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William Corder and the Red Barn Murder: journeys of the criminal body

At the heart of this text is the argument that many criminal bodies are reborn due to their notoriety and their bodies become commodities, demonstrating them to contain not only power but also value. In focusing on a single case study of the ‘dangerous dead’ (p. 2), McCorristine succeeds in providing a detailed account of the Red Barn Murder and what happened to the perpetrator William Corder. The text is well researched with in-depth reflection upon this notorious murder case in 1827. A threepart structure is adopted whereby the murder narrative is outlined before moving on to explore the ‘criminal body dismembered’ which tracks the journey of Corder postdeath as his partially dissected body is publicly viewed and then anatomically dissected by medical professionals. The third and final chapter examines the ‘criminal body remembered’, which is potentially the most intriguing, via an exploration of the consumption of the criminal corpse through products and popular culture including puppet shows, songs, waxworks and theatrical productions. What is unique about the book is that it brings together through a case study the issues of power surrounding the celebrated criminal corpse and how its presence can hover ‘like a contagion around other crimes’ (p. 56). Corder as a celebrated criminal corpse demonstrates the power to permeate public consumption of news, culture and entertainment. In other words, criminal celebrity corpses have product value and can become a sensational commodity marketable to all ‘in an economy of spectacle’ (p. 33). The text takes the unusual and risky step of including fairly vast appendices that comprise interesting data-sets but which regrettably make up half the book content. The strength of this text should, and could, have been via analysis of the gathered data and unique thought provoking observations in an under researched arena. Although the thought provoking observations are at times present, these are not sufficiently unpacked. Instead, the book descends into a collation of interesting data and narrative interspersed with sparks of stimulating insight. This is particularly evident in the provocative idea that the ‘sense of place’ contributed to the celebrated status of the Red Barn Murder. McCorristine argues that the picturesque village of Polstead became a destroyed Eden, whilst the Red Barn came to represent promiscuity, immorality coupled with violence, death and concealment; it was ‘a location of remembrance and consumption’ (p. 58). This notion of morbid space and how it locates public understandings remains tantalisingly underdeveloped. Despite these flaws, the book remains an excellent chronicle of the Red Barn Murder and creates a springboard for further critique and consideration of the power and value of the criminal corpse. McCorristine’s ‘dangerous dead’ are poised to be a catalyst for debate and further much needed research into culture, death, cadavers, fame and criminality. Mortality, 2016