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Jed Rubenfeld
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The Death Instinct Paperback – 28 April 2011

by Jed Rubenfeld (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 261 ratings
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A spellbinding literary thriller about terror, war, greed, and the darkest secrets of the human soul, by the author of the million-copy bestseller, The Interpretation of Murder.

September 16, 1920. Under a clear blue September sky, a quarter ton of explosives is detonated in a deadly attack on Wall Street. Fear comes to the streets of New York.


Witnessing the blast are war veteran Stratham Younger, his friend James Littlemore of the NY Police Department, and beautiful French radiochemist Colette Rousseau. A series of inexplicable attacks on Colette, a secret buried in her past, and a mysterious trail of evidence lead Younger, Littlemore, and Rousseau on a thrilling international and psychological journey - from Paris to Prague, from the Vienna home of Freud to the corridors of power in Washington, DC, and ultimately to the hidden depths of our most savage instincts. As the seemingly disjointed pieces of Younger and Littlemore's investigations come together, the two uncover the shocking truth about the bombing - a truth that threatens to shake their world to its foundations.

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  1. Print length
    560 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Headline Review
  4. Publication date
    28 April 2011
  5. Dimensions
    12.8 x 3.8 x 19.8 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    9780755344024
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0755344024
  8. See all details
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Product description

Review

'A tapestry of intrigue, corruption, double-dealing and double standards on a grand scale. A must-read for conspiracy theorists.' ― The Times

'This elegant thriller...it will thrill Rubenfeld's fans around the world.' ― Daily Mail

'Carefully researched and energetically told' ― Literary Review

'A Buchanesque thriller' ― Guardian

'An ingenious theory...Rubenfeld is a superb action writer' ― Saturday Telegraph

Book Description

The eagerly awaited follow up to the million-copy selling THE INTERPRETATION OF MURDER, winner of the 2007 Richard and Judy Book of the Year

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0755344022
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Headline Review (28 April 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 560 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780755344024
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0755344024
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.8 x 3.8 x 19.8 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 261 ratings

About the author

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Jed Rubenfeld

Jed Rubenfeld

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Jed Rubenfeld is the Robert R. Slaughter Professor at Yale Law School and an internationally recognized expert on constitutional law. His first novel, "The Interpretation of Murder," was a worldwide bestseller, with over a million copies sold.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
261 global ratings

Top reviews from United Kingdom

jaehancock
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely brilliant!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 September 2011
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I read this book hard on the heels of the author's first novel 'The Interpretation of Murder', because I so enjoyed his elegant writing style, attention to detail and ability to work what might have been Freud's apparent dislike of America into a thoroughly-entertaining first book. This, his second novel, is (in my humble opinion) even better than his first. It provides a lesson in American history woven deftly into a thoroughly-good fictional story and - as with the first novel - an explanation at the end of the book informs the reader as to what is fact and what is fiction (but don't go there until you've read the book, otherwise you'll spoil it for yourself). Also, I recommend reading the first novel before this one, because the protagonists in the first novel feature majorly in this, the second.

I was greatly impressed with this author but, sadly, he currently has no plans to write a third novel. I write this review in the hope that a swell in book sales will encourage him to put pen to paper again.
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Mr. G. R. Diggines
4.0 out of 5 stars review of Jed Rubenfeld's 'The Death Instinct'.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 December 2010
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In many ways this was a fascinating read, both enjoyable and informative, which is not that common! In some ways Rubenfeld's novel takes on a historical tone; the decline of 19th century culture and values in Europe, also of the Wilsonian values still residing in the US at the end of the First World War, enshrined in Wilson's doctrine of a Social Democratic European/US future at the 1919 Versailles Conference. A doctine which was to fail abysmally. Rubenfeld's narrative develops from a still little known terrorist attack in Wall Street New York in September 1920. Rubenfeld suggests certain culprits who could have orchestrated the attack for their own ends. But, as he explains in his concluding 'Authors note', much of this was fictionalised. The real motives behind the disaster, and who executed it, remaining a mystery to this day. But there is probably enough evidence to speculate that the attack was part of a ploy in the cause of gathering support for a putative war. The corruption and war-mongering seen at the heart of US corporate politics and foreign policy is investigated and finally exposed, or revealed, by one of the novels main protagonists, the policeman James Littlemore. On the issue of corruption Rubenfeld takes us far beyond Wall Street to focus on the antagonism at the time between the US and Mexico; the US's claim to Mexican oil, and the Mexican provocation of nationalising the oil for its own social welfare. This all sounds familiar stuff if we think of Iran and Cuba, to name just two examples of disastrous, failed US foreign policy. One of the books most perceptive moves is to not merely write a period piece focusing on the 1920's, but to make these themes correspond with our contemporary world context. The way Littlemore uncovers a plot to cook-up dubious evidence and amplification of scare-mongering, in aid of a US invasion/war with Mexico, bringing great wealth and power to a reckless, greedy elite, has obvious parallels with 2003 US invasion of Iraq, similarly based on dubious evidence. And the ensuing exposure of the corruption of the bankers involved has an even closer, more immediate contemporary resonance!

