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Joe Cinque's Consolation: A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law
In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests–most of them university students–had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin. His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder.
Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died. It probes the gap between ethics and the law; examines the helplessness of the courts in the face of what we think of as 'evil'; and explores conscience, culpability, and the battered ideal of duty of care.
It is a masterwork from one of Australia's greatest writers.
283 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2004
201 people are currently reading
4345 people want to read
About the author
Helen Garner
51 books1,370 followersHelen Garner was born in Geelong in 1942. She has published many works of fiction including Monkey Grip, Cosmo Cosmolino and The Children's Bach. Her fiction has won numerous awards. She is also one of Australia's most respected non-fiction writers, and received a Walkley Award for journalism in 1993.
Her most recent books are The First Stone, True Stories, My Hard Heart, The Feel of Stone and Joe Cinque's Consolation. In 2006 she won the Melbourne Prize for Literature. She lives in Melbourne.
Praise for Helen Garner's work
'Helen Garner is an extraordinarily good writer. There is not a paragraph, let alone a page, where she does not compel your attention.'
Bulletin
'She is outstanding in the accuracy of her observations, the intensity of passion...her radar-sure humour.'
Washington Post
'Garner has always had a mimic's ear for dialogue and an eye for unconscious symbolism, the clothes and gestures with which we give ourselves away.'
Peter Craven, Australian
'Helen Garner writes the best sentences in Australia.'
Ed Campion, Bulletin
Her most recent books are The First Stone, True Stories, My Hard Heart, The Feel of Stone and Joe Cinque's Consolation. In 2006 she won the Melbourne Prize for Literature. She lives in Melbourne.
Praise for Helen Garner's work
'Helen Garner is an extraordinarily good writer. There is not a paragraph, let alone a page, where she does not compel your attention.'
Bulletin
'She is outstanding in the accuracy of her observations, the intensity of passion...her radar-sure humour.'
Washington Post
'Garner has always had a mimic's ear for dialogue and an eye for unconscious symbolism, the clothes and gestures with which we give ourselves away.'
Peter Craven, Australian
'Helen Garner writes the best sentences in Australia.'
Ed Campion, Bulletin
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 534 reviews
August 2, 2022
August 2022. Five years later, I am still seething with indignation.
5★
“Joe Cinque is dead.”
Vivacious, beautiful Anu Singh tells friends she’s going to commit suicide, claiming her boyfriend (Joe Cinque) hooked her on ipecac (for weight loss), and it has destroyed her body. We think she mentions “taking someone with her” to her best friend. Joe knows nothing of this.
She plans this for a long time, sourcing drugs, researching how to use them, and even getting lessons in to inject heroin.
She invites the friends to her ‘send-off’ dinner party, fails to succeed so recreates the dinner party the following weekend . . . and half-succeeds. She decides to make sure she puts Joe out of his misery first (supposedly so he wouldn’t suffer if he found her suicided). She spends all weekend dosing him with Rohypnol and heroin before he dies, agonisingly.
“Joe Cinque is dead.” But she’s still alive . . . and free, as is everyone else, including those who helped her with the drugs.
Garner inspects the details, her own heart, the heart of the judge, the families, the witnesses. What is meant by “duty of care”? When should we or must we intervene?
In March 1999, a senior journalist told Garner about a bizarre murder trial involving Canberra students. Garner has been a journalist, a novelist and a perceptive observer of the human condition for many years. Her first novel, Monkey Grip, involved heroin addiction and is an Australian classic.
Garner knows Canberra well and felt drawn to investigate. She tells us it’s not only the capital of Australia, it’s a capital for drugs and pornography, all readily available. She passes a girl shooting up in a doorway.
The more she learned about this case, the more she read of the background, and the history of the people involved, the more irate she became about the legal system. How can this happen?
“Into my thoughts kept seeping fantasies of violent retribution. Of execution. What was happening to me? Like almost everyone I knew, I had always been ‘opposed to the death penalty’. I had worn my ‘belief’ as a badge of decency and reason. But now I saw that I had never thought the matter through. I did not ‘want’ to have to think it through.”
Anu Singh was the daughter of two doctors who had been so concerned about their daughter’s state of mind that they tried to get help. But she was an adult in her 20s, as was Joe, so it’s not as simple as it might be for a child.
Anu’s close friend, Madhavi Rao, was also implicated in Joe’s death. Anu was lively and dominating while Madhavi was smaller, meeker and accommodating, ready to do Anu’s bidding. Joe just seemed like a nice guy in over his head.
Garner is as incisive as ever. About the dynamics of the girls, she writes:
“. . . the world is full of these female doublings. . . symbiotic power arrangements that are called friendships because (outside of psychology, at least) we have no more accurate name for them. . . adolescence: one girl is wild, bossy, selfish, flaring with hormones, crackling with sexual thrill and careless of risk, but still dependent on the ballast provided by her companion, who is prim and cautious, not yet at the mercy of her body, one foot still planted in the self-containment of girlhood. They need each other. The well-meaning ‘supportive’ one trails along in the wake of her narcissistic friend, half aware that she is being used – as a cover against parental suspicions, a second fiddle, a handmaid, a foil. But she also feeds off the wrecker’s high-voltage energy. . . ”
Australian television viewers will recognise these examples:
“Dame Edna and her drab bridesmaid Madge; Kim and her browbeaten best friend Sharon Strzlecki in ‘Kath and Kim’. Even as we laugh, the spectacle disturbs us: we wait breathlessly for the worm to turn. And yet it is a relationship that benefits both partners. It would be hard to say, at its height, whose power is greater.”
Garner also worries about testimony. One day during the trial, an old schoolmate with an unusual name from primary school ran into her at a bus stop. She remembered him vividly as the boy who had his mouth washed out with soap while the whole class watched in horror. He says that wasn’t him. Everything else she remembers about him is right – brother, English, migrants, etc. – but he says HE would certainly remember a soap incident like that, and it was NOT him!
“. . . his flat denial of the mouth-washing incident troubled me, and it still does. . . if memory is not to be trusted, what can courts rely on? How can they establish what ‘really happened’? How can things from the past, even the relatively recent past, be ‘proved’?”
I have always enjoyed her writing. She spots three barristers crossing the road.
“From behind, the queue of each man’s wig and the curve of his shoulders under the pleats of his black gown called irresistibly to mind a shark or a currawong – a creature highly evolved for attack, plunder and flight.”
A witness: “a slim, matte-skinned, languid young woman . . . a face out of a Vermeer. . . “
Two supporters of another witness: “large, brown-faced farmers in their thirties . . . who planted their feet wide and kept their powerful arms folded across their chests.”
(She knows her farmers, all right.)
Near the end of the book, she mentions that sometime after the trials were over, she happened to sit next to a judge at dinner, who mentioned he’d sat on an admissions board for one of the law student witnesses but could not say more. Another person told Garner that a judge had to be careful “'not to say anything that might compromise the witness’s rehabilitation.’
“I had to turn my face away, to conceal the bolt of blind rage that shot through me.”
The witnesses get rehabilitation, Anu and Madhavi are free after a few years in jail, but “Joe Cinque is dead”, and I think this book is all the consolation he and his family are going to get.
ABC's Phillip Adams interviewed Singh in 2017. Here is the transcript:
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/...
5★
“Joe Cinque is dead.”
Vivacious, beautiful Anu Singh tells friends she’s going to commit suicide, claiming her boyfriend (Joe Cinque) hooked her on ipecac (for weight loss), and it has destroyed her body. We think she mentions “taking someone with her” to her best friend. Joe knows nothing of this.
She plans this for a long time, sourcing drugs, researching how to use them, and even getting lessons in to inject heroin.
She invites the friends to her ‘send-off’ dinner party, fails to succeed so recreates the dinner party the following weekend . . . and half-succeeds. She decides to make sure she puts Joe out of his misery first (supposedly so he wouldn’t suffer if he found her suicided). She spends all weekend dosing him with Rohypnol and heroin before he dies, agonisingly.
“Joe Cinque is dead.” But she’s still alive . . . and free, as is everyone else, including those who helped her with the drugs.
Garner inspects the details, her own heart, the heart of the judge, the families, the witnesses. What is meant by “duty of care”? When should we or must we intervene?
In March 1999, a senior journalist told Garner about a bizarre murder trial involving Canberra students. Garner has been a journalist, a novelist and a perceptive observer of the human condition for many years. Her first novel, Monkey Grip, involved heroin addiction and is an Australian classic.
Garner knows Canberra well and felt drawn to investigate. She tells us it’s not only the capital of Australia, it’s a capital for drugs and pornography, all readily available. She passes a girl shooting up in a doorway.
The more she learned about this case, the more she read of the background, and the history of the people involved, the more irate she became about the legal system. How can this happen?
“Into my thoughts kept seeping fantasies of violent retribution. Of execution. What was happening to me? Like almost everyone I knew, I had always been ‘opposed to the death penalty’. I had worn my ‘belief’ as a badge of decency and reason. But now I saw that I had never thought the matter through. I did not ‘want’ to have to think it through.”
Anu Singh was the daughter of two doctors who had been so concerned about their daughter’s state of mind that they tried to get help. But she was an adult in her 20s, as was Joe, so it’s not as simple as it might be for a child.
Anu’s close friend, Madhavi Rao, was also implicated in Joe’s death. Anu was lively and dominating while Madhavi was smaller, meeker and accommodating, ready to do Anu’s bidding. Joe just seemed like a nice guy in over his head.
