Jeff BlackstockRezensionen

this is an account of a man looking into his mother's death (when he was around 8) and discovering that it was his father who killed her. there is nothing he can prove for certain, although the evidence he had would likely convict in a court, had they been able to go that route. it's also a story of a gaslighting father, who, when presented with information/evidence has so many excuses and even more weird reactions. it's less a story of the children coming to terms with understanding that their father was their mother's killer, but a little of that is in here, too. but this was during a time when they didn't really spend much time with their father anyway, and so didn't have much of a relationship with him. i'm sure that would have looked differently if this happened in a different time or if the family had different means.

interesting, for sure.

The book opens with the sentence "I believe my father murdered my mother" and grabbed me from there. Imagine growing up with that thought permeating your life.

This is a great, intriguing and disturbing read by the eldest child of George and Carol Blackstock. When Jeff and his siblings Doug and Julie were young, their mother died suddenly and unexpectedly while the family was on a diplomatic posting in Argentina. As the children age, they become increasingly suspicious that their mother was murdered....by their father. As adults, Jeff and his sister Julie, investigate their mother's death by visiting doctors, friends, and going through their maternal grandparents' and their father's papers. They come to the conclusion that their father literally got away with murder.

At the end of the book, the author says "I hope only that this book will speak, however belatedly and inadequately, of my love for her, and of the love she inspired in my sister, Julie, and my brother, Doug, and that its publication will fill a decades-old void by bearing witness to the beauty and tragedy of our mother's life."

The book is well written and, I think, more than fair in the treatment of his father. A fascinating look at a family dealing with a terrible crime.

Blackstock's mother married her husband George at the age of fifteen, George eventually joined Canada's diplomatic service and his first posting was in Buenos Aires in 1958. He took his wife Carol and their three children with him. Sixteen months later Carl became very ill and eventually the Canadian Government brought her home where she died a day later.

While doctors in Montreal at first could not figure out what she had died of, they quickly suspect toxic poisoning and her husband was the prime suspect. It is thought that the government officials especially in the foreign affairs department did not wish to risk a scandal and the case was never pursued.

Carol's parents kept asking questions for years without too much success and eventually they passed on their suspicions to their granddaughter, Julie, that her father had killed her mother. Julie told her brother Jeff and the search for evidence was on.

It took years of searching and even interviews with their father that led to the three children concluding that their father killed their mother. To be sure their mother's story was told, Jeff decided to write this book. It contains great detail on the children's' lives, their father's career and the pain and suffering of their mother suffered during the illness and describes how friends and relatives who were abused by their father during his lifetime. This is a fascinating read done in a very entertaining fashion.