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A review by pelevolcana
Devil's Garden by Ace Atkins
4.0
Devil's Garden is a well done historical fiction novel about the Fatty Arbuckle case. In historical fiction, I like the best books that take few liberties, and mostly just fill in gaps in some story from our past with their fictionalization of one of the prevailing theories of how things went down. I knew nothing about the murder and rape that Fatty Arbuckle was accused of when I read the book, but I found it riveting.
I won't recount the case here because I think it's bad form to give a synopsis of something more expertly written about elsewhere on the internet. I'll just report that he was the victim of a con, which implicated him in the death of a woman who was in on the con. This was the kind of case where the media's coverage helped damn someone who was actually innocent. Whether or not this was intentional is a matter of dispute, but in the book it certainly was.
Fatty's true crimes were being a hollywood actor, famous, popular, large, and loose. He liked drink and he liked sex. His career was ruined, and with it his life, by those who thought these attributes were enough to consider him guilty.
I won't recount the case here because I think it's bad form to give a synopsis of something more expertly written about elsewhere on the internet. I'll just report that he was the victim of a con, which implicated him in the death of a woman who was in on the con. This was the kind of case where the media's coverage helped damn someone who was actually innocent. Whether or not this was intentional is a matter of dispute, but in the book it certainly was.
Fatty's true crimes were being a hollywood actor, famous, popular, large, and loose. He liked drink and he liked sex. His career was ruined, and with it his life, by those who thought these attributes were enough to consider him guilty.