Garner is as incisive as ever. About the dynamics of the girls, she writes:
“. . . the world is full of these female doublings. . . symbiotic power arrangements that are called friendships because (outside of psychology, at least) we have no more accurate name for them. . . adolescence: one girl is wild, bossy, selfish, flaring with hormones, crackling with sexual thrill and careless of risk, but still dependent on the ballast provided by her companion, who is prim and cautious, not yet at the mercy of her body, one foot still planted in the self-containment of girlhood. They need each other. The well-meaning ‘supportive’ one trails along in the wake of her narcissistic friend, half aware that she is being used – as a cover against parental suspicions, a second fiddle, a handmaid, a foil. But she also feeds off the wrecker’s high-voltage energy. . . ”
Australian television viewers will recognise these examples:
“Dame Edna and her drab bridesmaid Madge; Kim and her browbeaten best friend Sharon Strzlecki in ‘Kath and Kim’. Even as we laugh, the spectacle disturbs us: we wait breathlessly for the worm to turn. And yet it is a relationship that benefits both partners. It would be hard to say, at its height, whose power is greater.”
Garner also worries about testimony. One day during the trial, an old schoolmate with an unusual name from primary school ran into her at a bus stop. She remembered him vividly as the boy who had his mouth washed out with soap while the whole class watched in horror. He says that wasn’t him. Everything else she remembers about him is right – brother, English, migrants, etc. – but he says HE would certainly remember a soap incident like that, and it was NOT him!
“. . . his flat denial of the mouth-washing incident troubled me, and it still does. . . if memory is not to be trusted, what can courts rely on? How can they establish what ‘really happened’? How can things from the past, even the relatively recent past, be ‘proved’?”
I have always enjoyed her writing. She spots three barristers crossing the road.
“From behind, the queue of each man’s wig and the curve of his shoulders under the pleats of his black gown called irresistibly to mind a shark or a currawong – a creature highly evolved for attack, plunder and flight.”
A witness: “a slim, matte-skinned, languid young woman . . . a face out of a Vermeer. . . “
Two supporters of another witness: “large, brown-faced farmers in their thirties . . . who planted their feet wide and kept their powerful arms folded across their chests.”
(She knows her farmers, all right.)
Near the end of the book, she mentions that sometime after the trials were over, she happened to sit next to a judge at dinner, who mentioned he’d sat on an admissions board for one of the law student witnesses but could not say more. Another person told Garner that a judge had to be careful “'not to say anything that might compromise the witness’s rehabilitation.’
“I had to turn my face away, to conceal the bolt of blind rage that shot through me.”
The witnesses get rehabilitation, Anu and Madhavi are free after a few years in jail, but “Joe Cinque is dead”, and I think this book is all the consolation he and his family are going to get.
ABC's Phillip Adams interviewed Singh in 2017. Here is the transcript:
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/...
February 3, 2021
Joe Cinque's Consolation is written during and after the trials of Anu Singh and Madhavi Rao, the two young women accused of murdering Joe. A group of friends, most of who attended the Australian National Univerity in Canberra, were invited to a dinner party at the house that Joe and Anu shared together. The premise of the party was the 'going away' party for Anu who announced that she intended to kill herself soon after.
Who the hell attends THAT party?? Anyway, that is just one of the strange events that led to Joe's murder. People 'learning' how to inject drugs, buying boxes of Rohypnol for friends, trusting people to the plot who they hardly know, are just some of the ridiculous aspects. The actual idea was beautiful in its simplicity but the execution was abominable, worse than a sketch on a cheesy TV comedy show. All of this, in my opinion, just makes the act even worse because it really shouldn't have come to fruition.
I can state that I am on the side of prison sentences being tougher, I believe when you commit a crime, especially one this grievous, then you sign away your rights. Here in Australia, there are far too many crimes, some of a very serious nature, being committed by people who have either been released from prison early or who are on bail.
I believe the importance of Garner's book is in the "Consolation". The murder was committed and Anu never really denied it - she just tried to put a slant to it that provided her a window of innocence. But what of Joe Cinque, the young man who was the victim of the crime. What does he deserve, what do the surviving family members deserve? Is a lenient sentence, a woman dismissed from prison around the same age her victim was when he died, a book written about the crime, a movie made of that book, is any of this a true consolation?
Aside from being a well-constructed book on the case, Joe Cinque's Consolation is sure to create robust discussions in reading groups. Should prison terms be for the punishment of criminals or just to remove them from society for short terms to rehabilitate them? Should mental capability determine the length of a sentence? Should the impact on the lives of surviving family and friends be taken into account when sentencing? Should the age and approximate length of life they had left of the victim, determine sentences in murder cases? Should laws be more or less flexible on a case by case basis? Why should a prior "similar" case ruling have any importance to a current case? Should crimes have mandatory minimum sentences?
This was a fantastic read and I recommend it but be prepared to ask yourselves the questions.
*******PS******
I live in Melbourne, Australia. I have already expressed my views on prison terms and bail, parole, etc. I ABSOLUTELY ENCOURAGE you all to have your own views as in all things.
But I would like to highlight three local cases (none of which I have any association with any of the people or families involved). These cases are the sort that form my views but I also want to pay respects in my own way for what I see as victims wronged by the justice system.
Eurydice Dixon, a 22yo woman was murdered in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton after being stalked through the city.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_...
Jill Meagher, a 29yo woman was walking home the short distance from a pub in Brunswick, a Northern suburb of Melbourne, in the early hours of the morning when she was murdered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_...
James Gargasoulas drove his car up sidewalks and then up the Bourke St Mall in the heart of the Melbourne CBD, killing 6 and injuring 27. This was NOT a terrorist attack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January...
All of the perpetrators in these stories had prior convictions and were awaiting sentencing when they committed these crimes.
Who the hell attends THAT party?? Anyway, that is just one of the strange events that led to Joe's murder. People 'learning' how to inject drugs, buying boxes of Rohypnol for friends, trusting people to the plot who they hardly know, are just some of the ridiculous aspects. The actual idea was beautiful in its simplicity but the execution was abominable, worse than a sketch on a cheesy TV comedy show. All of this, in my opinion, just makes the act even worse because it really shouldn't have come to fruition.
I can state that I am on the side of prison sentences being tougher, I believe when you commit a crime, especially one this grievous, then you sign away your rights. Here in Australia, there are far too many crimes, some of a very serious nature, being committed by people who have either been released from prison early or who are on bail.
I believe the importance of Garner's book is in the "Consolation". The murder was committed and Anu never really denied it - she just tried to put a slant to it that provided her a window of innocence. But what of Joe Cinque, the young man who was the victim of the crime. What does he deserve, what do the surviving family members deserve? Is a lenient sentence, a woman dismissed from prison around the same age her victim was when he died, a book written about the crime, a movie made of that book, is any of this a true consolation?
Aside from being a well-constructed book on the case, Joe Cinque's Consolation is sure to create robust discussions in reading groups. Should prison terms be for the punishment of criminals or just to remove them from society for short terms to rehabilitate them? Should mental capability determine the length of a sentence? Should the impact on the lives of surviving family and friends be taken into account when sentencing? Should the age and approximate length of life they had left of the victim, determine sentences in murder cases? Should laws be more or less flexible on a case by case basis? Why should a prior "similar" case ruling have any importance to a current case? Should crimes have mandatory minimum sentences?
This was a fantastic read and I recommend it but be prepared to ask yourselves the questions.
*******PS******
I live in Melbourne, Australia. I have already expressed my views on prison terms and bail, parole, etc. I ABSOLUTELY ENCOURAGE you all to have your own views as in all things.
But I would like to highlight three local cases (none of which I have any association with any of the people or families involved). These cases are the sort that form my views but I also want to pay respects in my own way for what I see as victims wronged by the justice system.
Eurydice Dixon, a 22yo woman was murdered in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton after being stalked through the city.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_...
Jill Meagher, a 29yo woman was walking home the short distance from a pub in Brunswick, a Northern suburb of Melbourne, in the early hours of the morning when she was murdered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_...
James Gargasoulas drove his car up sidewalks and then up the Bourke St Mall in the heart of the Melbourne CBD, killing 6 and injuring 27. This was NOT a terrorist attack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January...
All of the perpetrators in these stories had prior convictions and were awaiting sentencing when they committed these crimes.
August 21, 2016
I can remember at the time that this murder happened that it was such a strange case. An attractive Canberra law student Anu Singh killed her boyfriend, Joe Cinque after a dinner party by slipping rohypnol into his coffee and then injecting him with heroin. He was still alive the next day so she injected him a second time with heroin and he eventually died a horrible death.
The strange thing about the case was that Anu Singh had no obvious motive for killing Joe Cinque. She talked to her friends about killing him and committing suicide herself weeks before it happened, even co-opting them into acquiring the rohypnol and heroin and teaching her to inject drugs. Unfortunately, no one thought to tell Joe of her plans. After Anu’s first trial was aborted, she was eventually tried by judge (no jury) and given 10 years with a four year non-parole period. Since this included the time she had already spent in remand, she was in prison for a little over 2 years.
Helen Garner sat through Anu Singh’s trial and then the trial of Anu’s closest friend who knew what she planned to do, helped acquire the drugs and saw Joe lying in a comatose state not long before he died, but did not seek help for him. All the way through the book you can feel Helen Garner’s outrage for the sympathy given to Anu, the warped analysis of Anu’s personality by the defence psychologists who didn’t even interview her and the judge’s sentence. All the way along she keeps saying “But Joe Cinque is dead” as if she is shaking her head with incredulity at this trial where Joe Cinque seems to have been forgotten and it all seems to be about Anu Singh and her personality rather than the fact that she murdered an innocent man. She ponders on what it means to have all our acts ascribed by psychiatry:
" What is ‘simple wickedness’? Does such a thing exist? Was there ever such a thing, or did it die with the arrival of psychiatry?"
