The Pre-Loved edit from Shopbop
To share your reaction on this item, open the Amazon app from the App Store or Google Play on your phone.
Add Prime to get Fast, Free delivery
Amazon prime logo
Buy new:
-49% $13.80
FREE delivery Monday, January 27 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon
Sold by: FindAnyBook
$13.80 with 49 percent savings
List Price: $26.95
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Monday, January 27 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or fastest delivery Sunday, January 26. Order within 11 hrs 15 mins
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$13.80 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$13.80
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon
Amazon
Ships from
Amazon
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$9.17
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
Like New - Minor shelf wear Like New - Minor shelf wear See less
FREE delivery Monday, January 27 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or Prime members get FREE delivery Friday, January 24. Order within 11 hrs 15 mins.
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$13.80 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$13.80
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee Hardcover – Deckle Edge, May 7, 2019

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 3,617 ratings

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$13.80","priceAmount":13.80,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"13","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"80","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"ygq1L3u18gQy2%2FBfqdYwlJYxl5iKV%2BLHSKpcW2r4e9utadLo3yUqtdRpDIBWiS%2BQaluIiUVZB20Z%2BCWqv3COD8IanNJIxEUEL%2B85in11sfRp9fpmWz3NKrwuj%2Bhh%2BDJ%2FHd0gbmNbzQLBVXea5f8J2dbD3SG3IImCGmjFEQIvcP03cPVus9cg2nyHhz9i97Hu","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$9.17","priceAmount":9.17,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"9","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"17","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"ygq1L3u18gQy2%2FBfqdYwlJYxl5iKV%2BLHVZjJHQtpKY1H0LbjcSlD4UihPursmFdcB3eSf57bqbaDhUU3s3jTCnYIWP8DUMzIBaIWWImwudpJnyakRV2wSv8xU0F4qL3IOlxy7l3Zst8akXmLPMkf%2FBkrm36h5CCscql9i2Rokct1wwuOvkznE%2BHtsm6Qy8Uy","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2019

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

New York Times
Best Seller
 
“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.
The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Frequently bought together

This item: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
$13.80
Get it as soon as Monday, Jan 27
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by FindAnyBook and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
$18.74
Get it as soon as Monday, Jan 27
In Stock
Sold by BaysideBooks and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
Total price: $00
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
spCSRF_Treatment
One of these items ships sooner than the other.
Choose items to buy together.
Popular Highlights in this book

From the Publisher

true crime

bestsellers

gifts for dad

best book club books, book club picks, book gifts for women

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of May 2019: Casey Cep’s Furious Hours is composed of many parts, and any one of those parts would make a good book. Together, they make a great book, describing the elements of a gothic true crime set in the south, and then placing Harper Lee there to cover the trial and write about it. When relatives of the Reverend Willie Maxwell started dying in the 1970s, many locals suspected him of practicing voodoo. The police thought otherwise, noting that Maxwell had taken out life insurance policies on the deceased relatives; still, for years Maxwell managed to evade punishment. Justice eventually caught up with the Reverend when a relative shot him dead at his stepdaughter’s funeral. And that’s where Harper Lee comes in. Lee, who had assisted her friend Truman Capote in researching In Cold Blood, wanted to observe the vigilante’s trial with the idea of writing a book about it. Furious Hours sets one of our most beloved authors in an Alabama courtroom to watch the drama unfold. Then Cep describes the years when Harper Lee reportedly tried to write about the case. This is a story concerned with justice and the truth, but it is also about art, mystery, and our darkest temptations. —Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review

Review

One of Time's 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019

One of
The Washington Post's Most Notable Reads of 2019

“She explains as well as it is likely ever to be explained why Lee went silent after
To Kill a Mockingbird. (The clue’s in Cep’s title.) And it’s here, in her descriptions of another writer’s failure to write, that her book makes a magical little leap, and it goes from being a superbly written true-crime story to the sort of story that even Lee would have been proud to write.” —Michael Lewis, The New York Times Book Review

"A compelling hybrid of a novel, 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

"Cep delivers edge-of-your-seat courtroom drama while brilliantly reinventing Southern Gothic…The result is an enthralling work of narrative nonfiction—Cep’s debut—and a poignant meditation on a book that never was."—
O Magazine

"[A] well-told, ingeniously structured double mystery—one an unsolved serial killing, the other an elusive book—rich in droll humour and deep but lightly worn research"
The Economist

“A brilliant take on the mystery of inspiration and the even darker mysteries of the human heart.” —
People

