CANDACE FLEMING

BOOKS

Murder Among Friends
    

Anne Schwartz Books,
Ran­dom House, March 2022
978–0593177426
ages 12 and up

buy the book 

nar­rat­ed by Angela Dawe

Kobo

Libro.fm

Ama­zon

After you’ve read Mur­der Among Friends, try this book:

Murder Among Friends

How Leopold and Loeb Tried to Commit the Perfect Crime

How did two teenagers bru­tal­ly mur­der an inno­cent child … and why? And how did their bril­liant lawyer save them from the death penal­ty in 1920s Chica­go? This is a com­pul­sive­ly read­able true-crime sto­ry based on an event dubbed the “crime of the century.”

In 1924, eigh­teen-year-old col­lege stu­dents Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb made a deci­sion: they would com­mit the per­fect crime by kid­nap­ping and mur­der­ing a child they both knew. But they made one cru­cial error: as they were dis­pos­ing of the body of young Bob­by Franks, whom they had blud­geoned to death, Nathan’s eye­glass­es fell from his jack­et pocket.

Author Can­dace Flem­ing depicts every twist and turn of this har­row­ing case — how two wealthy, bril­liant young men planned and com­mit­ted what became known as the crime of the cen­tu­ry, how they were caught, why they con­fessed, and how the renowned crim­i­nal defense attor­ney Clarence Dar­row enabled them to avoid the death penalty.

Reviews

  “On May 21, 1924, 19-year-old Nathan Leopold and 18-year-old Richard Loeb drove through the streets of Ken­wood, an afflu­ent, par­tial­ly Jew­ish neigh­bor­hood on Chicago’s South Side, look­ing for a ran­dom child to kill. They con­sid­ered one of Richard’s lit­tle brother’s friends, but when that boy ran off, they set­tled on 14-year-old Bob­by Franks, one of Richard’s cousins, with whom he’d played ten­nis the day before. Richard wished to prove him­self a ‘mas­ter crim­i­nal’; Nathan want­ed Richard to remain his lover. But despite gen­er­al incom­pe­tence and cor­rup­tion of Chicago’s police force at that time, the pair were quick­ly tak­en into cus­tody and con­fessed. Though their guilt was unques­tion­able, their fam­i­lies sought no less an attor­ney than Clarence Dar­row (emi­nent in his pro­fes­sion though not yet of Scopes Mon­key Tri­al fame), who took the case due to his hatred of the death penal­ty. Insan­i­ty had until then been seen as a bina­ry con­di­tion; Dar­row, say­ing “all life is worth sav­ing,” argued that it was a con­tin­u­um that could mit­i­gate with­out ful­ly deny­ing cul­pa­bil­i­ty. Flem­ing, a mas­ter of metic­u­lous­ly researched non­fic­tion, cov­ers Leopold’s and Loeb’s trou­bled child­hoods, the hor­ri­ble crime itself, the odd bond between the news­pa­pers and the police that facil­i­tat­ed a con­vic­tion, and Darrow’s intel­li­gence and human­i­ty. In the end, how­ev­er, Leopold and Loeb are so chill­ing that read­ers won’t cel­e­brate their judi­cial vic­to­ry. Eru­dite, read­able, and appalling.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

  “‘Nine­teen-year-old Nathan Leopold would kill a child today.’ The kid­nap­ping, ran­som, and mur­der plot had been in the works for months, but it came to fruition on May 21, 1924, when Leopold and his friend, eigh­teen-year-old Richard Loeb, tar­get­ed Loeb’s sec­ond cousin, four­teen-year-old Bob­by Franks, as he walked through their afflu­ent Chica­go neigh­bor­hood. Leopold and Loeb had priv­i­leged child­hoods but ones with ele­ments of neglect and abuse, poten­tial red flags for their trou­bled rela­tion­ship, in which Loeb got a part­ner in crime for his psy­cho­path­ic ten­den­cies and Leopold got a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship in exchange for enabling his partner’s crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. While they pulled off the kid­nap­ping and mur­der, the ran­som plot fell apart, in part because Bobby’s body was found too quick­ly. The hor­rif­ic crime puz­zled the police, but the press, which pan­dered to the public’s insa­tiable appetite for scan­dal, helped solve the case. The ensu­ing tri­al saw Clarence Dar­row try­ing to avoid the death penal­ty for the amoral, remorse­less pair. There is a moun­tain of pri­ma­ry-source mate­r­i­al for this sto­ry, and the nar­ra­tive expert­ly pars­es it, giv­ing read­ers an uncom­mon depth of psy­cho­log­i­cal insight. This is, at once, a psy­cho­log­i­cal crime thriller, a sus­pense­ful court­room dra­ma, and a time­ly, rel­e­vant exam­i­na­tion of social issues. In the field of YA nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion, Flem­ing con­tin­ues to out­do her­self.” (Jonathan Hunt, The Horn Book, starred review)