Deciding to write a book about Joe and his death, Garner interviews Anu’s father and Joe’s family who need answers about his needless death and will never recover from the damage done to them. She takes us carefully through the events leading up to Joe’s death and the following trials, all the time asking questions about ethics and the law. She has no answers for us but has given us much to think about.
August 11, 2018
This is the first Helen Garner book I've read, and I'm impressed. She probes deep into the psyche of the judge, the witnesses, and the families. She goes through much soul-searching of her own, and shares pertinent bits with us, which I appreciated. She shows us the human story behind the legal process. She draws us in. I felt I was sitting with her in court, standing by her side as she talks to folks, and allowed to hear her thoughts in the wee hours of the morning when she struggled with the weight of this case. Her heart speaks directly to our hearts.
She digs into "duty of care" from all angles ... legal, moral, and just basic human decency. What does "duty of care" really mean? When should we intervene? Why does it often seem that 'law' and 'justice' rarely come together? This was a heart-rending crime, and Helen gives us much to think about.
This book strikes me as a requiem for Joe Cinque. If you like a true crime book that puts the victim at the forefront of the story, you'll like this one. She never lets us forget, that "Joe Cinque is dead".
5 Stars = It made a significant impact on my heart, and/or mind. It moved me. I won't forget it.
She digs into "duty of care" from all angles ... legal, moral, and just basic human decency. What does "duty of care" really mean? When should we intervene? Why does it often seem that 'law' and 'justice' rarely come together? This was a heart-rending crime, and Helen gives us much to think about.
This book strikes me as a requiem for Joe Cinque. If you like a true crime book that puts the victim at the forefront of the story, you'll like this one. She never lets us forget, that "Joe Cinque is dead".
5 Stars = It made a significant impact on my heart, and/or mind. It moved me. I won't forget it.
March 31, 2020
I had a lot of problems with this novel, but ultimately we ended on an okay note? My main problem is that it was incredibly boring - which was absolutely shocking, since the true crime case it is focused on is so scandalous and outrageous. While the crime itself is so shocking and had me wanting to find out what the verdicts would be as soon as I could, the way Garner writes this novel slows all the events down, and makes it an incredibly drag to read.
I also found that for a novel like this, where one is recounting the events of the trial and what they can discover about the crime but also inserting themselves into the book too, Garner did not have a strong enough voice. She did not feel... present in the novel. More like a ghost between the pages, and yet she was still framing the narrative. A lack of a feel for the narrator left me for a lack of feeling for the book. Which contrasted to the strong feelings and opinions I felt about the case.
As for the case itself... well... that verdict. That's all I am going to say. It definitely had me feeling some kind of way. The best thing Garner did to redeem this novel for me was to try and talk to as many people around the case and the people involved as possible, especially the judge. While I had burning emotions all through the books, hearing why some characters did or felt the way they did, truly made me have new realisations. I could not truly dispute any decisions made (excepting Anu's and Madhavi's) and everything made sense.
I also think that toward the end when the author stopped trying to be so balanced and reasonable and let us know her true opinions on the case was when she finally came to the forefront as a narrator. That's when I started caring. That's when I could truly feel the grief and the rememberance and sorrow... I feel it was a mistake for her to attempt to remain completely unbiased all the time. Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee is a good example of how you can give us fact and also show your feelings and opinions on the matter at the same time, while leaving it up to the reader to decide how they feel.
As for the Australian setting and framework of this novel, my thoughts to that are quite personal. Having recently left the Australia I started to call home abruptly due to Covid-19, it left me with longing and a feeling I dare call homesickness. I liked how the setting and culture was not only integrated into the story, but also the case. We have two different nationalities at play here, and then the Australian backdrop and law system.
All in all, this book could have been written, narrated and told so much better. It could have been an emotional and outrageous journey for both the reader learning about the case for the first time and all the people involved. And yet, it was restrained and held back which made it a mostly boring read until the end. I feel very much in two minds about this book. And while I value what I learned about the law system, the case itself, and grief, I will not be recommending it to other people.
I also found that for a novel like this, where one is recounting the events of the trial and what they can discover about the crime but also inserting themselves into the book too, Garner did not have a strong enough voice. She did not feel... present in the novel. More like a ghost between the pages, and yet she was still framing the narrative. A lack of a feel for the narrator left me for a lack of feeling for the book. Which contrasted to the strong feelings and opinions I felt about the case.
As for the case itself... well... that verdict. That's all I am going to say. It definitely had me feeling some kind of way. The best thing Garner did to redeem this novel for me was to try and talk to as many people around the case and the people involved as possible, especially the judge. While I had burning emotions all through the books, hearing why some characters did or felt the way they did, truly made me have new realisations. I could not truly dispute any decisions made (excepting Anu's and Madhavi's) and everything made sense.
I also think that toward the end when the author stopped trying to be so balanced and reasonable and let us know her true opinions on the case was when she finally came to the forefront as a narrator. That's when I started caring. That's when I could truly feel the grief and the rememberance and sorrow... I feel it was a mistake for her to attempt to remain completely unbiased all the time. Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee is a good example of how you can give us fact and also show your feelings and opinions on the matter at the same time, while leaving it up to the reader to decide how they feel.
As for the Australian setting and framework of this novel, my thoughts to that are quite personal. Having recently left the Australia I started to call home abruptly due to Covid-19, it left me with longing and a feeling I dare call homesickness. I liked how the setting and culture was not only integrated into the story, but also the case. We have two different nationalities at play here, and then the Australian backdrop and law system.
All in all, this book could have been written, narrated and told so much better. It could have been an emotional and outrageous journey for both the reader learning about the case for the first time and all the people involved. And yet, it was restrained and held back which made it a mostly boring read until the end. I feel very much in two minds about this book. And while I value what I learned about the law system, the case itself, and grief, I will not be recommending it to other people.
September 24, 2012
UHHHHHHH i kind of hated this. 5 stars for readability and the story itself and the concept of looking at the impact of the justice system on victim's families, but NO STARS EVER for incredibly annoying whingey intrusions of garner on the narrative and her lack of impartiality and failure to conduct any research into how criminal sentencing actually works or even *should* work. there was a real opportunity here i think to examine criminal sentencing - which she clearly gets really upset about - but instead of looking at how sentencing works and how or whether victim impact should be taken into account or how communities can redress criminal harm, she just got angry and depressed about it. her attitude towards the lawyers and judges reeked of a failure to understand or even to try to understand the goals of our justice system, so to me this just read like a whingefest. UHHHHHHHHHHHHH
February 8, 2017
"The first time I saw Joe Cinque among his friends and family, the first time I ever heard his voice, was in the living room of his parents' house in Newcastle, in the winter of 1999.
By then, of course, he had already been dead for nearly two years."
This book published in 2004 is the second book of nonfiction I have read by Helen Garner, the first being This House of Grief which was published in 2014.
Two totally different stories but nonetheless shocking in their telling. Both true stories relate the circumstances surrounding the horrifically astounding and senseless crimes of...what? passion? jealousy? or maybe ego based selfishness? we never find out for sure...these young lives were murderously taken, seemingly without a trace of concern or remorse from the perpetrators for the consequences of their despicable deeds, or for the young lives they so recklessly erased forever.
In both of these books we are left wanting because in both stories no real resolution was ever really arrived at. No reason or logic...however misplaced...was ever found to be the underlying cause for these heartless acts, and so the reader is left like the author and the remaining victims, in a kind of numb and unbelieving incredulity at the eventual outcomes...particularly in this book as the outcome of the court case seems so astonishingly inadequate, leaving us with a stunned and longingly unrequited need for a fair and just result.
I can't begin to imagine what Joe Cinque's parents and his brother went through...are going through. This case seems so unbelievable, so INcredible! No possible rehabilitation for them, no sense of justice or retribution are afforded them for their unwitting part in this real life nightmare...nothing is put to rest...no waking up for them.
Although in both cases it appears that these crimes were to some degrees premeditated, the confusion of circumstances surrounding each act seems to have caused such bewilderment in the investigating processes as to leave large gaps of uncertainty around the whole of each case and thereby inviting that inconceivable [esp. in this case] notion of "reasonable doubt."
I make these comparisons between these two separate books because even though they are not related in any way shape or form apart from their author, I couldn't help but note during the course of reading the obvious [to my mind] parallels between their stories.
Is this how scheming control freaks plan a crime with the intention of portraying themselves as the victim?
I want to say beware readers who recognize any of the traits of these accused among their own company. A fine line it would seem is drawn in the courts between the accountability and culpability of persons perceived to be involved in a crime, and what actually constitutes involvement...even remotely.
In both cases the accused's made prior off handed comments to others about their intentions but were not taken seriously.
In both cases, some form of diminished responsibility was claimed by the accused for various reasons.
In both cases, prescription and over the counter drugs played an important part in the accused's claims of diminished responsibility.
In both cases, the accused and the witnesses had trouble recalling their versions of the story.
In both cases, the accused's were controlling types, able to effect the unwitting complicity of their friends and associates.
In both cases, the victims were apparently ignorant of their fate until it was way too late.
It is clear throughout that the author was deeply affected by this case and often torn between conflicting loyalties and empathy towards some of the role players, not least the family of the victim. The years of research and court attendances involved in the writing of this book, even in the wake of her own domestic struggles, testify to the author's devotion to the authenticity of her work and her keen desire to find some measure of justice and of closure. Sadly for all concerned, and through no fault of her own, I feel she was unable to offer such closure.
