About the book, from the publisher:
From renowned true-crime historian Harold Schechter, whom The Boston Book Review hails as “America’s principal chronicler of its greatest psychopathic killers,” comes the riveting exploration of a notorious, sensational New York City murder in the 1890s, the fascinating forensic science of an earlier age, and the explosively dramatic trial that became a tabloid sensation at the turn of the century.Among the praise for the book:
Death was by poison and came in the mail: A package of Bromo Seltzer had been anonymously sent to Harry Cornish, the popular athletic director of Manhattan’s elite Knickerbocker Athletic Club. Cornish barely survived swallowing a small dose; his cousin Mrs. Katherine Adams died in agony after ingesting the toxic brew. Scandal sheets owned by Hearst and Pulitzer eagerly jumped on this story of fatal high-society intrigue, speculating that the devious killer was a chemist, a woman, or “an effeminate man.” Forensic studies suggested cyanide as the cause of death; handwriting on the deadly package and the vestige of a label glued to the bottle pointed to a handsome, athletic society scamp, Roland Molineux.
The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Molineux had clashed bitterly with Cornish before. He had even furiously denounced Cornish when penning his resignation from the Knickerbocker Club, a letter that later proved a major clue. Bon vivant Molineux had recently wed the sensuous Blanche Chesebrough, an opera singer whose former lover, Henry Barnet, had also recently died ... after taking medicine sent to him through the mail. Molineux’s subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials, a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation, and a lurid print-media circus that ended in madness and a proud family’s disgrace.
In bold, brilliant strokes, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal case, gathering his own evidence and tackling subjects no one dared address at the time – all in hopes of answering the tantalizing question: What powerfully dark motives could drive the wealthy scion of an eminent New York family to foul murder?
Schechter vividly portrays the case’s fascinating cast of characters, including Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, a prolific yellow journalist who covered the story, and proud General Edward Leslie Molineux, whose son’s ignoble deeds besmirched a dignified national hero’s final years. All the while Schechter brings alive Manhattan’s Gilded Age: a gaslit world of elegant town houses and hidden bordellos, chic restaurants and shabby opium dens, a city peopled by men and women fighting and losing the battle against urges an upright era had ordered suppressed.
Superbly researched and powerfully written, The Devil’s Gentleman is an insightful, gripping work, a true-crime historian’s crowning achievement.
“A thrilling account of a murder case that rocked Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century ... Schechter expertly weaves a rich historical tapestry – exploring everything from the birth of ‘yellow’ journalism to the history of poison as a murder weapon – without sacrificing a novelistic sense of character, pacing and suspense. The result is a riveting tale of murder, seduction and tabloid journalism run rampant in a New York not so different from today’s.”Read an excerpt from The Devil's Gentleman, and learn more about the book and author at Harold Schechter's website.
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[A] riveting sequence of appalling events, weird testimony, courtroom theatrics and bungled justice."
–William Grimes, New York Times
A "well-wrought anatomy of a murder and portrait of an age."
–Nathan Ward, Wall Street Journal
"Schechter peppers his account of one of America's earliest media circuses with peacock characters and deliciously tawdry details.... [F]or scandal sweet tooths, this one's a beaut. A-"
–Entertainment Weekly
Harold Schechter is a professor of American Literature and culture at Queens College, the City University of New York. Among his nonfiction works are the historical true-crime classics Fatal, Fiend, Deviant, Deranged, and Depraved. He also writes a critically acclaimed mystery series featuring Edgar Allan Poe, which includes The Hum Bug and Nevermore and The Mask of Red Death, and studies of popular culture, including Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment.
The Page 99 Test: The Devil's Gentleman.
--Marshal Zeringue
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