  “Acclaimed non­fic­tion author Flem­ing brings her usu­al lucid writ­ing and metic­u­lous research to this account of the lives and noto­ri­ous crimes of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, as well as the ground­break­ing legal defense mount­ed by Clarence Dar­row that saved them from exe­cu­tion. In a propul­sive nar­ra­tive, Flem­ing begins with the imme­di­ate lead-up to the mur­der they so care­ful­ly plot­ted before dig­ging back into their trou­bled child­hoods, intense friend­ship, and increas­ing­ly vio­lent crimes. She wise­ly steers clear of sen­sa­tion­al­iz­ing the actu­al mur­der of Bob­by Franks, rely­ing instead on quotes from Leopold and Loeb’s own tes­ti­monies to describe the event and rou­tine­ly remind­ing read­ers of the emo­tion­al fall­out of Franks’ death on his fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty. The sec­ond half of the book focus­es pri­mar­i­ly on the police inves­ti­ga­tion and how Dar­row built his case, par­tic­u­lar­ly his impas­sioned belief in the immoral­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment — an argu­ment that ulti­mate­ly con­vinced the judge to give each defen­dant a life sen­tence. Thought­ful asides about some of the com­mon dis­crim­i­na­to­ry atti­tudes at the time (homo­pho­bia, anti­semitism, etc.) offer help­ful con­text. The engross­ing true-crime nar­ra­tive style and high-inter­est sub­ject will like­ly make this a very pop­u­lar pick among teen read­ers, while the com­pre­hen­sive look at Darrow’s defense strat­e­gy gives it lots of heft. Thought-pro­vok­ing read­ing sure to spark fur­ther con­ver­sa­tions about crime and pun­ish­ment.” (Sarah Hunter, Book­list, starred review)

  “In five dis­tinct sec­tions, this grip­ping, thriller-paced true crime por­trait by Flem­ing cen­ters Nathan Leopold (1904–1971) and Richard Loeb (1905–1936), who in May 1924 as Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go stu­dents and on-again, off-again lovers tar­get­ed and killed Loeb’s 14-year-old sec­ond cousin Bob­by Franks, in an attempt to com­mit the “per­fect crime.” Begin­ning with a gris­ly account of the killing, the page-turn­ing nar­ra­tive next traces wealthy Leopold and Loeb’s child­hoods and ear­ly friend­ship among Chicago’s Jew­ish elite, the track­ing of the killers, the duo’s sto­ried con­fes­sions, and the riv­et­ing court­room bat­tle involv­ing attor­ney Clarence Dar­row. Elec­tri­fy­ing descrip­tions of the piv­otal tri­al pro­vide nuanced eth­i­cal and legal con­text around Darrow’s argu­ments against the death penal­ty. Flem­ing employs her usu­al flair for enliven­ing his­to­ry, offer­ing rich lay­ers of infor­ma­tion about the time, includ­ing the role that anti-Semi­tism, news­pa­pers, and police cor­rup­tion played in the case. Though Leopold and Loeb’s crime is dif­fi­cult to stom­ach, Flem­ing crafts an absorb­ing saga sure to ensnare read­ers in its thrall. Black-and-white pho­tographs and news­pa­per repro­duc­tions appear through­out, and an after­word and copi­ous back mat­ter reveal the book’s wealth of research.” (Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, starred review)