Such was the devastating outcome of this trial, that no such comfort...however small...could be afforded.
Helen Garner has done a remarkable job of portraying, with integrity, this story through transcripts and court appearances and interviews over a long period of time. This must have been a very difficult case to follow, nevermind understand, and yet she has managed to relate it to us here so that we might have a better understanding of the complexities of such cases in the courts...and in life.
Still, we are left pondering the effects of such crimes, such justices and injustices, such senselessness and even our own responsibilities or culpability in the overall scheme of things...and we must surely wring our hands at our own ineptitude.
4*s
May 13, 2024
At one point the author says that men cannot manage high-maintenance friendships; @ least in my own case I’d like to think she’s wrong, tho I’ll grant we males usually have a steeper learning curve. Unfortunately, the victim Joe Cinque (pronounced‘chin-kway’) did not live to graduate from Miss Experience’s School of Hard Knocks, having been rendered helpless by Rohypnol and killed with an injection of heroin administered by his fiancée Anu Singh that she’d procured with the assistance of her BF Madhavi Rao, both Law students @ Australian National University. The was what drew me to the story, something like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History as a real life tragedy. But @ least for me, Helen Garner focuses instead too much on her own feelings as the narrator, especially on her relationship with the victim’s mother Maria. As the author herself has no clear idea of the differences between legal guilt & moral responsibility, she often waxes indignant on discovering what a mature educated person ought already to have known: basically that the criminal justice system is designed to work to defend the honour of the state, not to dispense divine justice, & certainly not to provide grieving relatives of the victim with the satisfaction of seeing the malefactors suffer. (Personally I'm dubious regarding such innovations as victim impact statements.) Garner is especially upset that an apparent legal technicality allowed one of the accused to avoid responsibility for coming to the assistance of the dying victim. Many of us who live in countries with an Anglo-Saxon legal system were equally surprised to find out we have no legal responsibility to come to the aid of someone in trouble unless we have taken on the duty (like hospital workers, who are required by law to report apparent examples of domestic abuse) or caused the injury - if you hit somebody with your car, you have to stop & call for help. But if the victim’s just lying by the roadside & somebody else ran over him, you have a perfect right to keep on going. In some European countries that have a different legal system, I believe the passerby is bound to assist, tho the penalties are neither onerous nor enforced. (Continentals tend to think the law represents what ideally ought to occur, whilst in the English-speaking world we think it’s what we have to do in real life - which is why we actually pay our income taxes every year tho’ nobody in Greece would ever think of doing anything so idiotic!)
In my review of another book about an earlier 20th-century famous murder, I wrote: “Unfortunately a society has to deal with such an event & the persons seen to be responsible according to its own cultural values, which in 20th-c. New Zealand meant a criminal trial to determine whether the girls were guilty or innocent.” Only substitute Australia for NZ. Singh & Rao were a few years older than Parker & Hulme but obviously still very immature. Again, I suspect a different ‘more primitive’ culture might have diagnosed Abu Singh as being under the spell of a daimon, tho we have to settle for a psychiatric diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. I’ve a number of likely BPDs amongst my ex-friends (BPDs always become exes - it’s the nature of the illness). But I failed to feel enough sympathy for the victim Joe Cinque. He seems to have been a gregarious very extroverted stereotypical young man of Italian descent. It’s hard to imagine him taking up with such an intensely self-centred obsessive as Abu Singh. But I understand the attraction of high-maintenance relationships. It’s like trying to use a clapped out Ferrari Testa Rosa instead of a Toyota Corolla for personal transportation. It makes no practical sense. But the sheer intensity when you are in synch & everything’s going right & the clock’s turning towards 200 kph - makes it all worth it even tho’ it’ll likely kill you. That’s why it’s called a ‘fatal attraction’!
In my review of another book about an earlier 20th-century famous murder, I wrote: “Unfortunately a society has to deal with such an event & the persons seen to be responsible according to its own cultural values, which in 20th-c. New Zealand meant a criminal trial to determine whether the girls were guilty or innocent.” Only substitute Australia for NZ. Singh & Rao were a few years older than Parker & Hulme but obviously still very immature. Again, I suspect a different ‘more primitive’ culture might have diagnosed Abu Singh as being under the spell of a daimon, tho we have to settle for a psychiatric diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. I’ve a number of likely BPDs amongst my ex-friends (BPDs always become exes - it’s the nature of the illness). But I failed to feel enough sympathy for the victim Joe Cinque. He seems to have been a gregarious very extroverted stereotypical young man of Italian descent. It’s hard to imagine him taking up with such an intensely self-centred obsessive as Abu Singh. But I understand the attraction of high-maintenance relationships. It’s like trying to use a clapped out Ferrari Testa Rosa instead of a Toyota Corolla for personal transportation. It makes no practical sense. But the sheer intensity when you are in synch & everything’s going right & the clock’s turning towards 200 kph - makes it all worth it even tho’ it’ll likely kill you. That’s why it’s called a ‘fatal attraction’!
December 11, 2013
At the time that Anu Singh killed her boyfriend, Joe Cinque, I was utterly appalled by the details of her crime. She planned it well in advance, talked about what she was going to do (kill Joe)to friends and went to great lengths to obtain the materials she needed and practiced how to use the syringe with which she injected him with heroin after drugging him with rohypnol.
I have never wanted to read Garner's account which revisits the crime through court transcripts and Garner's interviews with families and friends of the two accused young women and the victim, Joe Cinque. But it came up on the list for the Book club and I headed reluctantly in to it.
Garner's own outrage at the crime permeates the book and reinforced my own earlier reactions. She homes in on the central issues raised by this case, such as 'what constitutes diminished responsibility' in the eyes of the law; does 'personality disorder' or drug taking excuse a person from legal responsibility for their actions (alcohol consumption doesn't); and the sometimes glaring gap between what the law says and what an ordinary person would regard as decent or ethical behavior.
The discussion was intense, as you would expect with a book dealing with these themes, and about a real case with real people.
I can't help thinking that if the gender of murderer and victim had been reversed, a male murderer would have been given a very much longer sentence than the 4 years that Anu Singh was given.
A disturbing book about a terrible case.
I have never wanted to read Garner's account which revisits the crime through court transcripts and Garner's interviews with families and friends of the two accused young women and the victim, Joe Cinque. But it came up on the list for the Book club and I headed reluctantly in to it.
Garner's own outrage at the crime permeates the book and reinforced my own earlier reactions. She homes in on the central issues raised by this case, such as 'what constitutes diminished responsibility' in the eyes of the law; does 'personality disorder' or drug taking excuse a person from legal responsibility for their actions (alcohol consumption doesn't); and the sometimes glaring gap between what the law says and what an ordinary person would regard as decent or ethical behavior.
The discussion was intense, as you would expect with a book dealing with these themes, and about a real case with real people.
I can't help thinking that if the gender of murderer and victim had been reversed, a male murderer would have been given a very much longer sentence than the 4 years that Anu Singh was given.
A disturbing book about a terrible case.
September 21, 2016
I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I started this book, but it quickly drew me in to a narrative as compelling as any novel.
I found the structure of the book to be very effective, with the accounts of the court case framed by Garner's own involvement and reflections on the case and the intriguing characters of the people involved. While the legal and ethical reflections could have been dry, the writing style makes them accessible and thought-provoking.
When I requested this book from the library, I hadn't realised that a movie is being produced, and I'm intrigued about how it will reflect the story. A book allows for reflections on the elusiveness of the truth in such a case, and the same nuances may not be possible on film. I will watch it with interest.
I found the structure of the book to be very effective, with the accounts of the court case framed by Garner's own involvement and reflections on the case and the intriguing characters of the people involved. While the legal and ethical reflections could have been dry, the writing style makes them accessible and thought-provoking.
When I requested this book from the library, I hadn't realised that a movie is being produced, and I'm intrigued about how it will reflect the story. A book allows for reflections on the elusiveness of the truth in such a case, and the same nuances may not be possible on film. I will watch it with interest.
August 1, 2022
There are those who love Garner's work and those who hate it. I don't care for a lot of her fiction and short form essays, but I think she does a brilliant job of the legal cases she reports in great, and possibly even tedious, depth. The word 'tedious' is not meant as a criticism. It's important for those of us outside the legal system to understand how much of it is tedium, mind-numbing repetition, processes that happen again, and again....and again. In real life it could scarcely be more different from on the tellie. It is nit-picking, it is slow, a juror or a judge might nod off at an entirely inappropriate moment as I used to at the cricket, but then they give you one or ten replays, whereas in the courtroom you have to accept that you missed that bit. And even if you pick it up in a transcript, that will not necessarily be anything like it was in the room at the time. Garner views and thinks and speaks for us, with our ignorance combined with our expectation of a fairness which isn't there. The courtroom isn't about fair, it's about winning and losing. It's exactly what one would expect of a system made by men to keep men in power.
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rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
October 13, 2016
This is a complex, confusing and heartbreaking look at a crime that should never have happened - simply because there were people who knew it was going to, and did nothing about it. You often put yourself in other peoples' shoes in true crime non-fiction, but I find myself utterly perplexed by the actions of these people. But you also see archetypes evolve as they often do in these cases - the sociopathic narcissist who has people under their spell, and who often rope in a complacent underdog to help them do their dirty work. To this day Anu Singh shows no remorse for her crime but paints herself as the victim. And in the midst of it all, but forgotten, Joe Cinque. This book attempts to act as a requiem for him, and to a certain extent it does - but he is still a peripheral character lost in time and memory while others have to live on without him.
