A review by siobhanward
Blood & Ivy: The 1849 Murder That Scandalized Harvard by Paul Collins

informative slow-paced

3.0

 
Considering that this is a book about a murder that ~scandalized~ Harvard, I kind of hoped it would be more scandalous, a la HH Holmes. But no, this was just a murder of a well-liked doctor and benefactor with a pretty cut and dry court case.

Some of the details were interesting but there was a lot of pages devoted to various attendees of Harvard in the 1840s... Not something I'm deeply interested in.

Was this the best true crime book I've read? No, but having a good portion of the book devoted to the court case was interesting and is not something you always see in these books, so that was an interesting change at least!