About the book, from the publisher:
It was a crime that shocked the nation, a brutal murder in Chicago in 1924 of a child, by two wealthy college students who killed solely for the thrill of the experience. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb had first met several years earlier, and their friendship had blossomed into a love affair. Both were intellectuals—too smart, they believed, for the police to catch them. However, the police had recovered an important clue at the scene of the crime—a pair of eyeglasses—and soon both Leopold and Loeb were in the custody of Cook County. They confessed, and Robert Crowe, the state's attorney, announced to newspaper reporters that he had a hanging case. No defense, he believed, would save the two ruthless killers from the gallows.Among the early acclaim for the book:
Set against the backdrop of the 1920s, a time of prosperity, self-indulgence, and hedonistic excess, For the Thrill of It draws the reader into a lost world, a world of speakeasies and flappers, of gangsters and gin parties, that existed when Chicago was a lawless city on the brink of anarchy. The rejection of morality, the worship of youth, and the obsession with sex had seemingly found their expression in this callous murder.
But the murder is only half the story. After Leopold and Loeb were arrested, their families hired Clarence Darrow to defend their sons. Darrow, the most famous lawyer in America, aimed to save Leopold and Loeb from the death penalty by showing that the crime was the inevitable consequence of sexual and psychological abuse that each defendant had suffered during childhood at the hands of adults. Both boys, Darrow claimed, had experienced a compulsion to kill, and therefore, he appealed to the judge, they should be spared capital punishment. However, Darrow faced a worthy adversary in his prosecuting attorney: Robert Crowe was clever, cunning, and charismatic, with ambitions of becoming Chicago's next mayor—and he was determined to send Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb to their deaths.
A masterful storyteller, Simon Baatz has written a gripping account of the infamous Leopold and Loeb case. Using court records and recently discovered transcripts, Baatz shows how the pathological relationship between Leopold and Loeb inexorably led to their crime.
This thrilling narrative of murder and mystery in the Jazz Age will keep the reader in a continual state of suspense as the story twists and turns its way to an unexpected conclusion.
"Simon Baatz’s For the Thrill of It is likely to be the definitive work on this infamous crime and the dramatic trial of its perpetrators. It is impressive in its research, even-handed in its tone and immensely readable.... [An] excellent book."Browse inside For the Thrill of It, and learn more about the book at the publisher's website.
—Wall Street Journal
"Baatz lucidly lays out the complicated courtroom maneuvers and also provides a fascinating, skillful analysis of two different legal philosophies…. A solid true-crime thriller that’s also a masterly analysis of postwar shifts in society’s ideas about crime and personality."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Exhaustively researched and rivetingly presented.... One of the best true-crime books of this or any other season."
—Booklist, starred review
"[Baatz] breaks his fascinating narrative into two distinct Law and Order–type sections.... While it might be easy to dismiss the murderers—Nathan "Babe" Leopold Jr. and Richard "Dickie" Loeb—as bored rich kids, Baatz shows that there was much more to this story."
—Library Journal
"This story never fails to astonish."
—Chicago Tribune
"Meticulous and thorough, and it puts the case in historical perspective as a clash between two conflicting views of criminals and crime, one espoused by ... Clarence Darrow ... the most famous American lawyer of his day, perhaps indeed of any day."
—Washington Post Book World
"The story of the Jazz Age thrill-killers Leopold and Loeb has never been told in so gripping a style. A significant work of historical scholarship that reads like a page-turning thriller, Simon Baatz’s masterly book now stands as the definitive account of this legendary case."
—Harold Schechter, author of The Devil's Gentleman
"Altogether absorbing.... Mr. Baatz, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, has done meticulous research, and he writes extremely well.... His book on the Leopold and Loeb case is the best we’ll have for a long, long time."
—New York Times
Simon Baatz holds a joint appointment as associate professor of history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.
The Page 99 Test: For the Thrill of It.
--Marshal Zeringue
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