May 14, 2024
4/5
Helen Garner is a master at bringing people to life on the page, the sense of loss experienced by the Cinque's is palpable.
I greatly admire Garner's ability to tell stories like this with such an authentic mix of compassion, honesty, and vulnerability. I was talking to a lady in a second-hand bookshop about this recently, the vulnerability brought to the authorial voice by Garner actually takes courage. She puts her thought processes and her own experiences on the page with a lack of concern for how she will be perceived. This is particularly evident in The First Stone, but can still be seen here. The courage to do this is often lacking in what could otherwise be good pieces of creative nonfiction.
In my view, she is one of the best creative nonfiction writers alive today, especially in the true crime space.
Helen Garner is a master at bringing people to life on the page, the sense of loss experienced by the Cinque's is palpable.
I greatly admire Garner's ability to tell stories like this with such an authentic mix of compassion, honesty, and vulnerability. I was talking to a lady in a second-hand bookshop about this recently, the vulnerability brought to the authorial voice by Garner actually takes courage. She puts her thought processes and her own experiences on the page with a lack of concern for how she will be perceived. This is particularly evident in The First Stone, but can still be seen here. The courage to do this is often lacking in what could otherwise be good pieces of creative nonfiction.
In my view, she is one of the best creative nonfiction writers alive today, especially in the true crime space.
February 8, 2020
Garner's 2004 bestseller is a deep and disquieting investigation of an infamous Australian crime. In October 1997 26-year-old engineer Joe Cinque died in his Canberra townhouse, after being heavily drugged with Rohypnol, then injected with a fatal dose of heroin by his girlfriend, 25-year-old law student Anu Singh. Singh claimed diminished responsibility for the crime and ultimately served less than 4 years in prison for Cinque's manslaughter.
As a former lawyer myself, I found the story perplexing, both from a legal and social standpoint. Singh's lesser degree of criminal responsibility for the crime was on the basis that she was found to suffer from a mental illness (depression and borderline personality disorder). Yet the evidence before the court established that she'd had access to high quality psychiatric care and treatment, which she'd chosen not to avail herself of. She had voluntarily taken various prescription and illicit drugs which worsened her psychiatric condition. She had demonstrably planned the crime over a period of weeks, sucessfully duping Cinque as to her intentions, had researched extensively the basis upon which mental illness could reduce liability for crime, and had chosen not to call for medical assistance for Cinque when she was urged to do so by others and when his life may well have been saved. After Cinque's death and her own arrest, Singh's primary concerns were about the possible damage to her own career prospects and social image, rather than for her dead boyfriend and his devastated family.
The case also brought into question the role of bystanders to crime, as it transpired that several of Singh's law student friends were aware of her fixation with killing Cinque, some having attended the dinner parties where he was drugged with Rohypnol (on the first occasion, Singh was unable to complete the crime, as the heroin she'd purchased had crystallised in the syringe and was uninjectable). Yet none warned Cinque of her plans or informed police. Singh's closest friend, Mahavi Rao, who'd helped organise the "farewell" dinner parties, purchased the heroin with Singh and had seen Cinque lying comatose in the townhouse the day prior to his death, was charged as an accessory, but was later acquitted of all charges.
Cinque's parents felt largely ignored by the justice system, given no status or involvement, beyond spectating from the public gallery, in Singh or Rao's trials and only the opportunity to make a written statement to be presented in the sentencing stage of proceedings (which Rao never reached). They are understandably incredulous that, despite what she had done to their son, Singh was able to walk free from prison at age 30 and set about re-establishing her career in criminology. It is a paradox of the criminal legal system, that regardless of the level of criminal responsibility ascribed to the perpetrator, the victim remains just as dead.
The case also raises the issue of access to justice. One wonders what the outcome might have been for someone in Singh's position, had she not had access to the sizeable financial resources, together with the family support and connections that she did.
Garner spent a lot of time gaining the trust of the Cinque family, who were understandably devastated by what had happened to their eldest son, and also interviewed many of the principal players in the legal process. However, both Singh and Rao declined to be interviewed for her book (Singh lied about this after the book's release and was later forced to retract her statements in the media). Consequently, Singh's mental state at the time of the crime, and any reflections she may have had on how Cinque's death transpired remain fairly unclear.
As previously, I found Garner's style of writing fluid and evocative, and appreciated her honesty and thoughtfulness as she considered her own responses to the information as she gathered it. Joe Cinque's Consolation, A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law certainly deserves its place as a classic among "serious" Australian true crime literature.
As a former lawyer myself, I found the story perplexing, both from a legal and social standpoint. Singh's lesser degree of criminal responsibility for the crime was on the basis that she was found to suffer from a mental illness (depression and borderline personality disorder). Yet the evidence before the court established that she'd had access to high quality psychiatric care and treatment, which she'd chosen not to avail herself of. She had voluntarily taken various prescription and illicit drugs which worsened her psychiatric condition. She had demonstrably planned the crime over a period of weeks, sucessfully duping Cinque as to her intentions, had researched extensively the basis upon which mental illness could reduce liability for crime, and had chosen not to call for medical assistance for Cinque when she was urged to do so by others and when his life may well have been saved. After Cinque's death and her own arrest, Singh's primary concerns were about the possible damage to her own career prospects and social image, rather than for her dead boyfriend and his devastated family.
The case also brought into question the role of bystanders to crime, as it transpired that several of Singh's law student friends were aware of her fixation with killing Cinque, some having attended the dinner parties where he was drugged with Rohypnol (on the first occasion, Singh was unable to complete the crime, as the heroin she'd purchased had crystallised in the syringe and was uninjectable). Yet none warned Cinque of her plans or informed police. Singh's closest friend, Mahavi Rao, who'd helped organise the "farewell" dinner parties, purchased the heroin with Singh and had seen Cinque lying comatose in the townhouse the day prior to his death, was charged as an accessory, but was later acquitted of all charges.
Cinque's parents felt largely ignored by the justice system, given no status or involvement, beyond spectating from the public gallery, in Singh or Rao's trials and only the opportunity to make a written statement to be presented in the sentencing stage of proceedings (which Rao never reached). They are understandably incredulous that, despite what she had done to their son, Singh was able to walk free from prison at age 30 and set about re-establishing her career in criminology. It is a paradox of the criminal legal system, that regardless of the level of criminal responsibility ascribed to the perpetrator, the victim remains just as dead.
The case also raises the issue of access to justice. One wonders what the outcome might have been for someone in Singh's position, had she not had access to the sizeable financial resources, together with the family support and connections that she did.
Garner spent a lot of time gaining the trust of the Cinque family, who were understandably devastated by what had happened to their eldest son, and also interviewed many of the principal players in the legal process. However, both Singh and Rao declined to be interviewed for her book (Singh lied about this after the book's release and was later forced to retract her statements in the media). Consequently, Singh's mental state at the time of the crime, and any reflections she may have had on how Cinque's death transpired remain fairly unclear.
As previously, I found Garner's style of writing fluid and evocative, and appreciated her honesty and thoughtfulness as she considered her own responses to the information as she gathered it. Joe Cinque's Consolation, A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law certainly deserves its place as a classic among "serious" Australian true crime literature.
November 3, 2012
An excellent and powerful book and one of those stories that remind you how money, influence and the passing of time leave victims of violent crimes, in this case murder, lost in the outpouring of sympathy not for the victim but for the perpetrator. The further away in days, months and years that a defendant moves from the sight of the crime the more they are viewed as innocent or at the very least justified in their actions. The trauma of the family of a murder victim is rarely mentioned in a debate about the rights and processes required for the defendant to have it all by any means necessary. In this book Garner makes a strong case for the victim and on the other hand demonstrates the power of the defence to manipulate the outcome which in many cases the victim is marginalised but when the required the victim is described as the cause of their own demise.
I loved this book. An excellent well written solid thought provoking text. Helen Garner writes a fascinating account of this man's murder and how he was not given the due respect deserved and how (innocent before guilt all well and good in principle) the defendant in (some) situations has the comfort of money, influence and breeding to make it all go away.
I loved this book. An excellent well written solid thought provoking text. Helen Garner writes a fascinating account of this man's murder and how he was not given the due respect deserved and how (innocent before guilt all well and good in principle) the defendant in (some) situations has the comfort of money, influence and breeding to make it all go away.
December 15, 2016
Very moving and deeply satisfying. The work is like an ode or hymn in its construction. What an extraordinary story and a worthy tribute. There is so much to ponder and think about here. The title just for entree. The image of the apple on the cover for dessert. All that that symbol means in a man/woman relationship and, if you believe, one's relationship with God. Love. Trust. Knowledge. Deceit. In sickness and in health. Til death us do part. The whole damn thing. And through it all, the narrator's human voice, with all her foibles laid bare. Her wish to be just and even-handed in her account in the face of a justice system that beggars comprehension, which after all, is a human construct.
The line that made me smile the most, despite all the grief was:
"I like having boys around," said Maria to me at the front door. "They not picky, they eat everything, you can tell 'em off and they come back again."
Truer words were never spoken.
The line that made me smile the most, despite all the grief was:
"I like having boys around," said Maria to me at the front door. "They not picky, they eat everything, you can tell 'em off and they come back again."
Truer words were never spoken.
