In The Girl with the Crooked Nose, Ted Botha tells the absorbing story of Frank Bender, a gifted, self-taught artist who can bring back the dead and the vanished through a unique, macabre sculpting talent. Bender has been the key to solving at least nine murders and tracking down numerous criminals. Then he is called upon to tackle the most challenging and bizarre case of his career.
Someone is killing the young women of Juarez. Since 1993, the decomposing bodies of as many as four hundred victims, known as feminicidios, have been found in the desert surrounding this gritty Mexican border town. In 2003, prodded by local political pressure and international attention, the Mexican authorities turn to the United States to help solve these horrific crimes. The man they turn to is Bender.
Through breathtakingly realistic sculptures, Bender reconstructs the faces of unknown murder victims or fugitives whose appearances are certain to have changed over years on the run. The busts are based in part on the painstaking application of forensic science to fleshless human skulls and in part on deep intuition, an uncanny ability to discern not only a missing face but also the personality behind it.
Arriving in Mexico, Bender works in secrecy, in a culture of corruption and casual violence where the line between criminals and law enforcement is blurry, braving anonymous threats and sinister coincidences to give eight skulls back their faces and, hopefully, their histories. Drawn to one skull in particular–”The Girl With the Crooked Nose”–Bender gradually comes to suspect that perhaps he is not meant to succeed, and that the true solution to the mystery of the feminicidios is far more terrible than anyone has dared to imagine.
Ted Botha brilliantly weaves Bender’s story–the cases he has solved, the intricacies of his art, the colorful characters he encounters, and the personal cost of his strange obsession–with the chilling story of the Juarez investigation. With a conclusion as shocking as its story is gripping, The Girl with the Crooked Nose will haunt readers long after the last page is turned.
“…[a] crackling account of a quirky, maverick forensics artist, Frank Bender, and his largely successful efforts in facial reconstruction of murder victims…. extraordinary is Botha’s writing, with his unerring depiction of Bender’s painstaking work and the eventual unraveling of the brutal crimes it solves…. the tales in this book accurately capture the dark motives and complexities of senseless murder, and even the most savvy true-crime reader will not be able to resist the author’s insightful storytelling.”–Publishers Weekly
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Sexual Content - 3/5
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Violence - 3/5
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Language - 2/5
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Drugs and Alcohol - 1/5
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Summary
Review provided by Danno: Overall Frank Bender stumbled into a career as a forensic sculptor, putting faces on skulls of unidentified people. He started as an artist and photographer and through a series of encounters found himself helping the police and FBI on several unidentified victim cases, even traveling to Mexico to help with all of the murder cases in Juarez. Frank combines artistic ability with forensic science (he is truly a serious student) and either incredible perceptive skills or a sixth sense to create his sculptures. The author, Ted Botha, does a good job of pointing out how Frank would decide to give a particular victim what would seem an odd choice in hair style or clothing and this would end up being what helped identify them. I found the book difficult to put down.
Violence The book is about a guy who puts faces on the skulls of unidentified people. Typically they were murder victims, so the subject matter is by default violent.
Language
Sexual With an asterisk. Some of the victims were raped. This is mentioned but without graphic detail.