A BOOK BY ITS COVER

I recently saw a movie on the tube, "Anthony Adverse" by Edgar Allan Poe. Well, some years ago just before Christmas a man received a parcel in the mail with the word "Personal" printed on it. The man was Frank N. and he was a prison guard at a jail for the real bad guys. His ten year old son stood by him with excitement while Frank began to open the parcel. The next thing heard was an explosion resulting in horrendous injuries to Frank and his son.
My partner and I were assigned to sit by Frank and his son in the hospital during their emergency treatment to learn anything from either about what happened in the event that their injuries proved fatal.
I recall sitting beside Frank and his son being at the next bed crying in pain. Frank kept asking me if he was going to make it and asked about his son who he could hear at the next bed. Frank told me that he is a jail guard and mentioned the name of an inmate who hated him which gave us something to start with in the investigation.
Both of Frank`s hands were blown off and the explosion caused serious burns to the son including bone fragments from Frank`s hands impacting the boy`s eye and chest area. I recall a doctor specialist being called in and to my amazement, he began to ``dress down ``the young doctor who attended the boy`s burns, for giving improper treatment to the burns.
Further investigation revealed that the parcel went through the mails and was set to explode by the person opening the parcel . There was little doubt that the parcel was meant to injure or kill Frank.
We had our crime lab people re-construct the bomb and the result of this was that the bomb had been constructed to fit into a book by carving out the interior of the book leaving the cover to conceal the bomb. When frank opened the book, it exploded. We were able to identify the book as Edgar Allan Poes `` Anthony Adverse ``.
The investigation carried on long after I had been moved to a different location and the results are not known. I did speak to Frank at a later time and saw that he was fitted with hooks on each hand. His son did survive but he lost an eye and had to live with some facial injuries. Frank was a hard guy and he told me that he had seen action throughout the second world war but had lived though it without an injury.
It is memories like this case, one of hundreds, that I have had to forget for my own sanity but every once in a while something like the movie on on Poe`s book, will bring back bad memories.