June 24, 2011
Ok, I read it for a book group. I started this book thinking I wouldn't like it, not being the type of book I would ever read. I have no real interest in books covering true crime/legal/psychological/etc. Through most of this book I was thinking, why exactly am I reading this book (I mean beyond the book group thing). There are people out there who are pretty screwed up and do horrible things, and mostly just seem like people I would want nothing to do with under any circumstance. Why exactly is it important to read about them? By the end of the book I still didn't really have an answer to that question. I found the entire experience unpleasant but also didn't really feel like I gained anything from going through it.
I'm still at a loss to express why I disliked it so much. The book could have been about Joe Cinque but beyond a few comments from friends interviewed in the 2nd to last chapter, there was no real illumination about who he was. The interactions with his family were mostly showing their grief and frustration with the legal system, but nothing particularly enlightening about Joe. The author seemed to be struggling to find what to say about him. Maybe that was the reason for so many chapters ending with 'but Joe Cinque is dead', which after too many times just got annoying. The book seemed quite mixed up in her own personal life, divorce, strange tidbits from her past, but wasn't actually enough about that to be more than out of place interjections into the narrative.
It could have been a deeper exploration of why the legal system probably failed in this case, but it just never seemed to get there. After the blah blah blah details of mostly psychiatric manoeuvrings of the first trial which did little to enlighten anybody about anything, the friend's trial finally showed a bit more life. She expresses editorial outrage about the legal manoeuvrings to absolve the friend of any duty in the case. Well, the problem is that she conveys what happened but doesn't really explain what it means. The only chapter in the book worth reading was the final chapter where the judge explains what was wrong with the legal cases against the defendants. Even that was too brief to really help explain anything.
That seems to be my main problem with the book. If you are going to write a book about the failings of the legal system, you can't just relay the events and say you are outraged about them getting off for a personality disorder (in the killer's case) and for not having a duty to intervene (in the friend's case) without actually examining what that means. After reading the book I don't feel like I know anything more about those issues than I did before, or have any insights into on how things could be improved or even why it has to stay the way it is. If the book is about Joe, well at the end of the book I don't feel like I know anything more about him other than he was killed and his family misses him. If the book was about remorse, the brief mentions of some letters written by the killer later on really don't say much about that issue. If the book is about how somebody ends up in the position of being able to murder somebody (drugs, mental illness, abusive background(?)), well, I don't feel like I got anything more on that either. I guess at the end, I don't understand the point of the book and why it was written.
I'm still at a loss to express why I disliked it so much. The book could have been about Joe Cinque but beyond a few comments from friends interviewed in the 2nd to last chapter, there was no real illumination about who he was. The interactions with his family were mostly showing their grief and frustration with the legal system, but nothing particularly enlightening about Joe. The author seemed to be struggling to find what to say about him. Maybe that was the reason for so many chapters ending with 'but Joe Cinque is dead', which after too many times just got annoying. The book seemed quite mixed up in her own personal life, divorce, strange tidbits from her past, but wasn't actually enough about that to be more than out of place interjections into the narrative.
It could have been a deeper exploration of why the legal system probably failed in this case, but it just never seemed to get there. After the blah blah blah details of mostly psychiatric manoeuvrings of the first trial which did little to enlighten anybody about anything, the friend's trial finally showed a bit more life. She expresses editorial outrage about the legal manoeuvrings to absolve the friend of any duty in the case. Well, the problem is that she conveys what happened but doesn't really explain what it means. The only chapter in the book worth reading was the final chapter where the judge explains what was wrong with the legal cases against the defendants. Even that was too brief to really help explain anything.
That seems to be my main problem with the book. If you are going to write a book about the failings of the legal system, you can't just relay the events and say you are outraged about them getting off for a personality disorder (in the killer's case) and for not having a duty to intervene (in the friend's case) without actually examining what that means. After reading the book I don't feel like I know anything more about those issues than I did before, or have any insights into on how things could be improved or even why it has to stay the way it is. If the book is about Joe, well at the end of the book I don't feel like I know anything more about him other than he was killed and his family misses him. If the book was about remorse, the brief mentions of some letters written by the killer later on really don't say much about that issue. If the book is about how somebody ends up in the position of being able to murder somebody (drugs, mental illness, abusive background(?)), well, I don't feel like I got anything more on that either. I guess at the end, I don't understand the point of the book and why it was written.
November 9, 2016
I've read roughly twenty percent of this and already I have a MASSIVE problem with it.
It is well written, there's no doubt about that - the descriptions are vivid, the pacing is good and the writing kept me wanting to read more. I just got the feeling the more I read it that the author hates Anu Singh. And it feels kind of wrong, even though it is technically 'creative non fiction,' to read something like this. Wrong because Anu doesn't get to defend herself against this onslaught of barely concealed hatred.
Don't get me wrong here - I don't condone murder, not at all; and I'm not Anu Singh's biggest fan - but I have to wonder why other murderers of their spouses didn't get the 'Helen Garner' treatment while Anu did. Was Anu just particularly unlucky? I think so, and I think it's because she happens to be female.
It's pretty clear from the outset that Helen absolutely despises her. Her descriptions are so biased it's not even funny. Look at this picture:
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/e7...
The way Helen describes Anu here sets the tone for the whole book. Apparently from this picture Helen can tell already (before even reading about the case) that Joe Cinque is shy, almost defensive, while Anu has the ease of someone accostomed to being adored and looking good in photos.
Oh please. Heaven help me!
In the courtroom, she describes Anu's habit of pulling her hair back into a convenient bun/ponytail as though it were a seductive display of unbridled vanity. Well shit, Helen - I do this all the time! I have long hair and it gets in the way. Doesn't make me vain for wanting to put it away.
The whole book is filled with unflattering descriptions of Anu just like this one - and truthfully it just sounds at times as though Helen has found a worthy receipient for all of her unexpressed anger and frustration at growing old and becoming unattractive to the opposite sex. And Anu is a murderess, so I suppose Helen is technically allowed to just go all out and attack her any which way she chooses.
She invents two other court reporters (women in their twenties) who seem the voice the very things that Helen herself thinks, thus letting her off the hook in the narrative - that Anu is spoilt rotten, that her friends are flighty, swanning harpies, and that 'Daddy will pay!'
Let me ask you this: if Daddy would pay, then why is it a fact in Anu's case that she was financially dependent on Joe Cinque? If 'Daddy' would pay, then wouldn't he just buy her a flat and be done with it? Why would she need Joe Cinque's apartment, his money? It doesn't make much sense.
Of course, though these are actually Helen's thoughts, she's cleverly disguised them as the thoughts of other women she's probably also terribly jealous of; attractive young women in their twenties, no less. Two birds, one stone.
Another thing she does is to pepper the narrative with some of her own youthful misdoings, as though this somehow makes up for the fact that she's carrying out nothing less than a character assassination. No Helen, it really doesn't make up for it at all! So you had an abortion. So you're going through a messy divorce. So you strung men along as a teenager. None of this gives you the right to attack Anu Singh the way you have in this book!
And you didn't even give her an opportunity to fight back!
I know she's a murderer. I know that what she did was truly awful. But shit, so was writing this book! Two wrongs don't make a right!
It is well written, there's no doubt about that - the descriptions are vivid, the pacing is good and the writing kept me wanting to read more. I just got the feeling the more I read it that the author hates Anu Singh. And it feels kind of wrong, even though it is technically 'creative non fiction,' to read something like this. Wrong because Anu doesn't get to defend herself against this onslaught of barely concealed hatred.
Don't get me wrong here - I don't condone murder, not at all; and I'm not Anu Singh's biggest fan - but I have to wonder why other murderers of their spouses didn't get the 'Helen Garner' treatment while Anu did. Was Anu just particularly unlucky? I think so, and I think it's because she happens to be female.
It's pretty clear from the outset that Helen absolutely despises her. Her descriptions are so biased it's not even funny. Look at this picture:
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/e7...
The way Helen describes Anu here sets the tone for the whole book. Apparently from this picture Helen can tell already (before even reading about the case) that Joe Cinque is shy, almost defensive, while Anu has the ease of someone accostomed to being adored and looking good in photos.
Oh please. Heaven help me!
In the courtroom, she describes Anu's habit of pulling her hair back into a convenient bun/ponytail as though it were a seductive display of unbridled vanity. Well shit, Helen - I do this all the time! I have long hair and it gets in the way. Doesn't make me vain for wanting to put it away.
The whole book is filled with unflattering descriptions of Anu just like this one - and truthfully it just sounds at times as though Helen has found a worthy receipient for all of her unexpressed anger and frustration at growing old and becoming unattractive to the opposite sex. And Anu is a murderess, so I suppose Helen is technically allowed to just go all out and attack her any which way she chooses.
She invents two other court reporters (women in their twenties) who seem the voice the very things that Helen herself thinks, thus letting her off the hook in the narrative - that Anu is spoilt rotten, that her friends are flighty, swanning harpies, and that 'Daddy will pay!'
Let me ask you this: if Daddy would pay, then why is it a fact in Anu's case that she was financially dependent on Joe Cinque? If 'Daddy' would pay, then wouldn't he just buy her a flat and be done with it? Why would she need Joe Cinque's apartment, his money? It doesn't make much sense.
Of course, though these are actually Helen's thoughts, she's cleverly disguised them as the thoughts of other women she's probably also terribly jealous of; attractive young women in their twenties, no less. Two birds, one stone.
Another thing she does is to pepper the narrative with some of her own youthful misdoings, as though this somehow makes up for the fact that she's carrying out nothing less than a character assassination. No Helen, it really doesn't make up for it at all! So you had an abortion. So you're going through a messy divorce. So you strung men along as a teenager. None of this gives you the right to attack Anu Singh the way you have in this book!
And you didn't even give her an opportunity to fight back!
