Missing Beauty
Subtitle: a true story of murder and obsession
By: Teresa Carpenter.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Norton
Published: 1988
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 478
ISBN-13: 9780393025699
Subjects: Benedict, Robin Nadine, b. 1961; Douglas, William Henry James; Murder -- Massachusetts -- Case studies
Description: A distraught father walks into the newsroom of the Boston Herald asking for help in locating his missing daughter, a beautiful commercial artist named Robin Benedict. The publication of her photograph sets in motion a murder investigation that leads to the arrest of one of her former lovers. But nothing is quite what it seems. Benedict is actually a high-paid prostitute in Boston's Combat Zone. The suspect is the eminent anatomist Dr. William Henry James Douglas who, it is learned, has been embezzling funds from his laboratory at Tufts University to support his costly entanglement with Benedict. Pulitzer Prize-winner Teresa Carpenter brilliantly reconstructs one of the most fascinating murder investigations in years -- one which threads its way through many levels of Boston society. We watch a respectable man as he moves from the rarefied, cloistered world of academia into the shadowy recesses of Boston's red-light district, the Combat Zone. We watch as the city's newspapers, stirred to a fever pitch of competition, render the young prostitute a nearly mythological figure. Finally, we watch engrossed as a prosecutor puts together the puzzle, piece by piece, hoping to prove that murder was committed even though the body cannot be found. Is Robin Benedict really dead? If so, was it Dr. Douglas who killed her? As it considers these questions in riveting detail, Teresa Carpenter's work becomes a study of obsession. Not just one man's obsession with a prostitute, but an entire city's fascination with dishonor and the elusive search for beauty. - Jacket flap.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 475-478).
Table of contents: title: The intrusion; title: Part one : The players.; title: Bill; title: Robin; title: Part two : The investigation.; title: The discovery; title: The district attorney; title: The search; title: Clues; title: The Gray House; title: Strange bedfellows; title: Odd jobs; title: The silver Toyota; title: The arrest; title: Adversaries; title: The confession; title: Epilogue