Before reading this I had certain reservations about incorporating actual historical figurs into a work of fiction. But I must admit Rubenfeld's depiction, especially of Freud, is most convincing. Convincing that is, in that it corresponds accurately to accounts of Freud by those who knew him best, like Ernest Jones and Princess Marie Bonaparte. Freud comes across here as kind, generous but also as having an astute and immediate insight into those he meets; their speech patterns, gestures,etc. And I have yet to come across a more accessible and lucid account of Freuds notoriously cryptic notion of the death instinct. It is not an account that would register very well with Lacanians. But Rubenfeld perceptively makes it cohere (as an agency of aggression and destruction) with many of the wider themes of the book, and indeed the period it focuses upon; not least the massive destruction, and its aftermath, of the First World War; and the already mentioned US warlike intentions against Mexico; and of course the 1920 Wall Street terrorist attack itself and its impact on the novels three main characters. But perhaps more perceptively still is the way Rubenfeld makes, at times, quite oblique allusions to the massive destruction and violence developing in Europe at the same time as the signing of the Versailles Treaty. It turns out that the herorine of the novel, Colette Rousseau, has had a complex and fatal liaison with a rather brutal man who came from Braunau am Inn, a small town on the Austrian/German border where a certain Adolf Hitler was born! Also Rubenfeld's descriptions of ancient European cities like Vienna and Prague project both an empathy for, but disenchantment with. They are full of ancient winding cobbled streets, gothic cathedrals, ghosts from the past; the sites of failed treaties and pontless wars. In fact here Rubenfeld comes quite close to Walter Benjamin's 'profane illumination' found in the European city where violence can errupt at any time amidst the splendour of its past monuments and places of death and execution. The death instinct is also made to cross-over with Madame Curie's discovery of radium and how radium iteslf, like in Plato's Pharmakon, can be a source of healing (especially cancer) but also a force of destruction, disease, and death. One of the most revealing and compelling parts of the novel details how Colette, a disciple of Madame Curie, discovers that the healing properties of radium, potentially for the whole of mankind, are being exploited to produce cheap illuminating product affects on watches, clothing, etc. Furthermore Colette finds out that the girls who work in the factories which produce these radium adornment effects were actually being exposed, in the most direct way, to the harmful and lethal effects of radium. In fact one of the novels main plots revolves around the way in which this mode of lethal exploitation is protected from public knowledge with disturbing and brutal effects.

The two lead main characters, Stratham Younger, the trained medical doctor and war veteran, and the already mentioned James Littlemore, are not overdeveloped. They both have strained, or uncomfortable relations with women. Especially Younger who disagrees, argues with Colette throughout the story, but ultimately reveals a deep affection for her. Colette herself is a complex, sometimes capricious, and even coquettish young French woman. But her real secrets are implied by Dr Freud, who treats her younger brother Luc for a nuerotic disorder. At times it seems as though the two men, Younger and Littlemore, come into their own more with each other. There friendship almost symbolises a kind of very male fraternity, which is probably quite accurate given the era and US context. My one criticism of the book ( apart from its, at times, rather perfunctory realist literary style) concerns the scenes when Younger and Littlemore kind of turn into comic book adventure heroes, fighting off a whole brigade of racists in Prague; enacting a miraculous escape from attackers deep in a secret, about to explode, bank gold vault; and their almost lethal adventure (for Younger) and run in with Brighton, the ruthless owner of the hideously exploitative radium factory, and his men. The rescue of Colette from these dark forces is all a bit inevitable, and a little sensational. All boys own stuff, which seems however to unite their relationship with each other. But I must admit to having really felt for Younger here, who is seemingly fatally injured, hospitalised, and hoping, with Colette , that he survives. Of course he miraculously survives. And of course in 'real' life things don't usually turn out like this. But I have the impression that Rubenfeld, who really does empathise with Freud the man, and his work, is not absolutely concerned with reality here. Like Freud, he probably sees an element of phantasy as always already overlaying/extending the limits of reality. And isn't this what narrative fiction is ulimately all about?
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Bridie
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2022
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Great read
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Lily Lit
3.0 out of 5 stars A very good read - particularly in historical context as it includes ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 December 2014
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A very good read - particularly in historical context as it includes incidents had not been aware of previously, such as the bombing of Wall Street in the early 20th Century, the incident which is central to the overall plot and is an incident that still carries many conspiracy theories around it, as of its parallels with the attack in the similar area nearly 100 years later on September 11, 2001.

