The Devil's Tickets
A Night of Bridge, a Fatal Hand, and a New American Age
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کتاب های مرتبط
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
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نقد و بررسی
April 27, 2009
The innocuous game of bridge turned deadly in Kansas City, Mo., in 1929 when Myrtle Bennett apparently shot her husband dead in a dispute over a game. In recounting this tale, Pomerantz introduces an ensemble of 1920s characters ranging from Ely Culbertson, who helped fuel the new bridge craze, to Fightin' Jim Reed, the U.S. senator from Kansas City who successfully defended the gorgeous Myrtle Bennett at trial. As promoted by Culbertson, bridge was a zone of equality between men and women—and the stage on which marital spats could escalate; it was, said Culbertson, “a way to defuse the petty inhibitions and tensions of daily married life.” Pomerantz (Wilt, 1962
) offers a thoroughly researched historical tapestry with a mass of amusing anecdotes. But toward the book's end, he swerves into his own fascination with Myrtle Bennett as leading to his historical inquiry into these events. The most eloquent explanation of the similarities between a bridge partnership and marriage comes not from Pomerantz but from family therapist/bridge addict Frank Bessing, quoted in the book: “the main conflict is often, 'Who is in charge?' ”
June 15, 2009
In the 1920s, the most popular game in America was bridge, an inexpensive but intellectually challenging pastime that engaged millions. Thus, the 1929 death of Jack Bennett, shot by his glamorous wife, Myrtle, after a bridge game in Kansas City, MO, enthralled and galvanized the nation, with the "fatal hand" that provoked the attack analyzed for decades. Pomerantz exhaustively covers this "trial of the century" and the bridge milieu in which it occurred, along with the larger-than-life characters involved: beautiful Myrtle, charismatic defense attorney and presidential hopeful James Reed, and mysterious bridge aficionado Ely Culbertson, who used the trial's publicity to pump up his own reputation as the premier bridge playerand teacherin the country. VERDICT Pomerantz is at his best when he's covering the bridge craze and the trial itself; the epilog, in which he chases down the descendants of the principals to finish out their stories, seems anticlimactic. In-depth knowledge of the game of bridge isn't necessary here, but bridge enthusiasts, along with true crime fans, will are bound to be enthralled. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/15/09.]Deirdre Bray Root, Middletown P.L., OH
Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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