He thinks the key to solving what now appears to be a murder is to track down the cloth that wrapped the body parts. Detective Arthur Carey is assigned the case. Another man is out picking berries with his sons when one of them finds a package containing human legs and arms. At the morgue, doctors determine that a medical student did not dissect the torso, which appears to be hacked by a saw. The book starts with an ominous declaration: “It was a slow afternoon for news.” It is 1897, and a group of boys discovers a package in New York’s East River containing a male human torso. Collins uses dialogue from newspaper clippings as well as interviews and recordings to drive the drama in this fast-paced, convoluted story. It covers the simultaneous phenomena of the grisly 1897 murder of William Guldensuppe and the questionable “yellow journalism” practices that were born in the process of solving the crime. The Murder of the Century is a 2011 narrative nonfiction work by prolific author Paul Collins.
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