Murder Among Friends
How Leopold and Loeb Tried to Commit the Perfect Crime
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
How did two teenagers brutally murder an innocent child...and why? And how did their brilliant lawyer save them from the death penalty in 1920s Chicago? Written by a prolific master of narrative nonfiction, this is a compulsively readable true-crime story based on an event dubbed the "crime of the century."
In 1924, eighteen-year-old college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb made a decision: they would commit the perfect crime by kidnapping and murdering a child they both knew. But they made one crucial error: as they were disposing of the body of young Bobby Franks, whom they had bludgeoned to death, Nathan's eyeglasses fell from his jacket pocket.
Multi-award-winning author Candace Fleming depicts every twist and turn of this harrowing case--how two wealthy, brilliant young men planned and committed what became known as the crime of the century, how they were caught, why they confessed, and how the renowned criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow enabled them to avoid the death penalty.
Following on the success of such books as The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh and The Family Romanov, this acclaimed nonfiction writer brings to heart-stopping life one of the most notorious crimes in our country's history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In five distinct sections, this gripping, thriller-paced true crime portrait by Fleming (The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh) centers Nathan Leopold (1904–1971) and Richard Loeb (1905–1936), who in May 1924 as University of Chicago students and on-again, off-again lovers targeted and killed Loeb's 14-year-old second cousin Bobby Franks, in an attempt to commit the "perfect crime." Beginning with a grisly account of the killing, the page-turning narrative next traces wealthy Leopold and Loeb's childhoods and early friendship among Chicago's Jewish elite, the tracking of the killers, the duo's storied confessions, and the riveting courtroom battle involving attorney Clarence Darrow. Electrifying descriptions of the pivotal trial provide nuanced ethical and legal context around Darrow's arguments against the death penalty. Fleming employs her usual flair for enlivening history, offering rich layers of information about the time, including the role that anti-Semitism, newspapers, and police corruption played in the case. Though Leopold and Loeb's crime is difficult to stomach, Fleming crafts an absorbing saga sure to ensnare readers in its thrall. Black-and-white photographs and newspaper reproductions appear throughout, and an afterword and copious back matter reveal the book's wealth of research. Ages 12–up.