“What I didn't see coming was the emotional response I'd have as I blazed through the last 20 pages of the book — yet there I was, weeping…A gripping, incredibly well-written portrait of not only Harper Lee, but of mid-20th century Alabama — and a still-unanswered set of crimes to rival the serial killers made infamous in the same time period.” —Ilana Masad, NPR

“Cep’s book is a marvel. In elegant prose, she gives us the fullest story yet of Lee’s post-Mockingbird life in New York–boozy, unproductive, modest despite her means, yet full of books and theater–and her quest in Alabama, where she grew close to Radney and his family, to tell the Maxwell story. Cep’s is an account emotionally attuned to the toll that great writing takes, and shows that sometimes one perfect book is all we can ask for, even while we wish for another.” —Lucas Wittmann,
Time
 

"Remarkable, thoroughly researched... the great, acrobatic trick Cep accomplishes is to deliver a book so richly detailed and full of thoughtfully condensed research without having access to any of its three main subjects: Willie Maxwell, Tom Radney, and Lee... Cep has a knack for a chapter-ending cliffhanger and building a sort of eerie tension... At her best, Cep manages the feat that all great nonfiction aspires to: combining the clean precision of fact with the urgency of gossip." —Margaret Eby, 
The New York Review of Books
 

“[E]xemplary literary true crime…Gripping and meticulous, Cep’s work doesn’t make us choose between fidelity and style.” —Boris Kachka,
Vulture
 
“In Cep’s thrilling account of an Alabama murderer, his killer, and the lawyer who got them both off, we get to see the
To Kill a Mockingbird author hot on the trail of some slippery characters while she struggles to write a worthy follow-up to her iconic novel.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
 
“Tells a crime story but also says a great deal about the racial, cultural and political history of the South.  As a portrayal of the life of a writer, the section on Lee is by itself worth the price of admission.” —John Glassie, 
The Washington Post

"Cep narrates this saga atmospherically and with empathy. There are lyrical passages... plus judicious detail... Excursions into the annals of life insurance fraud and folkways of voodoo are fascinating.”—Stephen Phillips,
The Los Angeles Times
 
“Casey Cep’s
Furious Hours does something wholly unique: in exploring the bizarre circumstances linking a breadth of crimes—murder and insurance fraud, the failures of the criminal justice system, and the legacy of racism in the South—Cep probes at the mystery of a place built on slave labor, where injustice has seeped into the soil and the courtroom itself is an engine of inequity.” —Camille Leblanc, CrimeReads

“This riveting account of both the murders and Lee’s reporting, writing, and editing process is fascinating for its behind-the-scenes look at one of the South’s cherished creative minds.”—CJ Lotz, Garden & Gun

"Fascinating, addicting, and unbearably suspenseful.” —Adam Morgan, Longreads

“In
Furious Hours, Casey Cep gives readers a brilliant history of the life-insurance industry (it's more exciting that it sounds!), a riveting true crime story, and a dazzling biography of one of America's most beloved writers.” —Bustle

"It’s been a long time since I picked up a book so impossible to put down. 
Furious Hours made me forget dinner, ignore incoming calls, and stay up reading into the small hours. It’s a work of literary and legal detection as gripping as a thriller. But it’s also a meditation on motive and mystery, the curious workings of history, hope, and ambition, justice, and the darkest matters of life and death. Casey Cep’s investigation into an infamous Southern murder trial and Harper Lee’s quest to write about it is a beautiful, sobering, and sometimes chilling triumph."
—Helen Macdonald, author of
H is for Hawk

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf; First Edition (May 7, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1101947861
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1101947869
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 3,617 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Casey Cep
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

CASEY CEP is a staff writer at "The New Yorker."

"Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee" is her first book. It was an instant "New York Times", "WSJ," & Indiebound bestseller. The book earned rave reviews from Michael Lewis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Al Roker, David Grann, and Helen Macdonald.

You can follow Casey Cep on Twitter (@cncep) and Instagram (@caseycep) or visit her website (www.caseycep.com).

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
3,617 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers

Customers say

Customers find the book engaging and informative. They appreciate the insights into Harper Lee's life and creative process. The writing style is described as well-written and gripping. Readers appreciate the detail provided and the well-developed characters. Opinions differ on the crime story, with some finding it fascinating and enjoyable, while others consider it strange and difficult to believe.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

180 customers mention "Readability"174 positive6 negative

Customers find the book engaging and well-written. They appreciate the compelling writing style and interesting subject matter. The first half of the story is a worthwhile read, while the balance is an in-depth mini-series. Readers describe the book as an excellent read with a well-crafted true crime story.