I know she's a murderer. I know that what she did was truly awful. But shit, so was writing this book! Two wrongs don't make a right!
May 27, 2025
25 July 2021
It is crazy to think how much of my personal understanding of law is shaped by reading the writing of Helen Garner. Whenever I have a thought or observation about the law where I think 'oh, that's an interesting thought', I can pretty much every time trace it back to Helen!
27 May 2025
Read this in two days, which is really the optimal amount of time to get through any book. In 2021 I wrote about how Helen Garner shaped how I think about the law; in 2025, reading this book, I realised how much she has shaped how I write. She really has played such a large part in my life and thinking, probably more than any other writer. I am truly indebted to her.
It is crazy to think how much of my personal understanding of law is shaped by reading the writing of Helen Garner. Whenever I have a thought or observation about the law where I think 'oh, that's an interesting thought', I can pretty much every time trace it back to Helen!
27 May 2025
Read this in two days, which is really the optimal amount of time to get through any book. In 2021 I wrote about how Helen Garner shaped how I think about the law; in 2025, reading this book, I realised how much she has shaped how I write. She really has played such a large part in my life and thinking, probably more than any other writer. I am truly indebted to her.
February 28, 2025
SEE YOU IN AN HOUR HELEN
March 29, 2016
I was warned when I borrowed this book that it would depress me. It did, and it made me angry and sad and despairing of the legal system.
I was living in Canberra at the time of the murder (no, sorry it definitely wasn't manslaughter) and at the time of the various trials. I remembering hearing little about it, in fact it wasn't until the book was launched that it really pinged on my radar. And it's taken me this long to read it.
Helen Garner tells a gut wrenching and horrible tale, and as I read it, I was shocked at how supposed justice was delivered. As Garner points out, the young man who suffered and died over that terrible weekend, kept being erased from the story. Where was he? He's dead and only his family and friends are left to remember him. The various trials erased him, the lawyers seemed to forget a human life had been taken over a prolonged period of time with clear premeditation and planning and such terrible cruelty -- and worse so many people knew it was to happen and was happening and no one spoke up. No one called the police or paramedics.
I had to wonder what would have happened if his murderer had not been so young, glamorous and beautiful -- if this crime had been committed by a dowdy forty or fifty year old, would the verdict have been the same? Would so many have flocked to help her commit this crime? If this had been a jury trial and not left to a single judge to oversee all three trials? And how could the same judge have been allowed to preside over all three trials?
Yes, very depressing reading indeed.
I was living in Canberra at the time of the murder (no, sorry it definitely wasn't manslaughter) and at the time of the various trials. I remembering hearing little about it, in fact it wasn't until the book was launched that it really pinged on my radar. And it's taken me this long to read it.
Helen Garner tells a gut wrenching and horrible tale, and as I read it, I was shocked at how supposed justice was delivered. As Garner points out, the young man who suffered and died over that terrible weekend, kept being erased from the story. Where was he? He's dead and only his family and friends are left to remember him. The various trials erased him, the lawyers seemed to forget a human life had been taken over a prolonged period of time with clear premeditation and planning and such terrible cruelty -- and worse so many people knew it was to happen and was happening and no one spoke up. No one called the police or paramedics.
I had to wonder what would have happened if his murderer had not been so young, glamorous and beautiful -- if this crime had been committed by a dowdy forty or fifty year old, would the verdict have been the same? Would so many have flocked to help her commit this crime? If this had been a jury trial and not left to a single judge to oversee all three trials? And how could the same judge have been allowed to preside over all three trials?
Yes, very depressing reading indeed.
December 20, 2024
4.5 stars
This book floored me a bit to be honest...When I started it read almost like a true crime podcast and I feared that it was risk of being an exploitative retelling of a harrowing story but Garner, with her keen sense of observation, explores these unbelievable events with grace and a balanced sensibility. She raises questions of humanity, culpability, the role of the justice system and has me questioning the gap between what I state as my beliefs and then my gut reaction when faced with unimaginable events such as these. A beautiful book which cannot avenge Joe's death but hopefully bring some peace to the Cinques, a voice to Joe which was absent through the trials and definitely give us all a lot to think about.
This book floored me a bit to be honest...When I started it read almost like a true crime podcast and I feared that it was risk of being an exploitative retelling of a harrowing story but Garner, with her keen sense of observation, explores these unbelievable events with grace and a balanced sensibility. She raises questions of humanity, culpability, the role of the justice system and has me questioning the gap between what I state as my beliefs and then my gut reaction when faced with unimaginable events such as these. A beautiful book which cannot avenge Joe's death but hopefully bring some peace to the Cinques, a voice to Joe which was absent through the trials and definitely give us all a lot to think about.
October 6, 2024
spectacular. i wouldn’t change a sentence, had me in a chokehold from the first to the last word.
July 21, 2017
4.5★s
Joe Cinque’s Consolation. A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law is a non-fiction book by award -winning Australian author, Helen Garner. In March 1999, a respected senior journalist suggested to Garner that she write about the murder, in October 1997, of young civil engineer, Joe Cinque. At first reluctant, Garner became intrigued by the case. The bones were this: Cinque’s girlfriend and her best friend had been charged with murdering him by giving him a massive dose of Rohypnol, then injecting him with heroin.
After an aborted joint jury trial, each accused was being tried separately in a judge-only trial. By the time Garner arrived in Canberra for the trial, the prosecution’s case for the girlfriend, law student Anu Singh, was already done, and the defence was presenting their case. Garner attended the remainder of that trial, the sentencing hearing and then the trial of law student Madhavi Rao, Anu’s best friend. She also read through all the transcripts of the aborted trial and the trial she had attended.
In her book Garner includes discussions she had with journalists, with AFP officer involved, with other judges, and eventually with the presiding judge, Justice Crispin. She includes comments overheard and interviews with Joe’s parents Maria and Nino Cinque as well as his family and friends. She also interviewed the parents of the accused, Dr Pradyumn Singh and Mrs Dr Surinder Singh. Conspicuous by their absence are any words from the two accused, who declined to be interviewed.
This is no clinical analysis of the case. Garner describes all involved: defence counsel, prosecutor, judge, accused, witnesses and those in the public gallery. She reports not just testimony, but also behaviour, attitude and body language, showing just how very human they all are. She does not hesitate to include her own opinions, reactions, feelings, and moods, and even the reactions of those who heard that she may be writing a book about it.
Thus, Singh’s defence counsel, Jack Pappas: “He was a tough little package of a man with an almost shaven head, a hooked nose, the rosy cheeks of good circulation, and the thick neck of a boxer. You could have drawn a diagram of the lines of attention that centred on him. His voice was the sharpest and most carrying, his enunciation the crispest, his pacing the most leisurely, his gestures the most dramatic. The jokes were his, and others laughed”.
While reading Justice Crispin judgement, Garner comes across the mention of “simple wickedness” and thought: “What is ‘simple wickedness’? does such a thing exist? Was there ever such a thing, or did it die with the arrival of psychiatry?”
While reading trial transcripts, it struck Garner that the victim, Joe Cinque was barely represented in the proceedings, that everything focussed instead on the flamboyant accused. (Even now, Anu Singh apparently merits a Wikipedia entry, while Joe Cinque only gets a mention therein). This book goes some small way to redressing that. Would that every victim of crime had a Helen Garner to be their voice. A thought-provoking read.
Joe Cinque’s Consolation. A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law is a non-fiction book by award -winning Australian author, Helen Garner. In March 1999, a respected senior journalist suggested to Garner that she write about the murder, in October 1997, of young civil engineer, Joe Cinque. At first reluctant, Garner became intrigued by the case. The bones were this: Cinque’s girlfriend and her best friend had been charged with murdering him by giving him a massive dose of Rohypnol, then injecting him with heroin.
After an aborted joint jury trial, each accused was being tried separately in a judge-only trial. By the time Garner arrived in Canberra for the trial, the prosecution’s case for the girlfriend, law student Anu Singh, was already done, and the defence was presenting their case. Garner attended the remainder of that trial, the sentencing hearing and then the trial of law student Madhavi Rao, Anu’s best friend. She also read through all the transcripts of the aborted trial and the trial she had attended.
In her book Garner includes discussions she had with journalists, with AFP officer involved, with other judges, and eventually with the presiding judge, Justice Crispin. She includes comments overheard and interviews with Joe’s parents Maria and Nino Cinque as well as his family and friends. She also interviewed the parents of the accused, Dr Pradyumn Singh and Mrs Dr Surinder Singh. Conspicuous by their absence are any words from the two accused, who declined to be interviewed.
This is no clinical analysis of the case. Garner describes all involved: defence counsel, prosecutor, judge, accused, witnesses and those in the public gallery. She reports not just testimony, but also behaviour, attitude and body language, showing just how very human they all are. She does not hesitate to include her own opinions, reactions, feelings, and moods, and even the reactions of those who heard that she may be writing a book about it.
Thus, Singh’s defence counsel, Jack Pappas: “He was a tough little package of a man with an almost shaven head, a hooked nose, the rosy cheeks of good circulation, and the thick neck of a boxer. You could have drawn a diagram of the lines of attention that centred on him. His voice was the sharpest and most carrying, his enunciation the crispest, his pacing the most leisurely, his gestures the most dramatic. The jokes were his, and others laughed”.
While reading Justice Crispin judgement, Garner comes across the mention of “simple wickedness” and thought: “What is ‘simple wickedness’? does such a thing exist? Was there ever such a thing, or did it die with the arrival of psychiatry?”
