I just finished a re-read of one of my favourite books, Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver. I suspect while some of you know the book, more readers are familiar with the Otto Preminger film starring Jimmy Stewart as Polly Biegler, Ben Gazarra as Lt Manion, George C. Scott as the big city lawyer Claude Dancer, Eve Arden as Maida, and Lee Remick as Laura Manion – and featuring the music of Duke Ellington. The film is flat out great, and the book is too. The book was written in 58 and the film was done the following year.

The book was written by Robert Traver, or at least that was his pen name. John D. Voelker was a Michigan Supreme Court Justice when he wrote the book and took on the pen name to separate his writing and legal activities. Traver, or Voelker was also famous for writing a much different kind of book, one of my favourite books about fly fishing, Trout Madness. Voelker was mad for chasing brook trout with a fly rod on his beloved Upper Michigan Peninsula.

Anatomy of a Murder was set on the Upper Michigan Peninsula as well. It was based on an actual murder case that occurred in Big Bay on the UP in 1952. The movie was filmed in Big Bay as well. I actually made a little visit to Big Bay one year when I was on the UP chasing up some brook trout myself. This is courtroom drama at it’s best and I recommend both the book and the movie highly.