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A review by jhscolloquium
The Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The Murder Rule, author Dervla McTiernan's first stand-alone novel, was inspired by a newspaper article she read several years ago about a young Irish law student who came to the United States to volunteer with the Innocence Project for one summer. The Innocence Project was founded by law professors Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who, in 1988, began studying and litigating issues surrounding the use of forensic DNA testing. Their groundbreaking work provided the foundation for state and federal legislation establishing standards governing the use of DNA testing in legal cases, and changed the way in which criminal investigations and prosecutions are handled. Returning to Ireland, that young student could not forget about one of the cases she worked on, and continued searching for answers. Eventually, with the assistance of a retired police officer, she uncovered the evidence that proved the convicted man's innocence.
Digging deeper into the story, McTiernan learned that the exoneration took more than five years, and the man served twenty-six years of a twenty-nine-year sentence for a crime he did not commit. Those revelations caused her to ponder the public relations considerations of an organization like the Innocence Project. She wondered why that dark and very important aspect of the story was not emphasized in the original reporting of the story. Acknowledging that it could be because the media chose to play up the inspirational component of the tale, McTiernan began imagining what might happen if the information supplied to the press was carefully curated and controlled by organizational spokespersons. And if so, she asked herself, "Would I blame them?" That gave McTiernan the idea to "invert" the story. A young, enthusiastic law student worked diligently to help the organization fulfill its mission, but McTiernan found herself contemplating what could happen "if the opposite were true? What if the law student deliberately set out to sabotage the organization's efforts?"
The Murder Rule is the story of Hannah Rokeby, a third-year law student in Maine. McTiernan says that Hannah, "at first glance, appears to be exactly what you'd expect -- bright-eyed, eager to impress her professors, and wanting to change the world." Indeed, from the outset, McTiernan establishes that Hannah is confident, bright, self-reliant, and tenacious. But the book opens with a series of emails Hannah exchanges with Robert Parekh, an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and Director of the Innocence Project Clinic. Just two weeks earlier, Hannah stumbled upon an article in Vanity Fair "and found out exactly what was happening at the University of Virginia." She quickly formulated a plan and sets it in motion. Hannah acknowledges that the window to apply to volunteer at the clinic has closed, but presses Parekh to give her a position by mentioning the "personal mentoring" Parekh allegedly provided her friend. A few days later, Hannah sneaks out of the home she shares with Laura, her alcoholic mother, taking with her "a small, battered notebook with a faded red cover" -- her mother's diary -- and makes her way to the modest apartment she sublet at the last minute in Virginia. Hannah first read her mother's journal when she was just fourteen years old. The entries date back to 1994 when Laura was nineteen years old. Confessing that she read it brought Hannah and Laura closer, and Hannah believes that the diary truthfully recounts what happened to Laura and who was responsible.
Hannah concocts a story about her mother's participation in a three-month clinical trial at a Charlottesville hospital which necessitated her transfer from the University of Maine School of Law. Parekh is not rattled by Hannah's attempted blackmail, but is intrigued by her drive, so he offers her the chance to join a group of three or four other students working a minimum of fifteen hours per week. She is not immediately assigned to the Michael Dandridge death row case -- the impetus for her move to Virginia. Rather, she is assigned to review and evaluate applications for assistance received from inmates. But not for long.
In April 2008, Dandridge was convicted of raping and murdering Sarah Fitzhugh in June 2007, and sentenced to death. All of his appeals were procedurally barred or rejected on the merits. In November 2018, he applied for assistance from the Innocence Project. Parekh believed Dandridge's claim that the sheriff beat him up and threatened him until, under duress, he confessed to the crime. Dandridge also insisted that he informed both his trial and appellate attorneys, neither of whom raised the issue in court. An investigation revealed that exculpatory evidence was wrongfully withheld from Dandridge's trial attorney by the prosecutor. Thus, after eleven years on death row, his conviction was overturned and he is about to stand trial again. A preliminary hearing is set for the following week. Hannah knows she has to move quickly and use any means available to get herself assigned to the Dandridge defense team. And she does.
