Books in Brief

The Untried Case: The Sacco-Vanzetti Case and the Morelli Gang, by Herbert B. Ehrmann (Vanguard, $3.95). In the aftermath of Robert Montgomery’s recent comprehensive survey of the overwhelming case against Sacco and Vanzetti (reviewed NR, Sept. 24), the Vanguard Press has thought it prudent, and perhaps profitable, to exhume Mr. Ehrmann’s ancient red herring (first published in 1933) and drag it once more across the trail. The attempt is to pin the Braintree murders on a well-known gang of Italian hoodlums that was operating out of Rhode Island at the time. By limiting his book to matters touching this gang, Mr. Ehrmann spares himself the painful necessity of explaining away the ballistics evidence of Colonel Goddard, which makes Sacco’s guilt irrefutable. Much the best part of the reissued volume is a brilliantly evasive letter, naively reproduced on its dust-jacket, from the law secretary of Mr. Justice Holmes, acknowledging the complimentary copy of this book which Ehrmann sent in 1934 to the great jurist. “He wished me to say,” quoth the secretary, “that in years of reading thrillers he has come across no such engrossing a tale as your search for evidence against the Morelli gang.” But whether, in Holmes’ opinion, Mr. Ehrmann had actually found any evidence, the letter tactfully omits to say.

W. A. RUSHER

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The Untried Case: The Sacco-Vanzetti Case and the Morelli Gang, by Herbert B. Ehrmann (Vanguard, $3.95). In the aftermath of Robert Montgomery’s recent comprehensive survey of the overwhelming case against Sacco and Vanzetti (reviewed NR, Sept. 24), the Vanguard Press has thought it prudent, and perhaps profitable, to exhume Mr. Ehrmann’s ancient red herring (first published in 1933) and drag it once more across the trail. The attempt is to pin the Braintree murders on a well-known gang of Italian hoodlums that was operating out of Rhode Island at the time. By limiting his book to matters touching this gang, Mr. Ehrmann spares himself the painful necessity of explaining away the ballistics evidence of Colonel Goddard, which makes Sacco’s guilt irrefutable. Much the best part of the reissued volume is a brilliantly evasive letter, naively reproduced on its dust-jacket, from the law secretary of Mr. Justice Holmes, acknowledging the complimentary copy of this book which Ehrmann sent in 1934 to the great jurist. “He wished me to say,” quoth the secretary, “that in years of reading thrillers he has come across no such engrossing a tale as your search for evidence against the Morelli gang.” But whether, in Holmes’ opinion, Mr. Ehrmann had actually found any evidence, the letter tactfully omits to say.

W. A. RUSHER