Nutcracker

New York Times Bestseller: The "compelling" story of Frances Schreuder, who persuaded her son to kill her multimillionaire father, Franklin Bradshaw (The Washington Post Book World).

In August of 1983 Shana Alexander, acclaimed journalist and chronicler of the lives and criminal trials of Jean Harris and Patty Hearst, wrote to New York City ballet patron Frances Schreuder on the eve of her murder trial. Schreuder stood accused of unlawfully causing the death of her father, Franklin Bradshaw, and of soliciting, encouraging, and aiding her prep school–student son in the homicide in the hope of financial gain. Alexander never received a response, but she flew to Salt Lake City and met with Schreuder's mother, the matriarch of the Mormon dynasty—eighty-year-old Berenice Bradshaw.

Nutcracker is the true story of this crime—the twisting four-year police investigation, the derailed cover-up and conspiracy, the dramatic trials. It is also the tale of a family riven by greed and madness. Drawing on interviews with all the major players, Alexander paints a powerful portrait of a psychopathic woman driven by avarice, so depraved that she persuaded her own son to commit grand-patricide.


A finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, Nutcracker is "a Chekovian family tragedy [that] builds in intensity around this uniquely twisted woman" (The Washington Post Book World).