"...Definitely one of my favorite reads of the year, and so many insights into not just Harper Lee and her (amazing) classic, but also the South she was..." Read more

"...The story is well presented, but I feel Cep is in part "paying off" the family who expected to be heavily featured in Harper Lee's never-completed..." Read more

"...All the victims had been heavily insured by the killer and Cep does a great job at looking at Reverend Willie Maxwell and his world in rural Alabama...." Read more

"...It was definitely a disappointment, but there was some interesting aspects for me to keep drudging my way through...." Read more

131 customers mention "Information value"108 positive23 negative

Customers appreciate the book's information value. They find the subject matter interesting and the author's insights into the creative process fascinating. The bibliography and extensive notes are praised. Readers also appreciate the accurate portrayal of the lives of three accomplished Alabamans. The mix of historical fact, theory, and conjecture draws them in, with an enduring mystery as the basis for this interesting true crime story.

"...Definitely one of my favorite reads of the year, and so many insights into not just Harper Lee and her (amazing) classic, but also the South she was..." Read more

"...Harper Lee is her third subject. Lee's biography is interesting and often colorfully presented, though there are again odd lacunae and failures to..." Read more

"...Casey Cep is such a good writer that all the book was interesting, not just the part about Harper Lee. I highly recommend it." Read more

"...a former librarian I always start at the back, and I was impressed at the Bibliography, and the extensive notes sections...." Read more

91 customers mention "Writing quality"78 positive13 negative

Customers find the writing quality of the book good. They say it's well-researched, and the author is talented. Readers enjoy the gripping narrative and the author's ability to weave together historical facts and theory in an engaging way. The book is described as a page-turner that keeps them turning the pages until the end.

"...Casey Cep is such a good writer that all the book was interesting, not just the part about Harper Lee. I highly recommend it." Read more

"...I liked the first two acts. But I loved Act 3, the story of the writer, her feelings about her craft and her struggle to wrestle it into submission..." Read more

"...The author Casey Cep is a good writer, but I expect that as she looks back on this work in 20 years she will cringe at some of the things a better..." Read more

"...Cep is a talented writer. I remain anxious to see what she does next." Read more

17 customers mention "Detail"17 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's detailed account of the case and Harper Lee's life. They find the characters well-developed and interesting. The book is structured in an eye-opening way, with footnotes, photos, and maps.

"...Lee's biography is interesting and often colorfully presented, though there are again odd lacunae and failures to tackle subjects which are likely..." Read more

"...Cep's book, which is both fascinating and thoroughly footnoted with photos and maps provides some solace for the reader...." Read more

"...difficult to believe, but Casey Cep's documentation is thorough and meticulous. This is Cep's first book, but I certainly hope it isn't her last." Read more

"...The way the author has structured this book is genius: Part One is the story of a suspected serial killer and how he was able to avoid punishment..." Read more

40 customers mention "Crime story"27 positive13 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the crime story. Some find it fascinating and enjoy learning about the criminal investigations. Others find it strange, difficult to believe, and filled with unnecessary details.

"...Getting back to Casey Cep. Her book is the story of the true crime - a black pastor in Alabama was suspected in five murders of his own family,..." Read more

"...is the true mystery of this book. And it’s original and compelling...." Read more

"...Instead, she ends with a lot of speculation, which is a shame. Cep is a talented writer. I remain anxious to see what she does next." Read more

"...by the time this book was being researched, Furious is a combination of true crime, historical fiction and biography...." Read more

38 customers mention "Pacing"12 positive26 negative

Customers have different views on the pacing of the book. Some find it fast-paced and engaging, getting hooked after a few pages. Others feel the book drags and takes too long to read, with unnecessary details that slow down the story.

"...But, as I read through the book, I had a hard time getting through it...." Read more

"...All this other information is extraneous and a drag on the story. I'm slogging through it, hoping it gets better." Read more

"...that she doesn't bring together til the end, but somehow, it comes together beautifully...." Read more

"...I disliked the second half of the book. It dragged. Overall, it was interesting." Read more

Great insight into the reclusive life of Harper Lee
5 out of 5 stars
Great insight into the reclusive life of Harper Lee
This is one of the best true crime novels I've ever read. The bonus for me is twofold: 1. I learned more about Harper Lee and Truman Capote and as I'm a new resident to Alabama (and actually visited Monroeville on a whim last fall), I was thrilled to learn far more about Harper Lee than I anticipated. 2. I got to meet Casey Cep at a book signing Mobile and she was incredibly passionate about her work. She answered question after question and always added more insight. Her admiration for Harper Lee is deep and admirable.The story begins with the Rev. Maxwell, then moves into the trial of his killer. The story then shifts to Harper Lee. What I enjoyed most about this shift was Cep didn't pick Lee's life up at the trial. She went into Lee's life biographically and it was a marvelous journey.Cep is an exceptional writer. She is descriptive and turns phrases beautifully. I could highlight the book JUST to admire the way she phrased a sentence.This is well worth your time!
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2024
    So glad I picked this up from a recent Book Bub email. This book is far more than what is it described to be. I could hardly put it down and have already recommended it to multiple people.

