The Murder of the Century, Paul Collins
The Murder of the Century, Paul Collins
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The Murder of the Century
The Gilded Age Crime that Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars

Author: Paul Collins

Narrator: William Dufris

Unabridged: 9 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/01/2011


Synopsis

In Long Island, a farmer found a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discovered a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumbled upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime were turning up all over New York, but the police were baffled: there were no witnesses, no motives, no suspects. The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives headlong into the era’s most perplexing murder. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus. Re-creations of the murder were staged in Times Square, armed reporters lurked in the streets of Hell’s Kitchen in pursuit of suspects, and an unlikely trio—an anxious cop, a cub reporter, and an eccentric professor—all raced to solve the crime. What emerged was a sensational love triangle and an even more sensational trial: an unprecedented capital case hinging on circumstantial evidence around a victim that the police couldn’t identify with certainty, and that the defense claimed wasn’t even dead. The Murder of the Century is a rollicking tale—a rich evocation of America during the Gilded Age and a colorful re-creation of the tabloid wars that have dominated media to this day.

About Paul Collins

Paul Collins is an author specializing in science writing, magazine writing, history, and memoir; his books have appeared in a dozen languages. He is the recipient of an Oregon Book Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and teaches in the Creative Writing program at Portland State University.

About William Dufris

William Dufris attended the University of Southern Maine in Portland-Gorham before pursuing a career in voice work in London and then the United States. He has won more than twenty AudioFile Earphones Awards, was voted one of the Best Voices at the End of the Century by AudioFile magazine, and won the prestigious Audie Award in 2012 for best nonfiction narration. He lives with his family in Maine.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nicole

John Oller’s cumbersomely titled AMERICAN QUEEN: THE RISE AND FALL OF KATE CHASE SPRAGUE – CIVIL WAR “BELLE OF THE NORTH” AND GILDED AGE WOMAN OF SCANDAL is a surprising biography of a woman I’d never heard of. It’s surprising for a number of reasons, each of them as legitimate and important as the......more

Goodreads review by Andy

Kate Chase is one of the interesting and intriguing characters of American History; introduced to Washington society as the daughter of Lincoln's treasury secretary but captivated it due to her charm, intelligence, wit and beauty. She had a storybook life and married into wealth but was soon saddled......more

Goodreads review by Mandy

Hardly remembered today, Kate Chase Sprague was a beautiful society hostess, ambitious, charismatic and the power behind the throne both of her father and husband. More talented than either of them, this strong, accomplished and complex woman ultimately lost it all and never fulfilled her potential.......more

Goodreads review by Mike

Compellingly written bio about Kate Chase, the absolute queen of Washington society during the Lincoln administration. Beautiful, well educated, charismatic, politically astute, and charming, her greatest goal was to get her father, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, elected President, and to serve as his Whi......more


Quotes

“Riveting…Collins has mined enough newspaper clippings and other archives to artfully recreate the era, the crime, and the newspaper wars it touched off.” New York Times

“[Collins’] exploration of the newspaper world, at the very moment when tabloid values were being born, is revealing but also enormously entertaining…Collins has a clear eye, a good sense of telling detail, and a fine narrative ability.” Wall Street Journal

“[A] richly detailed book that reads like a novel and yet maintains a strict fidelity to facts. The Murder of the Century isn’t a case of history with a moral. It’s simply a fantastic factual yarn, and a reminder that abhorrent violence is nothing new under the sun.” Oregonian (Portland, OR)

“An in-depth account of the exponential growth of lurid news and the public’s (continuing) insatiable appetite for it.” Publishers Weekly

“Wonderfully rich in period detail, salacious facts about the case, and infectious wonder at the chutzpah and inventiveness displayed by Pulitzer’s and Hearst’s minions. Both a gripping true-crime narrative and an astonishing portrait of fin de siècle yellow journalism.” Kirkus Reviews


Awards

  • Edgar Allan Poe Award