A Reasonable Doubt

On the morning of March 11, 1931 anyone driving on Main Street might have thought the gawkers crowding the sidewalk were gathered for a Saturday matinee at the Paramount. There were factory workers, shopkeepers and teenagers from the high school, all standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the courthouse. The morning sky was gray and misty; if the mercury dipped low enough, snow was possible.

A police wagon approached by way of a well planned ruse, driving down Water Street to Stage Street then Vestry Street to the back of the courthouse. Their prisoner, a boy with wavy blond hair was dressed in a neat brown suit. He climbed out, wrists manacled, and the marshals hustled him through the back door. A few bystanders caught the deception and the crowd surged at the police who pushed them back. Inside the courthouse, the boy would be arraigned for Haverhill’s own crime of the century -- a crime so sensational that Boston newspapers had assigned their best reporters to cover the story.

A Reasonable Doubt is a fictionalized account of the city’s most dramatic crime of the twentieth century. A compelling murder mystery that is both fascinating and engaging from start to finish.