In-depth analysis of a story by Ali Hashim, AS Level Student at ROOTS School System(Ex-Student PakTurk International School)

“Being a seasoned doctor it took me no more than a few seconds to perceive what might have caused Angeline’s death.”

The body was brought in by my assistant and laid in the dark room. As soon as I was free, I had a look at the body. It was a young woman of around twenty-five, five feet six inches tall with blond hair. Her ID card showed that her name was Angeline McGregor.

Being a seasoned doctor it took me no more than a few seconds to perceive what might have caused Angeline’s death. She had been poisoned. The autopsy that I performed the same evening showed that the poison used was arsenic.[A1] 

The police had stopped the investigation, considering the death to be natural, but my report suggested the otherwise and when I gave it to the chief inspector, the case was reopened with renewed keenness.[A2] 

I, also being [A3] a detective, as well as the forensic expert of the police department, was allowed to look into the matter. I knew that only a couple of chemists in the city sold arsenic, so I asked my assistant to make and bring me a list of people who had purchased arsenic in the last few days.

A single look at the list gave me the lead I was looking for. It contained the name of the husband of the deceased, Anthony McGregor[A4] . But I needed more proof than a mere receipt before I could lay my hands on him. Nevertheless, I asked him to come to the police station and interrogated him.

He told me a story that, if true, meant that he was totally clean. [A5] The way he spoke with a great conviction in his tone made me doubt my instincts. I took his photographs and showed them to the chemist who had sold arsenic to Anthony, but to my utter surprise, the chemist told me that this person had never been to his shop
COMMENT

 [A1]Very good and plausible opening. Sets the scene and situation strongly. I am intrigued so far!

 [A2]This is implied just by the fact that the police have reopened the case.

[A3]It is implausible for someone to be a seasoned doctor AND a detective – both require lots of specialization.

[A4]To avoid later confusion, introduce him here.

[A5]What was the story? It would help the reader here to at least get a summary of it, otherwise we feel like the narrator is holding back information

I asked the police department’s best artist to come and make a sketch according to the chemist’s description. The sketch showed a young muscular man with a look of pure venom and hatred on his face. I put the sketch into the department’s computer and was soon granted a satisfactory result. The young man was Sal Malcini, a person who had a record of dealing in poisons and even using them.

I asked the sheriff to get him arrested as he was our man. I was startled upon interrogating him. I never knew a new surprise awaited me. He had been paid for the job. This was the only information that we could extract from him for a long time. But after we used the third degree interrogation on him, he soon gave away. He told us that it was Angeline’s ex-boyfriend, Mathew Lestrage, who had paid him.

Confronting Mathew proved to be a much more troublesome job than the others, as he tried to run away. But due to his lack of knowledge of the area, he ran straight into me. Mathew told us that he loved Angeline very much but she had betrayed him, and had married “that American guy”. Naturally, this infuriated him. He said he was extremely depressed, to the extent that it led him to taking revenge upon her. He’d planned to kill her, and succeeded in that soon after.

He was given a life sentence.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[A1] 

 COMMENT

[A1]STRENGTHS: This story does a great job following detective style crime fiction. The ending is satisfactory because the point of these stories is to catch the person and uncover what happened in a mysterious crime.

WEAKNESSES: Often times the narrator withholds information from us. During the interrogations I hear summaries of what he’s doing and that he’s gotten information, but not what information he’s attained. It’s important for us to see what the narrator is seeing, and where you are showing only what’s necessary, provide a brief summary.

SUGGESTIONS: Another big issue is the implausibility of this man being both a doctor and detective. Both require lots of specialization. How can you work as both when the demands of both jobs require you to be exclusively available? Often times in writing fiction we will do things like this to help us create various elements of the plot, so it’s important to be aware of it, to step back and ask these questions. In this case, you might want to consider retelling this story by having the narrator work alongside a team of detectives, or be part of the investigation because it was his friends in a former line of work.