The Girl with the Crooked Nose: A Tale of Murder, Obsession, and Forensic Artistry: Ted Botha
By: Dan May | 08.16.08 | Rating: 3 stars
The Girl With The Crooked Nose is Ted Botha’s chronicle of Frank Bender, an artist who became involved with the field of forensics. From his quiet start to an internationally recognized expert in the field of artistic forensic reconstruction, Botha describes some of the challenges not only of the cases Bender works on but the artistic difficulties in facial reconstruction. Bender’s career, and occasional obsession with solving crimes, leads to his involvement in some of the more notorious and terrible crimes of the past thirty years.
Ted Botha has the odds in his favor for this book: an interesting subject, a series of mysteries to solve, and a fascinating man to follow them and string it all together. Unfortunately, Crooked Nose breaks down in all three areas, making this book falter in critical places.
Botha separates his book into sections according to the cases Bender works on; the early years, the fugitive profiles, missing person identifications, and the largest case, one involving hundreds of missing and murdered women in Juarez, Mexico. However, he unwisely breaks up the Mexico story so while the other sections read like a compelling short story, the story of Frank’s efforts in Juarez -- a tale that includes police corruption, politics, drug cartels, and the raging efforts of a select few to try and bring some justice to this case -- is split between these other stories just as it gets interesting, and loses much of its momentum.
By using a compartmentalized style, I felt the discussion of the subject of forensic facial reconstruction was shortchanged. Frank’s progression as an artist isn’t given focus; the murders are. So while there is a progression to his work I don’t witness, Bender discovers new and better ways to do his job. Yet there are hints throughout the book about the history of this art, and the very small group of people who have dedicated themselves to it, which I would’ve liked to have seen added to the subject.
Finally, Bender himself isn’t given much attention as a character. The brief moments are told too flatly, and some embellishment would have helped. At one point, it is revealed that he has been having an affair, and this issue is opened and resolved in about three pages. I bring this up as an example of how little I learned of Bender himself.
The subject matter itself is compelling and Botha is a solid writer, however I was left feeling shortchanged. Despite these problems, The Girl With The Crooked Nose is likeable and should appeal to readers of true crime and forensics.
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Publisher: Random House Adult Trade Publishing Group
Pub. Date: May 2008
ISBN-13: 9781400065332