Chicago, this ain't.
Ugly Prey is a gritty look at the the lives of women in Chicago in the 1920's who were accused of murder. A focus on Sabella Nitti, an Italian immigrant, who was accused of killing her husband, along with a farm hand who worked for them. She didn't speak English, was illiterate, and poor. This was detrimental to her defense when she is arrested. She has no idea what is happening, as the court doesn't provide translators at first. What happened was a series of unfortunate events with a result of a guilty verdict and sentenced to hanging.

This is a well researched book, that examines the value of life.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

A nonfiction book about Sabella Nitti, a woman who was found guilty of murdering her husband in 1923 Chicago – making her the first woman to be given a death sentence by an American court. (Note: not really. Plenty of women had hung or burned or otherwise received capital punishment before Nitti, but a lack of historical awareness meant that the lawyers, judges, and general public at the time reacted as though this was a new development, and chose to be proud of it or appalled by it as their personal politics dictated.) She is probably best-remembered these days as the inspiration for the Hungarian-speaking woman in the musical Chicago; here she is protesting her innocence during the Cell Block Tango.

Nitti was an Italian immigrant, illiterate, a farm wife, ugly (at least according to the reporters covering the case), and spoke no English or mainstream Italian, but only a fairly rare dialect called Barese. In addition, she was saddled with a defense lawyer who seemed to be actively losing the ability to maintain a train of thought – his behavior during the trial was remarkably unhelpful to her cause, and he would later spend years in a mental asylum. These factors almost guaranteed she would receive a guilty verdict despite the fact that it was never even clear if her husband was actually dead (it seems likelier he just decided to abandon the family), much less that she was the one who killed him. The local sheriff and one of Nitti's own sons seem to have been the prime movers in pinning the crime on her, despite the lack of evidence.

The depiction of the prejudices and passions of 1920s Chicago was where the book really shone. Women had newly gained the vote, and many saw the potential death sentence of a woman as connected to that – with power comes responsibility. Others argued that women were inherently deserving of mercy: "She is a mother and a mother has never been hanged in the history of this country. I do not believe the honorable court here will permit a mother to hang.” And then, of course, there was the issue of looks, of proper decorum – the pretty, fashionable yet obviously guilty women judged innocent by their all-male juries, and Nitti condemned to hang.

The first 2/3rds or so of the book, when Lucchesi is guiding the reader through Nitti's life before her husband's disappearance and the subsequent trial, are pretty great. Unfortunately the last third loses the thread. Lucchesi detours into describing the backstories of various prisoners Nitti would have met or other contemporary court cases in Chicago; none of it seems to have much to do with Nitti, who disappears from the page for chapters at a time. Some of these would become the inspiration for other characters in Chicago, but since Lucchesi won't mention the musical until the epilogue, the reader is left to make the connection on their own or be confused. (Overall I found the book's lack of direct acknowledgement of Chicago odd – it's so obviously hanging there, waiting for the reader to notice it, and yet Lucchesi treats it like a devil who will bring bad luck if it's name is invoked. Not to mention the missed marketing opportunity.) Others, like the two chapters spent on the Leopold and Loeb case, just seem to have interested Lucchesi and were vaguely connected, so she threw them in as a afterthought.

It's a good example of historical crime writing, even if it needed a better structural editor.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2029614124

As a true-crime junkie, I was very excited to read Ugly Prey. Unfortunately, and I have a difficult time putting my finger on why exactly, I just could not seem to become absorbed in the story. The beginning was slow and did not pick up until well into the book. However, the research was very well done and the real-life people read like characters from a novel, they are so well developed. I really struggled to finish the book as a whole (It took me much, much longer to read than a book of its size and genre usually does.) and likely would not have completed it if I did not promise to review. I seem to be the minority though in not enjoying it so it could just be me. The intersection of women and crime is an interesting one and I'm glad someone is writing about it.

I am a true crime junkie, but I was not familiar with this story from the 1920s. Sabella Nitti, an Italian immigrant, was accused of killing her husband, along with a farm hand who worked for them. She was illiterate, didn't speak English, and poor. This was detrimental to her defense when she is arrested. She has no idea what is happening, as the court doesn't provide translators at first. What happens is a series of unfortunate events where she is found guilty and sentenced to hanging. It is clear by reading the trial that the prosecutor, the defense attorney, and the judge all made terrible mistakes. The press portrays her very negatively and it is clear that she was unfairly tried based on her outward apperance. Several women who clearly were guilty were acquitted because all male juries wouldn't sentence an attractive woman to death. It is only when a young, determined female lawyer takes over her case that she is given a new trial and acquitted.

This book was researched well and provided an exceptional amount of detail. Although, I felt that there was a little too much time spent describing the background of Sabella's cell mates. I was confused by that extraneous detail right in the middle of the story. The reference to the musical Chicago was helpful in understanding the social injustices that occurred in the 20's toward women accused of crimes (it was based on real female crimimals referenced in this book.) It might have been better to make that connection sooner because it really resonated with me. I've actually seen that show a few times and I remember each of the characters well.

