Glennon that drives the
story. He's kind of the positive version of Javert in Les
Miserables.
In the second half, with Koehler at last arrested and facing trial,
it is the criminal who dominates. Frank Koehler, who had already
done time for a murder he committed as a teenager, comes across as a cold-blooded
killer, who, even now, in his 70s, contemplated shooting it out with the
officers who came to arrest him in Penn Station or, before that, killing
a cop a day until they agreed to stop pursuing him. In what Gourevitch
says law enforcement officials consider a textbook depiction of the criminal
mind, Koehler gives a videotaped confession in which he expresses no contrition
about the original crime and seems to think he deserves credit for the
killings he contemplated but didn't commit.
But then, once he's imprisoned, Koehler shows a surprisingly spiritual
side to his nature. Though Gourevitch, thankfully, never lets him
off the hook for his violent past, he does show Koehler to be a more complex
man than we might wish to believe. One particular facet of his personality
that should give us all pause is that he appears to have modeled his behavior
on that of characters in old gangster movies, like James Cagney.
It makes you wonder what kids who learn their values from today's pop culture
will be like.
This latter part of the book introduces another interesting character,
defense attorney Murray Richman. Amusingly free of any scruples about
the work he does, representing admitted criminals, Richman provides some
comic relief to the story and serves as kind of a moral bridge between
the two main characters, straddling the line between the Law and the bad
guys.
Much of this first appeared in The New Yorker, for which Gourevitch
is a staff writer, and it has the feel of a stretched out magazine piece,
even if a superior one. I wouldn't have minded hearing more about
all three of these men, but I suppose it's better to leave us wanting more
than overstuffed.
(Reviewed:28-Aug-01)
Grade: (A-)
Websites:
Book-related and General Links:
-The Forward
(Contributing Editor)
-BOOK
SITE : A Cold Case by Philip Gourevitch (FSB Associates)
-BOOK
SITE : We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families:
Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch (FSB Associates)
-EXCERPT
: Chapter One of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will
Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
-BOOKNOTES
: Author: Philip Gourevitch Title: We wish to inform you that tomorrow
we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda Air date: November
22, 1998 (C-SPAN)
-ESSAY
: No More Tigers : These are desperate times for the world's largest
cats, and for the people who are killing them. Can Siberia save itself,
or will it soon be a land of no more tigers? In search of Panthera tigris
altaica, icon of a culture that assumes the worst for itself and always
finds that assumption confirmed. (Philip Gourevitch, Outside Magazine,
February 1995)
-ESSAY
: "What They Saw at the Holocaust Museum" (Philip Gourevitch, New York
Times Magazine, February 12, 1995)
-AUDIO
ESSAY : Mortality Check (Philip Gourevitch, Zoetrope All Story)
-INTERVIEW
: with Philip Gourevitch (Conversations with History: Institute of
International Studies, UC Berkeley)
-INTERVIEW
: Remembering the 1994 Rwandan Genocide (Online NewsHour: , Sept.
2, 1997)
-INTERVIEW
: with Philip Gourevitch (Sage Stossel, Atlantic Monthly)
-INTERVIEW
: frontline: the triumph of evil: interviews: philip gourevitch (PBS)
-INTERVIEW
: with Philip Gourevitch: International Responses to Genocide in
Rwanda (Gina Jae, University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago,
JAMA, March 7, 2001)
-INTERVIEW
: God no longer wants you : Philip Gourevitch, the Guardian First Book
Award winner, talks to Giles Foden (Guardian, December 4, 1999)
-INTERVIEW
: Coping with the aftermath of genocide (About.com, 10/24/98)
-DISCUSSION
: Worlds Apart: The Roots of Regional Conflicts (Britannica.com)
-DISCUSSION
: The Holocaust in American Life, by Peter Novick (Philip Gourevitch
and James Young, Slate)
-PROFILE
: Dead Reckoning : Philip Gourevitch is a journalist familiar with
murder on a massive scale. But he narrowed things down for A Cold Case-the
story of a New York double homicide and the detective who solved it (Mary
Christ, July/August 2001, Book Magazine)
-PROFILE
: 'A kind of formal perfection' : New Yorker staff writer Philip
Gourevitch had good reason to write about a 1970 homicide case: great characters,
protagonists criss-crossing paths and a killer who saw himself on a grand
historical scale (Lauren Mechling, August 2001, National Post)
-PROFILE
: Big shrug again makes genocide possible (BERT ARCHER, Toronto Now)
-PROFILE
: Writer explores Rwandan holocaust (Ravi Nessman, Associated Press)
-ARCHIVES
: Philip Gourevitch (Find Articles)
-ARCHIVES
: Philip Gourevitch (Mag Portal)
-ARCHIVES
