Why I wrote The Jigsaw Murders
And why a rich archive of research material is essential
Welcome to this week’s A-B-C of Writing True Stories newsletter.
Last week I talked about finding my path as a writer when I combined my professional skills as a journalist with my hobbyist interest in writing fiction and scripts.
The turning point occurred after my mum died and I began to read a pile of books she had given me. They included two books that were true stories. Last week I told you about Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken.
Why I chose true crime
The second book I read from that pile was Thunderstruck by the American author Erik Larson. I had seen the book on mum and dad’s bookcase each time I visited them.
The cover always grabbed me. It had a stylish, historical mystery novel feel. I had often thumbed its pages and found its first page gripping. It read like a novel, yet now that I settled down to read it properly, I realised it was a true story and, as Larson explained in his notes, everything within its pages was from documented sources.
Thunderstruck retells the well-known story of Dr Crippen, who murdered his wife in 1910 London before fleeing on a ship with his lover, Ethel le Neve, disguised as a boy. The case was famous because Crippen and le Neve were captured thanks to the new technology of wireless communication.
Larson’s brilliance was in weaving a second thread into his narrative: the tale of how Guglielmo Marconi invented wireless.
The two stories finally came together, with Larson describing a thrilling trans-Atlantic cat and mouse chase between the police and Crippen.
Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken was a superb story of survival and resilience, a true underdog story. Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck was a majestic piece of literary true crime.
These were two different books by two different writers. From a commercial point of view, they were telling stories that fitted within recognisable genres.
With these books I had scratched the surface. I was excited. I could see infinite potential with narrative nonfiction. I began to think about true stories I might want to write.
A murder case that haunted me
I began to think about stories that might make a good book. I sought inspiration everywhere. I did random Google searches, I looked in dusty encyclopaedias, I tried to conjure ideas out of thin air. But nothing really inspired me.
I hadn’t decided to write a true crime book at this stage. I wanted something with a strong story: a beginning, middle and end. I wanted my idea to have the potential for suspense, one that would be immersive for the reader.
Then I remembered an old murder case I’d heard about as a child.
In 1935, Lancaster doctor Buck Ruxton had murdered his wife Isabella and children’s nanny Mary, cut up their bodies and disposed of the pieces in a Scottish ravine. The subsequent police and forensic science investigation had been groundbreaking. The case was held up as a turning point in the history of forensics.
My dad had first told me about Ruxton during one of our regular visits to Lancaster. I had read a lot of the literature around the case. It mostly consisted of a gratuitous glorification of the dismemberment, accompanied by the gory and disturbing police photographs of the bodies. There was little subtlety or sensitivity in what I had read previously.
There had to be more to this story, I told myself.
A rich, untapped archive
The existing publications about the Ruxton murders consisted of tawdry true crime magazine articles and melodramatic books that presented the main characters with flat characterisation and very little regard for the two victims, Isabella and Mary.
Each account dramatised the moments of the murders, often written from Ruxton’s perspective.
But as Ruxton had never given an account of what happened and there were no surviving witnesses, how could the writers have known what really occurred and what was running through the doctor’s thoughts?
This was fiction at best, unethical sensationalism at worst.
I believed a better, more responsible book could be written.
Going deeper into the story
I started to conceive a book that would tell the real story of the Ruxton murders, in high-definition detail, without resorting to sensationalism. I wanted to explore why Ruxton behaved the way he did, and I wanted to at last portray the victims as real people for the first time. I wanted to give them a voice as they had been terribly neglected in the previous literature.
And I didn’t want to cheat by trying to second guess what Ruxton had been thinking on the night of the murders, unless there was documentary evidence to support it.
Looking for the details
I still wasn’t fully committed to writing a book about the case. I had to be convinced there was enough material to accomplish my goal.
All of the previous commercial publications had leaned heavily on a core of around four texts for their sources. These were a transcript of Ruxton’s trial, an academic text on the forensic breakthroughs written by two of the scientists and the memoirs of two of the leading pathologists. Occasionally authors had referred to the old newspaper cuttings. But beyond that little new research had been done for decades.
It seemed like each new writer had gone over the same old material and rehashed the already well known facts.
I believed I could do better.
A journalist’s eye
I love nothing better as a journalist than solving a mystery through detailed research in archives and interviews. There is a thrill in turning over the last piece of paper in an overflowing file and finding the nugget of information you were looking for.
After a cursory flick through old newspapers, a scan of online archive records and births, marriages and deaths records, I got that tingle of excitement. I believed there was a mass of untapped archive material out there just waiting for me to dive into.
I sensed there would be enough material to sustain a full-length book manuscript. I knew the story had the key scenes and events for a compelling story, but now I felt sure there was the source material to allow me to breathe life into it.
I could hardly have guessed at how much detail was out there and how it would continue to pour in, even after my book was published.
In next week’s newsletter I will take a look at why thinking about genre is really helpful in finding your story and pitching it to agents and publishers.
I will give you some thoughts on road testing your own idea to see whether it might make a full book manuscript.
And I will also talk about why a passion for your story is essential if you are to go the distance with a book manuscript of 100,000 words.
Questions for you to take away:
In each newsletter I will give you some questions to ponder. Consider it homework!
Is there a true story that has always fascinated you?
Has it been written about before?
If so, how well did the author portray the story?
Is it a reliable account or do you feel there is more to the story that could be revealed?
Reading recommendations:
Erik Larson is a master of narrative nonfiction. For many, many years he was a journalist, latterly writing features for publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker and the Atlantic.
He is now justly famous for his engrossing and suspenseful history books. He has a tendency towards true crime and dramatic events from history.
I would recommend all of his books, and plan to look at them in coming newsletters. But for this week, I am recommending Thunderstruck, which was the second book I read after I made the decision to write true stories.
