Recent Reads: Furious Hours; Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep

My review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Furious Hours by Casey Cep is a book of many tales, all of which tie up together, but knowing what's going on makes it so much more interesting!  

The first is the life and trial of Reverend Willie Maxwell, who is accused of killing five family members for the multiple insurance policies he had on each of them.  

The second is Maxwell's lawyer, Tom Radney, who goes on to defend Robert Burns, who murders Maxwell.  Radney was a politician, and so was well versed in public speaking, persuading your listeners to your cause, which you can see in the courtroom.

The third is that of Harper Lee.  We go through her life, and see her friendship with Truman Capot, it talks about why she only published two books in her lifetime.  It also looks at how she went to the trial of Robert Burns, planning to write a book about it, in the same way that Truman Capote did in Cold Blood, for which Lee was his assistant.

This is Casey Cep's first book, but she has written articles before for the New Yorker, and others, and some of them have been about Harper Lee, and as Cep says on her website, she's loved Lee's work since she was a child.

I thought this was really well written, and has made me want to read both To Kill a Mockingbird again and Go Set a Watchman for the first time!  If you like true crime, and learning a little more about such a reluctant celebrity, this is for you!

Furious Hours was published on 16th May 2019,  and is available to buy on Amazon  and on Waterstones.  I've found a link to where you can search for local bookshops, including independent!

I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Random House UK and Cornerstone (the publishers) for this book.

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