There was one thing I would have liked to see and that is character photos included in the book to help visualize the characters. But it wasn't a deal breaker. There was honestly enough written detail to make up for it. Overall, a great true crime story!

‘Ugly Prey‘ tells the story of Sabella Nitti who was wrongfully convicted in the Chicago 1920’s.

This book is a true crime, courthouse page turner which sometimes looses itself in the many details and urge of the writer to tell everything. Nevertheless it is absolutely worth reading, the storytelling is great. It keeps a pace and holds your interest.
Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi knows how to recreate and tell a story and paint a picture of how Nitti lived in a by men ruled society. Nitti’s living conditions and relationships with her family come to life thanks to Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi.

I really enjoyed ‘Ugly Prey‘ and would recommend it to everyone.
I subtracted 1 star because of the many amount of details which sometimes holds the story back.

My thanks to Netgalley and Chicago Review Press, for giving me an ARC of the ebook for review purposes.

UGLY PREY is primarily written about Sabella Nitti, an Italian immigrant who finds herself locked up on murder charges after her husband goes missing from their family truck garden farm outside Chicago in 1923. It goes on to show cases of other women who are also arrested for possibly killing their husbands or boyfriends too, but since they are beautiful and speak English, they don't have the same problems as Sabella faces, and are treated much differently.

It also goes a bit into the account of the so-called crime of the century when Leopold and Loeb kidnapped and then killed young Bobby Franks. It appeared to be a thrill killing gone wrong.
The book shows the huge differences in the way people were treated at that time, depending on how they were viewed, both by the criminal justice system and by the press back then, which influenced things a great deal, how the public saw things and also if any assistance were rendered. Sabella was a much different person by the time her case came to a conclusion, and the reader will likely see things a bit differently too. All in all, an enlightening read about that time and place.

While we like to think of Lady Justice with her blindfold and equal scales, the reality is and always has been in complete opposition. Lucchesi takes us back to the Roaring Twenties, an era memorialized by the wealthy white class. Life for the poor, immigrants, and the average women was an altogether different experience.

The central focus of this book is Sabella Nitti, a poor Italian immigrant who was not a pretty woman and who didn't speak English. When her husband disappears, she becomes an easy scapegoat for officials to blame. The author brings this case to life, showing us Sabella's plight as the court system, along with the media and the community, portray her as an ugly monster who murdered her husband.

For comparison the author brings in Sabella's contemporaries, beautiful women also charged with murder. But those women are treated differently, almost reverently, because of their looks and their standing within the community.

Clearly, the author did an immense amount of research, but the story never feels weighed down in facts. The writing here is engaging, often reading more like a legal mystery than nonfiction.

Back in Sabella's day, women were not treated as equals within society. Prejudice was openly accepted, whether due to race, appearance, ethnicity, or class. Her situation was precarious from the very start. We'd all like to believe these things have changed, and to some degree they have. But prejudice still exists within our court system, though we do a better job of disguising it. Books like this are important because they remind us where we came from, as well as how far we still need to go.

In 1920s Chicago, murderous women (as in the musical "Chicago"), had a track record of being found not guilty by all-male juries--partly out of reluctance to execute women, partly as a holdover that women weren't capable of murder, and partly because a new class of celebrity lawyers pushed these ideas in the courtroom and to a sympathetic press. That is, until Isabella Nitti. Ugly, unassimiliated, illiterate and unsympathetic, she was easy for a jury to find guilty of the 1922 murder of her husband, especially in cahoots with a much younger second husband. As lawyers from the second-generation of the Italian community rallied around Nitti for a second trial, Helen Cirese began to unravel a much uglier story--married at 15 to Frank Nitti in rural Bari, Isabella had five children and followed Frank to America, where he continued to abuse her and the kids at their primitive truck farm outside of Cicero. After a violent fight with his father, the eldest son, who demanded money to set himself up to marry, may have killed Frank (although he may have also fallen in the river--1920s forensics suggested injuries that were more likely caused by body degrading in water), and, with the collusion of a local corrupt sheriff's deputy, had his mother arrested for fornication with one of their farm hands so that he could seize the farm and sell it out from under her. Doggedly, Isabella and farmhand Pete exonerated themselves, then married to avoid another charge for living in the same house, and successfully sued for the property. In order to not pay it back, the son now had his mother and her husband arrested for murder. Cirese, a pioneering woman lawyer, demanded a new trial, and using the press and a makeover of Isabella's clothes, speech and demeanor, won back the sympathy of the court and the public, cementing her own reputation as a champion of women's rights in the process. Lucchesi deconstructs the prevailing ideas about immigrants, women, celebrity and violence to use this case as an illuminating study of a Chicago that was racing towards modern while riddled with pockets of unassimilated tradition.