The 50 States of Crime series is a collection of short books by French writers, each one focusing on a famous or important crime in one of the United States (plus the District of Columbia). The first three books in the series, covering New York, California, and Ohio, addressed a possible (though possibly not) miscarriage of justice, a serial killer, and the mysterious past of an identity thief who committed suicide.
The fourth book, which covers Mississippi and the murder of Emmett Till, Is arguably the best in the series to date. Other books in the series (including some other recent releases), are marred by shallow and scanty narratives, strident messaging, or unfounded speculation. Jean-Marie Pottier’s book is meant as an introduction to the crime that played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement, and does not come close to being the most thorough or definitive book on the case. However, due to its conciseness, clear presentation, and insight, it would be a valuable addition to a high school or college history class.
Emmett Till, a young Black man in his early teens, left his home town of Chicago in 1955 to visit relatives in Mississippi. Till was accused of making advances towards a white woman, and soon afterwards he was kidnapped, horrifically tortured, and brutally murdered. This led to a trial that caught the public’s attention, acquittals that sparked nationwide outrage, and a decades-long battle for justice, social change, and answers to lingering questions. The narrative should be familiar to anybody who has studied the American Civil Rights Movement, but Pottier brings up details that have often been dropped from textbooks, such as arguments over the identity of the corpse.
Gustave Flaubert famously criticized Harriet Beecher Stowe’s frequent moralizing in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, saying that there was no need to force a message upon the readership, and that the author should “Depict it; that’s enough.” There can be a healthy debate about the wisdom of Flaubert’s tastes, but Pottier adopts this attitude throughout the book. While most of the other authors in the 50 States of Crime series have marred their work with frequent sneers and denigrations of American society and culture, as well as airy broad swipes that oversimply American attitudes, Pottier avoids cheap stereotypes and cultural chauvinism, at least for the most part, the differences in national reporting of the case, and how figures like William Faulkner fretted over how the murder was hurting Mississippi’s reputation.
The heart of the book comes from the question: what happens when the justice system fails? Many French intellectuals and writers have gone off of Michel Foucault’s theories on punishment, following certain lines of thinking to raise questions about whether or not society benefits at all from identifying and incarcerating criminals. Indeed, some prominent French crime novels have made a point of letting killers walk free, arguing that the dead cannot be brought back to life and that retribution is a futile waste of time. The morality of such a perspective is understandably chafing to many differently-minded readers, but without confronting such arguments head-on, Pottier undermines such worldviews with every page of this book, showing how society is wounded when an act of violence brings no consequences.
Indeed, the most powerful portions of the narrative show that after Till’s killers were acquitted, the Black community was expected to accept the verdict, let the matter go, and allow Till’s story to fade out of public memory. This did not happen. The later chapters of the book are particularly interesting, because they cover ground that has not yet made it into the history books, including new attempts to continue Till’s story through the public sphere, but most notably, through the continuing legal battles that took place during the twenty-first century. Issues such as unserved warrant directed towards one prominent figure in the case, and the public demand for an arrest decades later, lead up to a question that Pottier simultaneously leaves unanswered and addresses with every page: what has changed in the American justice system since Emmett Till, and what has not?
The Emmett Till Case is highly recommended for anybody who wants to find out more about a particularly evil act of violence and how large segments of society banded together to fight injustice. It’s an often shocking and upsetting narrative, but a very important and well-told one, explaining the consequences when a jury’s verdict is itself a crime.
The Emmett Till Case (50 States of Crime– Mississippi)
Jean-Marie Pottier, translated by Lynn E. Palermo
Crime Ink
September 2, 2025