McTiernan alternates chapters moving Hannah's story forward with Laura's diary entries. In the first one, Laura explains that she is working as a housekeeper at a hotel near Seal Harbor on Mount Desert Island, Maine, because she wanted to get away from Boston for the summer. She picked up a side job cleaning a house which turned out to be a frightening experience. There were two guys there and while cleaning, she discovered cocaine, as well as a semiautomatic pistol. And overheard one of the guys -- Mike -- having a heated argument with his mother on the telephone. She also witnessed Mike trying to convince the other guy, Tom Spencer, to take a trip with him to Canada. She unequivocally declares that she has no intention of getting caught up in whatever drama was playing out in that home. Subsequent journal entries detail that she did not stay true to her conviction, along with events surrounding Tom's death.
Gradually, Hannah's real motivation for moving to Virginia and worming her way onto Dandridge's defense team is revealed, and it is anything but altruistic. In reality, she is determined to see that Dandridge remains in prison. Based on her mother's diary entries, Hannah believes that Dandridge raped Laura and brought about her father's death. She has always been led to believe that her father came from a rich family who paid her mother off because they did not want her to have anything to do with him, and he died before Hannah was born. "Under the surface, she's actually pretty ruthless, and working for her own agenda," McTiernan explains. Indeed, McTiernan illustrates how shrewd and calculating, and wiling to cross legal, moral, and ethic boundaries Hannah is. But Hannah believes strongly in what she is doing and that her actions are in pursuit of a greater good. McTiernan manages to make Hannah surprisingly likable and empathetic, even as it is clear that she is being dishonest and seeking to infiltrate the Innocence Project in order to derail its efforts to see Dandridge exonerated. She comes close to being an anti-hero until readers recognize that if she possesses evidence of Dandridge's guilt -- irrespective of whether his confession was coerced -- she has an ethical and moral responsibility to disclose it to her colleagues. McTiernan describes her as "quite uncompromising" and notes that her unwavering commitment to her goal is "where she goes wrong." Indeed, as the story proceeds, Hannah and readers learn that she has taken action and set things in motion in reliance upon faulty perceptions and conclusions. Eventually, she is forced to recognize and accept the truth, and deal with the consequences of her actions, which are not what she envisioned or desired. That is extremely unsettling and difficult for her.
The book's title is derived from the felony murder rule. Criminal laws generally require that a defendant possess the specific intent to commit the crime with which he/she is charged. The felony murder rule is an exception, holding that if a death occurs during the commission of a felony, the defendant can be convicted of murder despite having no plan or intent to bring about the death. Thus, the felony murder rule flies in the face of the idea that a criminal defendant can be held responsible only for the outcome he/she foresaw when deciding to engage in criminal conduct. McTiernan felt the title fit the book because she explores whether "Hannah is responsible for all of the outcomes of her actions. How about if she didn't foresee something happening? What if she should have foreseen it had she done the work?"
The Murder Rule examines each character's motivations for his/her choices and actions, and questions their justifications. McTiernan's characters are fully developed and intriguing. As noted, Hannah is young and quixotic, her machinations fueled by years of ruminating on erroneous beliefs. Laura is an alcoholic and, unsurprisingly, manipulative. McTiernan's use of the dual narratives is highly effective because readers get to know Laura, through her old journal entries, along with Hannah who documents her present-day activities and interactions. Readers also learn the truth, along with Hannah, and are privy to her emotional journey as she realizes that the indisputable evidence does not square with her mother's account of events. The tale is a compelling examination of the mother-daughter relationship between Laura and Hannah -- two women with divergent goals. Laura wants to keep the past hidden and put it behind her while Hannah is on a quest for truth and a specific brand of justice. What will Hannah due when the truth is fully revealed?
Because McTiernan practiced law, she injects credible details about the legal aspects of the story, including a tensely climatic courtroom scene, while requiring some suspension of disbelief from her readers. Putting those flaws in the tale aside, it is a fast-paced, otherwise tautly-crafted, and entertaining thriller replete with shocking revelations and surprising developments. McTiernan's overarching story is clever, as the eventual unveiling of the connection between Tom's death and Dandridge's case demonstrates. It is also an absorbing exploration of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship and its impact on Hannah.
The Murder Rule is an engrossing meditation on under what circumstances, if any, questionable means can ever justify the achievement of a desired end. McTiernan says she wanted to explore a highly provocative question: "What if you're a good person trying to do good things in a world that doesn't seem to care? And the world we live in right now doesn't seem to care. Would you take a little step off the ethical path in order to be effective?" And if one does that, what about another little step. And another. And another . . . "How far would you go? Where does that line sit? Because it's very hard to be effective in the world today if you follow the rules strictly." It's up to readers to decide if they accept McTiernan's core premise, whether Hannah is that good person McTiernan references, and if wrongful actions by police, prosecutors, or others can justify the means employed to write those wrongs. And what they might do if forced to confront similar circumstances.
