A BARACK OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE 2020 CRIME WRITERS'' ASSOCIATION ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION A SUNDAY TIMES, ECONOMIST AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR ''A triumph on every level. One of the losses to literature is that Harper Lee never found a way to tell a gothic true-crime story she''d spent years researching. Casey Cep has excavated this mesmerizing story and tells it with grace and insight and a fierce fidelity to the truth.'' DAVID GRANN, author of Killers of the Flower Moon _____________________________ The stunning story of an Alabama serial killer and the true-crime book that Harper Lee worked on obsessively in the years after To Kill a Mockingbird 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. As Alabama is consumed by these gripping events, it''s not long until news of the case reaches Alabama''s - and America''s - most famous writer. Intrigued by the story, Harper Lee makes a journey back to her home state to witness the Reverend''s killer face trial. Harper had the idea of writing her own In Cold Blood, the true-crime classic she had helped her friend Truman Capote research. Lee spent a year in town reporting on the Maxwell case and many more years trying to finish the book she called The Reverend. 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