 OCTOBER 24 • 2019 | 45

publisher when she read a 
biography of Arthur Conan 
Doyle and learned he was a 
crusader for social justice.
Fox was impressed that 
Doyle, who grew up very poor 
in a fatherless family, never 
forgot his beginnings and 
agitated for all kinds of causes 
— exposing Belgian atrocities 
in the Congo, liberalizing 
divorce laws for women who 
were in abusive marriages 
and investigating wrongful 
convictions, including the one 
imposed on Oscar Slater in 
Scotland.
Although Fox read about 
Doyle and Slater in other 
books, the mentions were 
very limited, and after many 
years as a newspaper reporter 
and book writer, Fox decided 
that the Slater story, spanning 
almost 20 years, merited a 
book of its own. 
Doyle tells about the murder 
of a woman in 1908 Glasgow 
and how the conviction was 
contrived because Slater was a 
Jewish immigrant belonging to 
a marginal social class. 
“I started work on the book 
in 2013, and it came out in 
2018,
” says Fox, who studied 
at the Columbia School of 
Journalism and had a long 
career with the New York 
Times, where she has handled 
obituary assignments including 
one of an actual murderer, 
Charles Manson. 
“The book is a daily 
newspaper story gritted up 

about 100 times. It reveals how 
Doyle re-investigates the case 
using the rational methods 
of his most famous literary 
creation.
“Little did I suspect that 
this story of race hatred, anti-
Semitism, xenophobia and 
intense public efforts to curb 
immigration would become 
so dark and painful in our 
own time. I’
m proud, in a sad 
way, to have brought this story, 
seemingly from the past, to 
show how, regrettably, some 
things never change.
” 
Fox, who has spoken in 
Ann Arbor and has cousins 
in East Lansing, describes her 
upcoming presentation as an 
illustrated lecture. 
“I have a PowerPoint 
presentation with Edwardian 
images that are in the book, 
including photos from the 
actual 1908 crime scene,
” 
says Fox, married to George 
Robinson, film critic for the 
Jewish Week and author of 
Essential Judaism and Essential 
Torah.
“It’
s a talk that ranges over 
the story and recommends 
at the end that the audience 
go visit the prison, which has 
been a museum since 2013. 
Ironically, it’
s in some of the 
most beautiful country in the 
British Isles.
” 

Look next week for a story about 
MSU Jewish Studies Professor Kirstin 
Fermaglich’
s book, Rosenberg by Any 
Other Name. She speaks at 5 p.m. 
Nov. 3. 
 

Margalit Fox

continued from page 43

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