Thanks to NetGalley and Scene of the Crime for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
Digging deeper into the story, McTiernan learned that the exoneration took more than five years, and the man served twenty-six years of a twenty-nine-year sentence for a crime he did not commit. Those revelations caused her to ponder the public relations considerations of an organization like the Innocence Project. She wondered why that dark and very important aspect of the story was not emphasized in the original reporting of the story. Acknowledging that it could be because the media chose to play up the inspirational component of the tale, McTiernan began imagining what might happen if the information supplied to the press was carefully curated and controlled by organizational spokespersons. And if so, she asked herself, "Would I blame them?" That gave McTiernan the idea to "invert" the story. A young, enthusiastic law student worked diligently to help the organization fulfill its mission, but McTiernan found herself contemplating what could happen "if the opposite were true? What if the law student deliberately set out to sabotage the organization's efforts?"
The Murder Rule is the story of Hannah Rokeby, a third-year law student in Maine. McTiernan says that Hannah, "at first glance, appears to be exactly what you'd expect -- bright-eyed, eager to impress her professors, and wanting to change the world." Indeed, from the outset, McTiernan establishes that Hannah is confident, bright, self-reliant, and tenacious. But the book opens with a series of emails Hannah exchanges with Robert Parekh, an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and Director of the Innocence Project Clinic. Just two weeks earlier, Hannah stumbled upon an article in Vanity Fair "and found out exactly what was happening at the University of Virginia." She quickly formulated a plan and sets it in motion. Hannah acknowledges that the window to apply to volunteer at the clinic has closed, but presses Parekh to give her a position by mentioning the "personal mentoring" Parekh allegedly provided her friend. A few days later, Hannah sneaks out of the home she shares with Laura, her alcoholic mother, taking with her "a small, battered notebook with a faded red cover" -- her mother's diary -- and makes her way to the modest apartment she sublet at the last minute in Virginia. Hannah first read her mother's journal when she was just fourteen years old. The entries date back to 1994 when Laura was nineteen years old. Confessing that she read it brought Hannah and Laura closer, and Hannah believes that the diary truthfully recounts what happened to Laura and who was responsible.
Hannah concocts a story about her mother's participation in a three-month clinical trial at a Charlottesville hospital which necessitated her transfer from the University of Maine School of Law. Parekh is not rattled by Hannah's attempted blackmail, but is intrigued by her drive, so he offers her the chance to join a group of three or four other students working a minimum of fifteen hours per week. She is not immediately assigned to the Michael Dandridge death row case -- the impetus for her move to Virginia. Rather, she is assigned to review and evaluate applications for assistance received from inmates. But not for long.
In April 2008, Dandridge was convicted of raping and murdering Sarah Fitzhugh in June 2007, and sentenced to death. All of his appeals were procedurally barred or rejected on the merits. In November 2018, he applied for assistance from the Innocence Project. Parekh believed Dandridge's claim that the sheriff beat him up and threatened him until, under duress, he confessed to the crime. Dandridge also insisted that he informed both his trial and appellate attorneys, neither of whom raised the issue in court. An investigation revealed that exculpatory evidence was wrongfully withheld from Dandridge's trial attorney by the prosecutor. Thus, after eleven years on death row, his conviction was overturned and he is about to stand trial again. A preliminary hearing is set for the following week. Hannah knows she has to move quickly and use any means available to get herself assigned to the Dandridge defense team. And she does.
McTiernan alternates chapters moving Hannah's story forward with Laura's diary entries. In the first one, Laura explains that she is working as a housekeeper at a hotel near Seal Harbor on Mount Desert Island, Maine, because she wanted to get away from Boston for the summer. She picked up a side job cleaning a house which turned out to be a frightening experience. There were two guys there and while cleaning, she discovered cocaine, as well as a semiautomatic pistol. And overheard one of the guys -- Mike -- having a heated argument with his mother on the telephone. She also witnessed Mike trying to convince the other guy, Tom Spencer, to take a trip with him to Canada. She unequivocally declares that she has no intention of getting caught up in whatever drama was playing out in that home. Subsequent journal entries detail that she did not stay true to her conviction, along with events surrounding Tom's death.
