THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS
By Caleb Carr
WHEN SHE WAS BAD: VIOLENT WOMEN AND THE MYTH OF INNOCENCE
By Patricia Pearson

The old adage that truth is stranger than fiction has been demonstrated once again in two new books dealing with the evil that women do.

The Angel of Darkness, like its prequel bestseller The Alienist, is a detective story set in turn-of-the-century New York. The detective team from the earlier novel, headed by eminent "alienist" (psychologist) Dr. Kreizler, is here reassembled to investigate the abduction of a Spanish diplomat's infant daughter.

The narrator is 13-year-old Stevie Taggart, a (somewhat) reformed street urchin who lives with the doctor. The crime-solving team also includes a pistol-packing proto-feminist, a pair of Jewish police detectives, a fallen aristocrat reporter, and a piano-playing, brass-knuckled manservant. It is a Dickensian oddball club, and their adventures take place in a recognizably Dickensian world of dirty urban streets filled with gangs of street children.

The detail is impressive, as one might expect from an author who is both a historian and a lifelong resident of the New York area. Much of the writing seems done with one eye fixed on selling the film rights, but this simply has to be expected in a bestseller today.

The villain of the piece, the titular Angel of Darkness, is a serial baby-killer (and no, I'm not giving anything away). The very novelty of her crime in a society that idolizes women as maternal and nurturing protects her from suspicion and places her virtually above the law. Frustrated, Dr. Kreizler is driven to exclaim: "The last time we worked together, we studied known laws of psychology. This time, the biases of our society will force us to write new ones."

The real life Angel of Darkness, whose story Carr admits drawing on, was Marybeth Tinning, a psychopath from New York State who killed eight of her own children. Tinning's story, along with many others, can be found in Patricia Pearson's fascinating study of violent women: When She Was Bad.

Reading Pearson, one gets the sense that little has changed in either the laws of psychology or the biases of society since the days of Dr. Kreizler. Drawing on a wealth of research, Pearson shows how violent women today are still seen as special cases, whose brutal crimes are all too often excused by dubious psychology and social denial (the myth of innocence).

Since there is no single kind of violent woman, Pearson breaks the subject down by victim, including women who kill babies, women who abuse and/or kill their spouses, and predator women who kill strangers. It is disturbing reading, and even "true crime" veterans may be in for a shock.

On the dustjacket the books is described as "certain to be controversial, guaranteed to infuriate." That may be an understatement. Pearson asks feminists to stop trying to incorporate female violence into a "victim-feminist heroic" and start talking about personal responsibility. She is not afraid to question such excuses for women's violence as hormonal imbalance, postpartum depression, battered woman's syndrome, and (that catch-all evil) the "patriarchal society."

In addition, she is severely critical of a justice system that exonerates figures such as Karla Homolka, and a media that makes serial killers like Aileen Wuornos into heroes.

The point When She Was Bad ends up making is the same one made by most common-sense discussions of the subject. Despite social inequality and a culture that continues to exploit differences between the sexes (Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, etc.), the fact is that men and women are in most important ways the same. Violence, like love or hate, ambition or greed, is "a human rather than gendered phenomenon."

That is a conclusion that many of the characters in The Angel of Darkness are afraid to make. As Pearson demonstrates, it is one we have yet to fully deal with.

Notes:
Review first published October 25, 1997.

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