True Crime Book Club at CCL

February’s True Crime Book Club pick is “Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee” by Casey Cep .

Cep brings this horrifying crime to life as classic American literature and true crime cross paths. Accused of murdering his family members, Alabama preacher Willie Maxwell escaped justice until his own assassination. At the vigilante’s trial was Harper Lee, beloved author of To Kill a Mockingbird, there to write an account of the whole story.

Borrow your own copy of the book at the Third Floor desk, then join our friendly discussion on Thursday, February 8 at 6pm.

True Crime Book Club meets on the second Thursday of the month on the library’s third floor.

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New York Times Best Seller NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2019 BY Time, LitHub, Vulture, Glamour, O Magazine, Town and Country, Suspense Magazine, Inside Hook

“Compelling . . . at once a true-crime thriller, courtroom drama, and miniature biography of Harper Lee. If To Kill a Mockingbird was one of your favorite books growing up, you should add Furious Hours to your reading list today.” —Southern Living

Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell’s murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the Reverend.

Sitting in the audience during the vigilante’s trial was Harper Lee, who had traveled from New York City to her native Alabama with the idea of writing her own In Cold Blood, the true-crime classic she had helped her friend Truman Capote research seventeen years earlier. Lee spent a year in town reporting, and many more years working on her own version of the case.

Now Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South. At the same time, she offers a deeply moving portrait of one of the country’s most beloved writers and her struggle with fame, success, and the mystery of artistic creativity.