A great deal of artistic liberty of course taken with Dr Freud but overall ties into a number of emerging theories of that day - including the book's title and thus becomes a statement on human nature and the aftermath of war.

I do not like the main character of the book however, which is something that has discouraged me from reading - Stratham Younger, who again is a wish fulfilling character to me from the author himself, to extent he is not grounded in reality at all, but irritating instead.
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2 BATS
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 July 2017
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I rate a book where I am engaged by fiction and learn facts as I read. As I read I googled people places and events, however the authors note explained what was drawn from real events and was well researched.
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Penny Waugh
4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting . . .
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 January 2012
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I was tempted to give this three stars as the characters, with the exception of Captain Littlemore of the NYPD, came over as frightfully dull. Stratham Younger was almost a complete bore, Colette not much better, and even their lapses into violence could not make them more than cardboard figures for me.
What saved this book was the was the fascinating detail of America's people and politics in 1920, and Europe in the same year. The history was compelling, also the psychoanalysis and the characters totally cavalier attitude towards radium, and for these aspects I gladly trudged through the rest
I really disliked The Interpretation of Murder, again for its wooden and thoroughly unpleasant characters, and have to say that my reluctance to read this book was fairly strong. In the end I found it a much better story.
Glad I read it, might not attempt a further one.
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Ronnie
5.0 out of 5 stars Good Read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 January 2013
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Bought this book as a gift and then went on to read it myself.
I found that the story was good at keeping you interested in the plot and that you were always reviewing "who did it" as the story progress right to the end of the book.
I would happily recommend both book and seller.
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FamPol
4.0 out of 5 stars fast paced enjoyable historical fiction
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 December 2013
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While it was always clear that the various story plots would all tie together, it was nevertheless addictive reading to see how everything would be resolved. I knew nothing of the historical facts that underpin the basis of the story - the bombing of Wall Street, and the threat of war against Mexico after WWI, so it was also interesting to understand some of the history that this is loosely based around.

Definitely a good read.
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Top reviews from other countries

David R Henderson
4.0 out of 5 stars A Complex and unusual novel. Murder and psychoanalysis mixed, with a love story added
Reviewed in Australia on 2 August 2021
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I like crime novels because good ones are studies of human behaviour linked with an analytic approach to solving the crime.
This book is different based on what seemed to be a true event and with inclusion of the father of psychoanalysis, it has a complex plot that has multiple strands and ends in a surprising way.
I recommend this book and author's previous novel is on my list to read.
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Dhiraj Gupta
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in India on 28 December 2016
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Every things is good
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Ken Foxcroft
5.0 out of 5 stars The death Instinct
Reviewed in Canada on 20 May 2013
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Agreat historic fiction Novel focussing on a liitle known bomb attack in New York City in the early 1900's.a well written story!!.
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Paola
5.0 out of 5 stars I repeat, NOT your usual 'hum-drum' novel
Reviewed in the United States on 16 January 2013
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Not to be too verbose (and I don't rewrite the story in my reviews!), see my review of Mr Rubenfeld's first novel. His works are NOT for anyone expecting 'formulas' and sub-standard characterizations and plots. This one is as entertaining and well-written as the first, with very different incites into historical and not so historical events. If you're looking for a Patterson or Ludlum, don't go here...or if you have no penchant for being entertained and thrilled (very subjective) by some almost fantastical happenings that are not part of some totally improbable video game, don't read this or any of Mr Rubenfeld novels. And I thank you again, Sir, for adding to my paucity of history, real or otherwise, and for your intelligent creativity in adding so much to my reading hours....now go and write another one, please!
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AH
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent
Reviewed in France on 6 October 2013
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This is a real page turner. If you liked An Interpretation of Murder I am sure that you will like this too.
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