    Definitely one of my favorite reads of the year, and so many insights into not just Harper Lee and her (amazing) classic, but also the South she was raised in and continued to be drawn to and her childhood friend Truman Capote. I will be reading this again.
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2019
    Note: I am a born & reared (as we say) Southerner and have not read any reviews of this book aside from one in the New York Times that caused me to buy it. I did not name my cat, but he is named Atticus.
    It is difficult to approach this history of Harper Lee and her projected writing about a bizarre serial killer. The author, Cep, starts with a record of hydroelectric dams in Alabama. I was not engaged by this and never figured out how it relates to the rest of the book. Maybe if i read it again, but, NO, I don't want to read it again. It might be padding to balance the holes in the rest of the piece. It may be intended to echo Capote's descriptive strategies in "In Cold Blood" It is oddly disconnected though Cep seems to want to tie it up to geographical items at the end of the book, perhaps to document her own arc of research. I was skimming by then.
    Cep next describes the activities of a man who killed people to collect insurance policies and was never brought to (official) justice: his murders, his trials (as plaintiff and defendant and victim) and the trial of the man who finally murdered him. It is an effective and satisfyingly hair-raising example of the Gothic, old white boyish perversity of the South. The author spends too much time on the life and career of the white lawyer who defended the insurance murderer and later successfully defended (temporary insanity) the man who killed him. That family helped Cep and, earlier, Harper Lee in their research. The story is well presented, but I feel Cep is in part "paying off" the family who expected to be heavily featured in Harper Lee's never-completed book on the topic. Not that they aren't moderately entertaining Americans but they are not why I (for one) was reading. There are plenty of photographs of these people, but she failed to make them memorable or lovable.
    I wish Cep had made a better or more successful, effort to connect to the black families related to the serial killer, his victims, and his killer. She does seem to try but only the killer has much of a personality. The lack of a vivid presence of people who were potentially the protagonists and victims of Lee's projected work is a major weakness. It echos "To Kill a Mockingbird" in which the accused man is not the focus but, rather, his lawyer is, but, alas, this lawyer is no Atticus Finch.
    The strategy of fleshing out a number of intersecting stories is possibly deliberately akin to Truman Capote's approach to the murders in "In Cold Blood," to which Lee contributed a great deal of research, research which most likely elevated it to the high literary reputation it now enjoys. Cep does an excellent job of showing how this worked. Harper Lee is her third subject. Lee's biography is interesting and often colorfully presented, though there are again odd lacunae and failures to tackle subjects which are likely important to the reader, like why Lee had no documented romantic relationships. Or did she? I tend to feel the author elides speculations. Perhaps polite, in the old-fashioned Southern way, but not satisfying.
    The parts on Lee's relationship with Truman Capote and the research in Kansas are the best. This element of the book is the 4 star part for me.
    The question the book suggests it will answer is "Why didn't Lee ever write another book.?" Cep admits to not having this answer -- but who does? It all must be speculation. I wanted more speculation. She does talk about the transformation of "Go Set a Watchman" into "Mockingbird" and this, as others have said, must be part of the explanation. Lee was a segregationist (the author does not come out and say this but we get the idea from this and other things we have read.). Lee wanted to show that people could be for segregation and not be lynchers or in the KKK. She was persuaded to drop this quixotic, and wrongheaded concept in favor of a more straightforward approach in "Mockingbird," yet she never seemingly gave up that as a potential theme.
    The second question I hoped would be answered by the book is "Did Lee really authorize the publication of 'Watchman'?" This is the author's biggest moment of cowardice. Cep suddenly introduces Lee's new lawyer (or literary agent -- the one who got hold of the text of "Watchman" and sold it.) after being very clear and detailed about how earlier people of this sort entered Lee's life. At this time Lee was legally blind and deaf and probably non compos mentis; could she legally consent? Her sister who had protected her had died a couple years earlier. The possible perfidy of the publisher and others remains unaddressed -- an almost Robert Mueller approach: "I'm not saying--You decide."
    I personally feel that we have to accept that Lee, like some other authors of great works (Tolstoy -- Anna Karenina!! -- for example) was very imperfect in some of her thinking. Sometimes we must look beyond deep human flaws as best we can to appreciate the higher achievement of the writing itself. Cep fails to engage with this topic in a meaningful way and seemingly asks us to be satisfied with the idea that the white people Harper met in Kansas and when researching her never-finished Alabama serial killer book said she was a "nice lady."
    21 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2019
    "Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee", by Casey Cep, is my favorite type of book. It's a work of non-fiction that reads like fiction. It's a bit of a strange book - Cep writes three different stories that she doesn't bring together til the end, but somehow, it comes together beautifully.

