Maddie McCann Disappearance

Sometimes I amaze myself. I haven't said anything about the biggest child abduction story in years. 4-year old Maddie McCann disappeared one evening from her parents' rented condo in a Portuguese beach town while they were out to dinner with friends. At first it was treated as a kidnapping, but months later, based on odd DNA evidence in a car rented later among other things, the Portuguese judicial police have now decided that the parents are suspects - that they may have murdered their child, accidentally, and then covered it up. The campaign has produced global coverage, a huge media campaign by the bereaved parents, huge blogging and commentary pro and con, and an audience with the pope, among other things. I've been following the story in the British and French papers.

I've just read the best article so far, by Anne Enright in the London Review of Books. All the big themes are there: love mixed with hate, anger as death wish, parenting and rage, guilt and denial, the eternal presence of Lady Macbeth, our will to kill, our will to be very very normal.
Plus, for English majors, there are great close readings that really get to the social and psychological heart of things.