A Perfect Execution

On the surface, Jeremiah Benbo is a quiet fruit and vegetable grower. Secretly, as Solomon Straw, he travels the country as England's hangman. He is proud of his ability to maintain his professionalism, while balancing it with a sense of compassion. We are in his mind as he contemplates the mechanics and physics of hanging--how long the rope must be; how tight the noose--and the psychology of his profession--how to calm the convicted man on his walk to the scaffold and allow him to maintain his dignity. All the while, he does not seem to fully understand the consequences of his job, or to question its morality, until circumstances converge to cause him to question whether he has hung an innocent man.

Binding is an excellent writer, and show more if at the beginning it is difficult to understand how all the characters and elements will fit together, in the end it all coalesces. The book gives us a unique point of view on the death penalty.

(This novel is set in Great Britain in the 1950's when the death penalty was still imposed.) show less

Very little is known about the British author Tim Binding other than that he was born in Germany in 1947. A perfect execution, published in 1996, was his second novel.

The story of A perfect execution is somewhat convoluted, as if the reader is half blind, and can only see part of the story, while the other half id obscured. The duality in the story makes the reader see the story mainly from Jeremiah Bembo's perspective, a perspective which is also "halved" as Bembo lost an eye at an early age. Out of Bembo's field of vision are at least his cousin, his wife and her acquaintances and a large part of his own life, his normal life, when is he not Solomon Straw.

Jeremiah Bembo, his cousin and his wife, Judith, all grew up together in rural show more England, in the Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury, where Bembo's family run a very successful trade as market gardeners, a business he will later take over. During the summer holidays the children make extra money with their Punch & Judy show, with Bembo's cousin as the puppeteer.

The scene seems idyllic enough, until one day it is all destroyed by an German bomber, ironically not through bombing, but as the plane crashes into and utterly destroys the glass houses. A piece of glass hits and gets lodged into Bembo's eye, initially distorting his sight, and later the loss of the eye. In his distorted view, Bembo sees the German pilot as the victim of the cruelty of the British youths. He cuts the pilot, who is suspended in the air, hanging from the treads of his parachute, down and mercifully kills him.

This event, which destroys the basis of their existence, leads to Bembo's choice to become Britain's executioner. To protect his identity, he adopts the name Solomon Straw, a name which reflects the way he sees himself as the personification of wisdom, with echos of division in halves and the lack of other qualities, as his heart turns as cold as his glass eye.

Bembo's cousin embarks on a career as a successful entertainer, eventually making fame on television, and running into various problems and scandals.

Jeremiah Bembo alias Solomon Straw enters upon a career unlike any other man, his aim to perfect the killing. After his marriage with his wife Judith, "Judy" he identifies with Mr Punch (of Punch and Judy). This identification with the puppet, dangling from the ropes, not unlike the German pilot, seals his fate. The question remains who is the cruel puppeteer.

Ethel, a friend of Bembo's wife outside his field of vision, is harassed and murdered, and it is Solomon Straw's call to execute the murderer, young Danny Dancer. Willing to make his last execution perfect, Solomon fails and makes several mistakes. He is not in perfect control. He is a plaything at the hands of cruel fate, failing to see things clearly, as once Oedipus had failed to see and pierced his eyes.

Perhaps not a perfect novel, A perfect execution is an impressive achievement. The disjointed, convoluted way of telling the story is somewhat difficult to follow, but the story is certainly compelling. The scenes in the car are creepy, and psychologically convincing. The murderer, the puppeteer and the hangman: one remains unknown. show less

This is the story of Jeremiah Bembo, son of a market gardener in England who, during WWII, becomes the principal hangman in England, under the name of Solomon Straw. He applies for the job after he witnesses a downed German pilot being tortured and killed by a bunch of local louts (the crashing plane has wiped out several glass greenhouses, pretty well putting an end to the market gardening business, and blinding Jeremiah in one eye). Jeremiah decides as a result of this experience that his calling in life is to be the perfect executioner so as to ensure a quick, efficient, and respectful dispatch of the convicted person. This was the first flaw in the book. I didn't think the author had sufficiently prepared his character, and hence show more the reader, for this startling psychological shift, especially as Jeremiah was a very quiet, considerate, kind man who had blossomed in love with a fine woman, but to whom he turned cold and unfeeling with his new job. The book then goes on to a lengthy tangent explaining the complicated relationship of an adulterous couple (I guess he is an adulterer, she, Ethel, is single), and a rather wild young guy, Danny, who has the hots for the woman. In the end, the couple are abducted for a night of driving all over hell's-half-acre by some guy who forces his way into their car and who ends up killing the man and severely wounding Ethel. Ethel charges Danny with the crime and, although innocent, he is convicted. A complication arises is that Jeremiah's wife is rather taken with Danny (in a protective sort of way) and she hides him out for a month or so before he foolishly tries to visit his wife in hospital (who has given birth to twins) and is arrested. Jeremiah does not know of this relationship, but he is the executioner assigned to the job on Danny. It is his first less than perfect execution which shatters his confidence and that, plus a new found appreciation of life through the birth of his son, convinces him to retire and to open a pub. Jeremiah subsequently discovers who the real murderer was, although nothing happens to him, and the novel ends with Danny's mother plotting revenge on the little boy for Jeremiah's actions as the hangman.

Binding is a good writer, and I think with a better focused and better structured story, he could turn out a good novel. Unfortunately, this one lacked both. show less