    Harper Lee, long famed for "To Kill A Mockingbird", never published another book during her lifetime. After her death in 2016, an unfinished manuscript was published by her estate. The book, a prequel of sorts to "Mockingbird" was called "Go Set a Watchman" , was fairly panned by critics and readers. But Lee had been quietly been working on another book a few years after "Mockingbird"; a true crime book set in Alabama was to be her second book.

    Getting back to Casey Cep. Her book is the story of the true crime - a black pastor in Alabama was suspected in five murders of his own family, including two of his three wives. Part one is "The Reverend". He was murdered in cold blood at the funeral of his last victim. All the victims had been heavily insured by the killer and Cep does a great job at looking at Reverend Willie Maxwell and his world in rural Alabama. Her writing is as good as Thomas Thomson's in his true crime books. The second part of the book, "The Lawyer", is about local lawyer Tom Radney, who defended both Willie Maxwell AND the man who gunned down Maxwell. Radney - that rare bird in Alabama, a Democrat - has his own stories of life-as-a-liberal.

    Part three is "The Writer" and is the story of Harper Lee in the years since the publication of "To Kill A Mockingbird". Living in both New York City and Alabama, Harper Lee can't seem to get it together to write another book. She seemed to enjoy her fame, but, at the same time, run for cover when she's recognised. She lost her publishing support team when her editor and manager died in New York and she aged along with her two older sisters in Alabama. It was during the 1970's Harper Lee decided to investigate the Reverend Willie Maxwell's murders and his own. But, she couldn't seem to put her notes to book form. Eventually, she gave up investigating and "Go Set a Watchman" was her last book.

    Casey Cep is such a good writer that all the book was interesting, not just the part about Harper Lee. I highly recommend it.
    47 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2020
    I was excited to read this since Harper Lee, author of one of my most favorite books seemed to be involved. But, as I read through the book, I had a hard time getting through it. I am usually a fast reader, and it took me almost a week to finish it, and at some points, was not sure if I would. At some parts, there were just too many details. A lot of it that didn’t really need to be explained. A lot of it felt gratuitous- like the author was making a short story longer than it should have been. Plus, I didn’t like the way she split the subjects. I feel that this should have either been a book about The Reverend or Nelle Harper Lee. Not both.. It is stated time and again that Lee was very picky about a biography of her life, and it seemed that the author skirted around her wishes, which I found disrespectful. Then, it was noted that this was supposed to be about Tom Radley, who seemed to have been a great character, and the book really should have been about his life. But, in the end it felt like Harper was made a part of it just to render sales... this book could have been written a lot better. It was definitely a disappointment, but there was some interesting aspects for me to keep drudging my way through. Honestly, I thought The Reverend’s story was the best part.
    5 people found this helpful
    Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
  • Antonio
    5.0 out of 5 stars Lo recomiendo
    Reviewed in Mexico on July 26, 2019
    La realidad supera la ficción, aun en historias de crimen y justicia
    4 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Richard Barnes
    5.0 out of 5 stars Discover what kept Harper Lee awake at night!
    Reviewed in Canada on July 5, 2019
    I couldn’t put it down. Chilling true crime story that obsessed Harper Lee.
  • JC
    5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely fascinating read
    Reviewed in India on September 20, 2020
    I can't say enough how much i loved this book, found it on Barack Obama 's book list.. Absolutely fascinating that how one book contained two stories and one a almost biography of Harper Lee and both stories interwoven with each other and never felt disjoint . I really hope Netflix would make a mini series out of this book
  • E. Mandel
    4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and vividly rendered
    Reviewed in Canada on May 12, 2024
    Elegantly written, perfectly paced. Divided up into three tidy sections. I was skeptical, that the third and final part regarding Harper Lee would be as gripping as the story of the murders in part and part two, which is the story of the court case but Cep finds great empathy, and writes beautifully of Harper Lee’s relationship to her craft and to this story.
  • HRO
    4.0 out of 5 stars A whirlwind of a story.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2022
    A very insightful account of H Lee, her friendship with Capote and investigation into why we only have two published novels from her stable.
    The story of the reverend is a great opener and the reporting of his legal Beatle even more so.