After Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil

Jim Williams had it all: style, culture, charisma, and sophistication. As a premier antiques dealer in Savannah, he mingled with celebrities, including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the Rockefellers, who came to admire his extraordinary treasures. His legacy thrust Savannah into the national spotlight and transformed the genteel city into a tourist mecca.


But three decades of hard work came crashing down the night he shot Danny Hansford, his wild young lover. Jim Williams stood trial four times over the next decade for premeditated murder.


Today, tourists flock to Mercer House to see the gorgeous mansion depicted in Clint Eastwood’s movie and the book from which it was made—Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil—where flamboyant designer and antiques dealer Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey) killed Danny Hansford(Jude Law). While the movie and book portrayed the natives of Savannah as remarkably decadent, exotic characters, they missed the surprising dark side of Jim Williams himself. He was a smooth predator whose crimes could have put him behind bars long before the death of Danny Hansford.


After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is the newly revised and expanded version of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling true account of the crime, which includes crucial testimony recreating the courtroom drama between a gifted prosecutor and a brilliant defense attorney as they battle over the future of a self-made aristocrat. More than 40 photos and revealing insider interviews bring new life to the vivid cast of characters in this unique southern crime story.