Gradually, Hannah's real motivation for moving to Virginia and worming her way onto Dandridge's defense team is revealed, and it is anything but altruistic. In reality, she is determined to see that Dandridge remains in prison. Based on her mother's diary entries, Hannah believes that Dandridge raped Laura and brought about her father's death. She has always been led to believe that her father came from a rich family who paid her mother off because they did not want her to have anything to do with him, and he died before Hannah was born. "Under the surface, she's actually pretty ruthless, and working for her own agenda," McTiernan explains. Indeed, McTiernan illustrates how shrewd and calculating, and wiling to cross legal, moral, and ethic boundaries Hannah is. But Hannah believes strongly in what she is doing and that her actions are in pursuit of a greater good. McTiernan manages to make Hannah surprisingly likable and empathetic, even as it is clear that she is being dishonest and seeking to infiltrate the Innocence Project in order to derail its efforts to see Dandridge exonerated. She comes close to being an anti-hero until readers recognize that if she possesses evidence of Dandridge's guilt -- irrespective of whether his confession was coerced -- she has an ethical and moral responsibility to disclose it to her colleagues. McTiernan describes her as "quite uncompromising" and notes that her unwavering commitment to her goal is "where she goes wrong." Indeed, as the story proceeds, Hannah and readers learn that she has taken action and set things in motion in reliance upon faulty perceptions and conclusions. Eventually, she is forced to recognize and accept the truth, and deal with the consequences of her actions, which are not what she envisioned or desired. That is extremely unsettling and difficult for her.
The book's title is derived from the felony murder rule. Criminal laws generally require that a defendant possess the specific intent to commit the crime with which he/she is charged. The felony murder rule is an exception, holding that if a death occurs during the commission of a felony, the defendant can be convicted of murder despite having no plan or intent to bring about the death. Thus, the felony murder rule flies in the face of the idea that a criminal defendant can be held responsible only for the outcome he/she foresaw when deciding to engage in criminal conduct. McTiernan felt the title fit the book because she explores whether "Hannah is responsible for all of the outcomes of her actions. How about if she didn't foresee something happening? What if she should have foreseen it had she done the work?"
The Murder Rule examines each character's motivations for his/her choices and actions, and questions their justifications. McTiernan's characters are fully developed and intriguing. As noted, Hannah is young and quixotic, her machinations fueled by years of ruminating on erroneous beliefs. Laura is an alcoholic and, unsurprisingly, manipulative. McTiernan's use of the dual narratives is highly effective because readers get to know Laura, through her old journal entries, along with Hannah who documents her present-day activities and interactions. Readers also learn the truth, along with Hannah, and are privy to her emotional journey as she realizes that the indisputable evidence does not square with her mother's account of events. The tale is a compelling examination of the mother-daughter relationship between Laura and Hannah -- two women with divergent goals. Laura wants to keep the past hidden and put it behind her while Hannah is on a quest for truth and a specific brand of justice. What will Hannah due when the truth is fully revealed?
Because McTiernan practiced law, she injects credible details about the legal aspects of the story, including a tensely climatic courtroom scene, while requiring some suspension of disbelief from her readers. Putting those flaws in the tale aside, it is a fast-paced, otherwise tautly-crafted, and entertaining thriller replete with shocking revelations and surprising developments. McTiernan's overarching story is clever, as the eventual unveiling of the connection between Tom's death and Dandridge's case demonstrates. It is also an absorbing exploration of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship and its impact on Hannah.
The Murder Rule is an engrossing meditation on under what circumstances, if any, questionable means can ever justify the achievement of a desired end. McTiernan says she wanted to explore a highly provocative question: "What if you're a good person trying to do good things in a world that doesn't seem to care? And the world we live in right now doesn't seem to care. Would you take a little step off the ethical path in order to be effective?" And if one does that, what about another little step. And another. And another . . . "How far would you go? Where does that line sit? Because it's very hard to be effective in the world today if you follow the rules strictly." It's up to readers to decide if they accept McTiernan's core premise, whether Hannah is that good person McTiernan references, and if wrongful actions by police, prosecutors, or others can justify the means employed to write those wrongs. And what they might do if forced to confront similar circumstances.
Thanks to NetGalley and Scene of the Crime for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.