While reading trial transcripts, it struck Garner that the victim, Joe Cinque was barely represented in the proceedings, that everything focussed instead on the flamboyant accused. (Even now, Anu Singh apparently merits a Wikipedia entry, while Joe Cinque only gets a mention therein). This book goes some small way to redressing that. Would that every victim of crime had a Helen Garner to be their voice. A thought-provoking read.
January 12, 2023
I was saying to Maria about friends of mine whose son had committed suicide: how they longed for people to keep talking about him, not to let him disappear from memory… [Nino] said to me, ‘Some people. Their son. Kill himself. Very sad. He choose to die. He decide. But my son. Somebody take his life. For no reason… My son got - no - choice’…
I was afraid to say what I was thinking, which was - ‘At least your son wanted to live. You brought up a son who wanted to live.’ But what difference does that make, now? Because Joe Cinque is dead (pg 296).
I read this book for an English class but it also satisfied the psychology and criminology student within me. I think I was particularly interested in this book because it takes place in my town, and the murder itself occurred one street away from my old school. This murder was so complex - there really is more than one side to the story. In fact, there were multiple sides to this story. And yet, no matter how many times the events surrounding this murder were told and retold, there were still some answers missing. I feel like this is the kind of complexity that you could only get in true crime as opposed to crime fiction, just for the sole fact that if a crime fiction novel was as complicated and unclear as the plot of this one, readers would be like ?? this doesn't make sense ?? whereas crime in real life is rarely so neat and tidy. Another thing I liked about this book was how Garner managed to keep Cinque at the foreground throughout it all, and especially highlighting and honouring his life in the finishing chapters. The fact that everything in this book actually happened in real life was a bit confronting and even emotional.
One complaint I have about this book was that some of Garner's own thoughts/opinions that she voiced throughout the narrative about the crime itself as well as the legal proceedings that followed were different to my own views. But hey, such is life isn't it? I suppose that brings up the question of whether the book would have been even better if Garner hadn't imposed herself on the narrative as much, especially when dealing with hard-hitting and often controversial issues. I'm not sure where I sit on that one.
Overall such an interesting, detailed read about a crime that would have otherwise been known only based on a few catchy headlines and short paragraphs in a news report. If only all murder victims could be written about the way Joe Cinque has been.
I was afraid to say what I was thinking, which was - ‘At least your son wanted to live. You brought up a son who wanted to live.’ But what difference does that make, now? Because Joe Cinque is dead (pg 296).
I read this book for an English class but it also satisfied the psychology and criminology student within me. I think I was particularly interested in this book because it takes place in my town, and the murder itself occurred one street away from my old school. This murder was so complex - there really is more than one side to the story. In fact, there were multiple sides to this story. And yet, no matter how many times the events surrounding this murder were told and retold, there were still some answers missing. I feel like this is the kind of complexity that you could only get in true crime as opposed to crime fiction, just for the sole fact that if a crime fiction novel was as complicated and unclear as the plot of this one, readers would be like ?? this doesn't make sense ?? whereas crime in real life is rarely so neat and tidy. Another thing I liked about this book was how Garner managed to keep Cinque at the foreground throughout it all, and especially highlighting and honouring his life in the finishing chapters. The fact that everything in this book actually happened in real life was a bit confronting and even emotional.
One complaint I have about this book was that some of Garner's own thoughts/opinions that she voiced throughout the narrative about the crime itself as well as the legal proceedings that followed were different to my own views. But hey, such is life isn't it? I suppose that brings up the question of whether the book would have been even better if Garner hadn't imposed herself on the narrative as much, especially when dealing with hard-hitting and often controversial issues. I'm not sure where I sit on that one.
Overall such an interesting, detailed read about a crime that would have otherwise been known only based on a few catchy headlines and short paragraphs in a news report. If only all murder victims could be written about the way Joe Cinque has been.
July 24, 2017
Prefacing this review by stating I will always read anything Helen Garner ever writes, I have to say I did not enjoy this book. Helen Garner's true crime fascinates me, but I suspect not for the right reasons; her total lack of objectivity means I end up more interested in what's going on in her head than her subject's, and I am nearly always disagreeing with her. For example, some thoughts that ran through my mind as I read Joe Cinque's Consolation were: why does Helen, a supposed feminist, always feel compelled to write about crimes where she takes the side of men against women? why is she not incapable, but unwilling, to even attempt to empathise with the women involved in this crime, as grotesque and unforgiveable as their actions may have been? was that comment just a little bit racist? has Helen even got a solid understanding of the legal system?
The nature of the crime is certainly salacious - the notion of the Last Dinner, lots of young beautiful people, drugs, a murderess - but the court case did not reveal much more by its end than what we knew before it began, and I became bored throughout. I can be satisfied if a book or essay leaves me with more questions than it answered but in this instance, I haven't thought at all of the book since finishing it - I was just disinterested.
Joe Cinque's consolation is a somewhat drawn out account of a court case which ultimately becomes a love story to Joe's mum. I got the impression that Helen Garner was lost at the time and clung to this case and the writing of this book to give her some purpose (completely understandable). I wish Helen Garner had of abandoned all pretense of objectivity and revealed more about her life at the time, because it is her personal writing I love best.
The nature of the crime is certainly salacious - the notion of the Last Dinner, lots of young beautiful people, drugs, a murderess - but the court case did not reveal much more by its end than what we knew before it began, and I became bored throughout. I can be satisfied if a book or essay leaves me with more questions than it answered but in this instance, I haven't thought at all of the book since finishing it - I was just disinterested.
Joe Cinque's consolation is a somewhat drawn out account of a court case which ultimately becomes a love story to Joe's mum. I got the impression that Helen Garner was lost at the time and clung to this case and the writing of this book to give her some purpose (completely understandable). I wish Helen Garner had of abandoned all pretense of objectivity and revealed more about her life at the time, because it is her personal writing I love best.
June 2, 2023
Possibly the ugly baby that had to come about for this House of Grief. Very clearly impacted by the fact that Helen missed almost all of Singh's trial and the fact that, unlike in House of Grief, she wasn't consulting anyone with a criminal legal background to answer her questions.
Also raised significant ethical questions about her relationship with the Cinque family and how that changed her perspective. I appreciate her resistance to the laws cold attempt at objectivity, but she could not seem to accept the rehabilitative role of the criminal law and rarely discussed or faced the issue head on. Her perspective seemed to be: how can it be right that a young man is dead and his killer faces next to no punishment? When the perspective of the law is, and should be, what benefit is there to society as a whole if this person is put in jail? The court cannot and does not attempt to turn back time and make the crime not occur. That is the aim of the civil law. Honestly, I should have known that this would be a relatively uninformed attempt to understand criminal law when all the testimonials were from the Australian, lol.
I appreciate that these issues were raised for me, but it's always frustrating to know more than the author about a certain thing.
Anyway. 3 stars. An extremely sad tale of a deeply toxic situation in a period of Canberra history. An examination of wickedness, and the place of psychiatry in deciding the culpability of a criminal.
Also raised significant ethical questions about her relationship with the Cinque family and how that changed her perspective. I appreciate her resistance to the laws cold attempt at objectivity, but she could not seem to accept the rehabilitative role of the criminal law and rarely discussed or faced the issue head on. Her perspective seemed to be: how can it be right that a young man is dead and his killer faces next to no punishment? When the perspective of the law is, and should be, what benefit is there to society as a whole if this person is put in jail? The court cannot and does not attempt to turn back time and make the crime not occur. That is the aim of the civil law. Honestly, I should have known that this would be a relatively uninformed attempt to understand criminal law when all the testimonials were from the Australian, lol.
I appreciate that these issues were raised for me, but it's always frustrating to know more than the author about a certain thing.
Anyway. 3 stars. An extremely sad tale of a deeply toxic situation in a period of Canberra history. An examination of wickedness, and the place of psychiatry in deciding the culpability of a criminal.
March 30, 2017
The first 72 pages (parts 1 and 2) failed to grab me at all - it was staccato and infuriatingly self-indulgent. The author came late to the trial of the villain, and just vented from the gallery, while reflecting at length on her personal problems and history. Had the book continued heavily in this vein there would have been no point continuing.
From Part 3 onward, however, it settled into the expected cadence of a piece of investigative journalism. The longer the author was at court, the more even the tempo of her writing became; the more she analysed the cases through the transcripts and interviews with key people, the greater the connection could be made with the persons involved, and the book itself. She strove to achieve a balance in her reporting, and earned it. I was glad to read the latter 256 pages; Garner's feelings and conclusions were not dissimilar to my own towards the cases, and the outcomes for the offenders and victims.
From Part 3 onward, however, it settled into the expected cadence of a piece of investigative journalism. The longer the author was at court, the more even the tempo of her writing became; the more she analysed the cases through the transcripts and interviews with key people, the greater the connection could be made with the persons involved, and the book itself. She strove to achieve a balance in her reporting, and earned it. I was glad to read the latter 256 pages; Garner's feelings and conclusions were not dissimilar to my own towards the cases, and the outcomes for the offenders and victims.
January 12, 2013
An outstanding emotional gauge to the murder of Joe Cinque, and a fitting elegy for a man almost forgotten in the legal debacle which followed. Garner's prescience about the victim becoming secondary to the egos of other major players in this case was spot-on, and her efforts in documenting the human story behind the legal process ranks with John Bryson's Evil Angels: The Case of Lindy Chamberlain.
April 5, 2016
Extraordinary book, and one that had a profound effect on me. I couldn't stop thinking about Joe and his parents for days. I still cannot understand how Anu Singh received such a light sentence for a crime that was pre-meditated.
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