Of verse and violent crime
review of Once a Murderer by Zoë Landale

by Barbara Carey
The Toronto Star
June 8, 2008

In the collection's best poems, Landale links crime and illicit sex – intimacy and guilt aren't just for (would-be) adulterous lovers, they also bond cop and perp; interrogation and seduction are both forms of manipulation. Some poems are also ingeniously layered in a way that conveys the narrator's conflicted feelings; we hear from the side of her that yearns to give in to temptation, but we also hear the inner voice of resistance.

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