Reviews with content warning for Murder - Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

This book is an interesting exploration of social histories of small town Alabama and the personal history of Harper Lee. The first half of the book focuses on the life, crimes, and death of Reverend Willie Maxwell and the trial of his murderer, who was represented by Maxwell's former lawyer. The second half of the book tracks the life of Nelle Harper Lee, from Alabama to New York, and back again; following her friendship Truman Capote, her introduction to true crime writing, and the efforts she made towards writing a factual account of the trial of Willie Maxwell's killer and the events that preceeded it. This book highlights Lee's life as a person beyond her regretted identifications as author. There's so much I hadn't known about Lee. The author remains semi neutral about the possible involvement Lee's lawyer had in the release of Go Set A Watchman, but seems to agree with myself and the general public that the release of the early draft of the unpublished book that later became To Kill A Mockingbird was a cash grab on her part.
This book is rich in detail and weaves a narrative about the author's life and the lives of her subjects and friends that easily keeps the reader engaged.

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herelieshenry's review against another edition

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emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced

4.5

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amandas_bookshelf's review

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informative mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

2.5

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juliana18's review against another edition

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dark informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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caradubois's review against another edition

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3.5

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araeofbooks's review

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dark informative mysterious medium-paced

3.5

The premise of this book was fascinating to me. Part true crime, part literary behind the scenes of a beloved author, this had a lot of potential because it combined a lot of my interests. While I found every part of this book interesting, it didn’t feel cohesive. It felt as though I read two separate books. Part of that may be in the way the book was broken up -- it’s told in two parts, starting with the crimes of Rev. Willie Maxwell and the second part tells the story of Harper Lee, culminating in her spending time researching the alleged crimes of the reverend. By the time we got through all of Harper Lee's life and made it to her attempting to write the story of Rev. Maxwell, I forgot a lot about his story. What I will say is that the lives of both Rev. Maxwell and Harper Lee were both fascinating and worthy of storytelling. Overall I liked the book, it just felt a little disjointed.

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