A Fatal Love
A Fatal Love is a fictionalised account of the life and death of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged for murder in England, in 1955. It keeps close to the written record, the major fictional element being to give Ruth’s defence lawyer a female assistant, Kitty, who narrates the story jointly with Ruth.
Kitty is desperate to see Ruth acquitted, struggling to ‘get through’ to her and searching for fresh evidence and useful legal precedents, but Ruth is not interested in saving herself. Most people who read this book will know what happens to Ruth; it is why they bought or borrowed it. Like one of the many Titanic books, the tension lies in the sense of doom.
This is a sad and moving book. Perhaps the saddest part is the two-page afterword, summarising the later lives of almost everybody involved in the case. Alcohol, violence and suicide feature prominently. Not that their earlier lives were much better. The book takes us through the seedy pseudo-glamour of the 1950s London nightclubs. Most of the characters were doomed even before they were born. The description of the ghoulish ritual surrounding a hanging is horrifying to modern readers (but 1955 was not so long ago), but Ruth’s decision that it was better than life imprisonment is understandable.
