KARLA'S WEB A Cultural Investigation of the Mahaffy-French Murders

Hardback. 'Every once in a while, something happens that dramatically alters the way we perceive and interpret the world around us, and crystalizes apparently unrelated issues and problems that have been confronting a nation. According to cultural visionary Frank Davey, the public response to the murders of southwestern Ontario schoolgirls Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French is just this sort of event. From populist indignation about the press ban to media manipulation of the unfolding story, Frank Davey sees in the Mahaffy-French murders a reflection of the state of the Canadian nation...' This book is a unique and provocative exploration of the fascination with Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo - and of what that fascination tells us about ourselves and the future of Canada. It looks at the way the media developed two rape-murders into an ongoing soap opera by portraying victims as saints, perpetrators as monsters, and the media themselves as major characters. The author examines how the press ban even though vigorously opposed by the media, ultimately helped their campaign to keep the story alive. He compares the celebration of the case with the American frenzy over the O.J. Simpson story; and he explores how such disparate phenomena as the glamourisation of violence, the global information revolution, and the paternalistic response of US media to the ban all threaten Canadian sovereignty by favouring individual rights over the collective good. A brilliant and iconoclastic analysis of a murder case, and of the assaults, betrayals, rumours, media manipulations, legal manoeuvres, and computerised information exchanges that have spun themselves into Karla's Web. Illus., Endnotes, Bibliog. and Index. 328pp. lge. 8vo. h/back. Includes, loosely inserted, the Hardcover Supplement of the blacked out passages from the book, available when the press ban was lifted, together with the postcard to be used for this purpose, as well as a newspaper cutting from the 'Toronto Sun' speculating on a court order that might force Karla Homolka into an early showdown with her ex-husband. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F. in protected F. dw.