The Long White Glove

The poet David Chorlton begins The Long White Glove by retracing the steps of the same murderer who killed 13-year-old Brigitte Besztenlerer, whose death his cousin was convicted of. A gripping true crime family saga, beginning in 1958 Vienna, a city still troubled by its Nazi era and post-war years of deprivation. After a suspect commits suicide, authorities find Gerhard Eder. Coached into making a false confession, we see Gerhard relentlessly interrogated. Chorlton brilliantly manages the twinned narratives of his search for the true murderer and a family haunted by Gerhard, survivor of an unhappy boyhood, left to face the powers of the State alone. And in contrast to the lawyerly vernacular of the courtroom, Gerhard attempts to recant his confession using his working-class idiom: "I don't know 'ow the crime was done. I made it all up." "I dunno. I didn't do it." The author consummately captures this unequal linguistic duel where words carry inordinate weight. An intense, spellbinding book that captivates the reader like Vienna, the mood-drenched city, where it will always be raining in the park when the young victim drops her long white glove.