A review by araeofbooks
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep

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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