: gourevitch (Slate)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Luc Sante, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Janet Maslin, NY Times)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Charles Taylor, Salon)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Marc Silver, US News)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Jonathan Kiefer, SF Chronicle)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Taylor Plimpton, Men's Journal)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Carol Memmott, USA TODAY)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Scott W. Helman, Boston Globe)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (John Freeman, Denver Post)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (BARRY SIEGEL, LA Times)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Mary Ann Gwinn, Seattle Times)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (ROGER K. MILLER, Book Page)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Michael Sauter, Biography)
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Rob Thomas, Capital Times [Madison, WI])
-REVIEW
: of A Cold Case (Craig Little, Book Browser)
-REVIEW
: of Cold Case (Troy Patterson, Entertainment Weekly)
-REVIEW
: of Philip Gourevitch A Cold Case (Jesse Berrett, City Pages)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Wole Soyinka, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Gary Rosen, Commentary)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (David J. Garrow, Washington
Monthly)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (SCOTT SUTHERLAND, Salon)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Peter Beaumont, Guardian Unlimited
)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (PAMELA BONE, The Age )
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Cameron W. Barr, Christian
Science Monitor)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Zondi Masiza, Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Cath Byrne, Center for Holocaust,
Genocide & Peace Studies)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (JACKIE STEIN, Jerusalem Post)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Anthony Daniels, booksonline
uk)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (TONY FREEMANTLE, Houston Chronicle)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Review and Teaching Essay by
Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Imre Szeman, Other Voices)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Richard Dowden, Literary Review)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You ( Patrice Clark Koelsch, Hungry
Mind)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Sara Catania, LA weekly)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our
Families by Philip Gourevitch (New Internationalist)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You ( Simon Doney, Damaris)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You (Christian Hummel, Dartmouth
Review)
-REVIEW
: of We Wish to Inform You... by Philip Gourevitch (James Norton, Flak)
-BOOK
LIST : Forgotten Favorite : Lazarillo de Tormes, by Anonymous (Philip
Gourevitch, Feed)
-AWARD
: 1998 : General Nonfiction: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will
be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch (National Book Critics
Circle)
-AWARD
: Journalist Philip Gourevitch Wins the 1999 New York Public Library Helen
Bernstein Book Award
-AWARD
: Guardian First Book Award : Rwanda genocide book takes award (Fiachra
Gibbons, The Guardian, December 03 1999)
-AWARD
: George Polk book award : We wish to inform...
FILM :
-ARTICLE
: Hanks snaps up crime story (Guardian Unlimited, February 8, 2000
-ARTICLE
: Sayles to script new Hanks film (Guardian Unlimited, April 06 2000)
RWANDA :
-Africa
South of the Sahara : Countries : Rwanda
-The
US and Genocide in Rwanda : Evidence of Inaction : A National Security
Archive Briefing Book (Edited by William Ferroggiaro, August
20, 2001, National Security Archive)
-ESSAY
: Bystanders to Genocide : The author's exclusive interviews with scores
of the participants in the decision-making, together with her analysis
of newly declassified documents, yield a chilling narrative of self-serving
caution and flaccid will-and countless missed opportunities to mitigate
a colossal crime (Samantha Power, The Atlantic Monthly | September 2001)
-ESSAY
: Imagining Genocide : The ultimate evil has always been impossible
to fathom. Paula Bomer peers into its heart of darkness (Feed, 11.17.98)
-ESSAY
: The Holocaust Without Guilt : 5000 UN Soldiers Could Have Ended It
(Nat Hentoff, Village Voice)
-ESSAY
: The Moral Dilemmas of Doing Good : Everyone wants to aid refugees.
But humanitarian work in the midst of war raises some hard questions---and
carries the risk of unintended consequences. (Pearl Sensenig, August 1999,
Sojourners)
-ESSAY
: Rwanda, Kosovo, and the Limits of Justice (Nicholas Confessore, The
American Prospect)
-ESSAY
: Ripe for Genocide A critical look at sub-Saharan Africa (Mr. Kopel,
Dr. Paul Gallant, & Dr. Joanne Eisen, National Review)
-REVIEW
: of Me Against My Brother: At War in Somalia, Sudan and Rwanda by Scott
Peterson (Joshua Hammer, Washington Monthly)
-REVIEW
: of Me Against My Brother: At War in Somalia, Sudan and Rwanda by Scott
Peterson (Anthony Daniels, booksonline)
Comments:
Orrin welcomes reader comments on his reviews.
Add yours here.
