Review: "The Knife Went In"

The Knife Went In:  Real Life Murderers and Our Culture is the second book I have read by Theodore Dalrymple – newly retired physician and physiologist in Britain’s worst prisons.  I find him a thought-provoking author and hope to read more of him.

In this book, Dalrymple briefly and non-hysterically recounts a number of murderers he had come to know, their crimes, and his musings on them for the culture generally.

The title, The Knife Went In, is symbolic of many of the murderers that Dalrymple treated who spoke of the murders as though the instruments used to murder moved unbidden from the murderer.  So, “the knife went in,” rather than, “I stabber her repeatedly.”

Does this say something about the mind’s unwillingness to face the horror one has committed?  Or is it the criminal’s attempt to lessen the charges?  Or is it something else?

Along those lines, Dalrymple argues that between plea deals, time served, and other factors, murders are serving far less time than they should be.

Without going into the different types of murder – Dalrymple emphasizes first-degree murder – one is still faced with the question of the value of a human life and why it has value?  Does it make a difference if one believes there is something more than this life?

Dalrymple discusses the drug scene, pedophiles and “the Rule,” and slang used in prison.  A very interesting work that raises above all other questions, what is a human?  And what is a human life worth? And why?

 [This review appears on my blog and on Amazon.com.]