Crime, Punishment, and Celebrity

 A Thread of Violence: A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder by Mark O'Connell

A Thread of Violence book cover

I kept getting messages about this book, reading a brief review in the newspaper. I’m really glad that I was able to get a copy from the library because this was such a unique twist on the true crime story, and one that I really didn’t know about, but was apparently a major story in Ireland in the 80s. Although it is pretty different in story from Tom O’Neill’s book Chaos about Charles Manson, O’Connell’s book kind of reminded me of Chaos in that the author becomes a part of this story due to his interest in and involvement with some of those involved in the crime. I don’t read a lot of true crime books, but I think it is really interesting to see about this kind of involvement, and I really appreciated O’Connell’s own personal reflections and concerns about his involvement and what it means. It was also pretty strange how he remembered the Malcolm Macarthur story and how he eventually spotted him and gained enough trust to talk to Macarthur about the crimes—although Macarthur doesn’t really get too deep about the events. Although the book examines this specific event, I think that reading the narrative and O’Connell’s own reflections about this famous crime and how it still impacted Macarthur provides some further reflection on how we think about crime, celebrity, and punishment, as well as rehabilitation. It also made me want to read more of O’Connell’s work because I really enjoyed his writing and reflections. It’s not too often that a reporter can involve himself into the story, yet raise so many thoughtful and insightful questions.