Books in Brief: Murder at the Met

Murder at the Met, by David Black (Dial, 300 pp., $15.95)

On July 23, 1980, Helen Hagnes Mintiks, a beautiful young violinist, was taking a break during a ballet performance at the Metropolitan Opera House. In an elevator, she was accosted by a stagehand, Craig Crimmins, who propositioned her. She slapped him. He took her to one of the lower levels of the building and tried to rape her. Threatening her with a hammer, he then took her up several levels, stripped her, tied her up, and threw her to her death down an air shaft. In taut prose, communicating the feel of tough New York life, David Black describes the murder and the splendid detective work that tracked down the murderer. Essentially it involved a minute and exhaustive examination of who was where in the building and when on the day of the murder. But this is much more than a fine detective story. Black deals with the distinction between the world of art at the Met and the street world inhabited by both the murderer and the detectives. One detective “was continually amazed by how unaffected the performers and artists at the Met seemed to be by Helen’s murder”; they inhabited the world of the ideal. Black deals with the intense class feeling separating the Met crew from performers and audience, and the distortions of the press, which not only played the case for sensation but sympathized with the killer. Craig Crimmins appears to have been motivated by sexual desire and social envy, a mixture that was ignited when Helen Mintiks slapped him. But there is a darkness beyond any such definable mixture. In its various aspects, this case is as important socially and philosophically as, for example, the Manson case or the case of Yale murderer Richard Herrin.

About the Author

Jeffrey Hart

Jeffrey Hart is a contributor to National Review.

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Murder at the Met, by David Black (Dial, 300 pp., $15.95)

On July 23, 1980, Helen Hagnes Mintiks, a beautiful young violinist, was taking a break during a ballet performance at the Metropolitan Opera House. In an elevator, she was accosted by a stagehand, Craig Crimmins, who propositioned her. She slapped him. He took her to one of the lower levels of the building and tried to rape her. Threatening her with a hammer, he then took her up several levels, stripped her, tied her up, and threw her to her death down an air shaft. In taut prose, communicating the feel of tough New York life, David Black describes the murder and the splendid detective work that tracked down the murderer. Essentially it involved a minute and exhaustive examination of who was where in the building and when on the day of the murder. But this is much more than a fine detective story. Black deals with the distinction between the world of art at the Met and the street world inhabited by both the murderer and the detectives. One detective “was continually amazed by how unaffected the performers and artists at the Met seemed to be by Helen’s murder”; they inhabited the world of the ideal. Black deals with the intense class feeling separating the Met crew from performers and audience, and the distortions of the press, which not only played the case for sensation but sympathized with the killer. Craig Crimmins appears to have been motivated by sexual desire and social envy, a mixture that was ignited when Helen Mintiks slapped him. But there is a darkness beyond any such definable mixture. In its various aspects, this case is as important socially and philosophically as, for example, the Manson case or the case of Yale murderer Richard Herrin.