Product Description

An Intricate Tale of murder and the mind’s most dangerous mysteries
The Interpretation of Murder opens on a hot summer night in 1909 as Sigmund Freud arrives in New York. Among those waiting to greet him is Dr. Stratham Younger, a gifted physician who is one of Freud’s most ardent American supporters. And so begins the visit that will be the great genius’s first–and only–journey to America.
The morning after Freud’s arrival, in an opulent penthouse across the city, a woman is discovered murdered–whipped, mutilated, and strangled with a white silk tie. The next day, a rebellious heiress named Nora Acton barely escapes becoming the killer’s second victim. Yet, suffering from hysteria, Miss Acton cannot remember the terrifying incident or her attacker. Asked to consult on the case, Dr. Younger calls on the visiting Freud to guide him through the girl’s analysis.
The Interpretation of Murder is an intricately plotted, elegantly wrought entertainment filled with delicious surprises, subtle sleights of hand, and fascinating ideas. Drawing on Freud’s case histories, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and the rich history of New York, this remarkable novel marks the debut of a brilliantly engaging new storyteller.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2047788 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-19
• Released on: 2006-09-19
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 9.60" h x 1.50" w x 6.30" l, 1.86 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 640 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The search for a serial killer during Sigmund Freud's 1909 visit to New York City, his one trip to the U.S., propels the plot of Yale law professor Rubenfeld's ambitious debut. Freud's arrival coincides with the sadistic murder of a beautiful young woman in an upscale hotel. A similar attack on another woman results in the victim's hysterical paralysis. The efforts of Dr. Stratham Younger, a protégé of Freud's, to recover the survivor's memories of her assailant lead Younger into a morass of politics, big money and kinky sexual escapades. Freud plays a background role, but the father of psychoanalysis does get to expound his ideas, demonstrate his diagnostic acumen and don an apparent martyr's robe. Readers will learn much about Freud's relationship with his then-disciple Carl Jung, the building of the Manhattan Bridge, the early opponents to Freud's theories and the central problem posed by Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy. While not as well crafted as Caleb Carr's similarly themed The Alienist, this well-researched and thought-provoking novel is sure to be a crowd pleaser.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
It's 1909, and skyscrapers "higher than anything built by the hand of man before" are beginning to blot out the sun over Manhattan. This really happened. Sigmund Freud "distinguished, immaculately groomed" is passing through on his only visit to the United States. This also really happened. A woman is strangled with a silk tie. This, too, has doubtless happened from time to time, but here it's also where the story begins. Murder, romance, and a primer on history are all built into this clockwork plot. Actor Ron Rifkin masters the obstacle course of narration flawlessly. He's man. He's woman. He's an Austrian Jew, an American heiress, an Irish sandhog. Clever entertainment, cleverly performed. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Sigmund Freud's singular visit to the U.S.--which prompted him to label Americans "savages"--provides the premise for Rubenfeld's provocative mystery debut. As the novel opens, Freud, along with rival and protege Carl Jung, arrives in America in the steamy summer of 1909 to deliver a series of university lectures. He is soon enlisted by psychologist Stratham Younger to help solve the case of two New York debutantes preyed upon by a sadistic killer. The first young woman, Elizabeth Riverford, was found dead (whipped, mutilated, and strangled with the perpetrator's silk tie), but the second, Nora Acton, managed to escape--with no memory, alas, of the traumatic events that transpired. Under the guidance of Freud, Dr. Younger takes on Acton as a patient, becoming privy to her sexually repressed memories while fighting lustful inclinations of his own. Meanwhile, city officials pursue clues in the case, as Freud's detractors set out to ruin his reputation._Rubenfeld renders rich, complex characters, vivid period detail, and prose riddled with heady references to Hamlet. He deftly blends fiction and fact (a detailed author's note draws clear lines between the two), and his brisk, sinuous plot makes room for playful interpretations of the world according to Freud. When a dinner-party guest inquires as to the ramifications of her runny nose, Freud replies: "Sometimes a catarrh, I'm afraid, is just a catarrh." Allison Block
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