From acclaimed true-crime journalist Linda Wolfe, a spellbinding true tale of nineteenth-century sex, scandal, and cold-blooded murder

In 1831 Lucretia Winslow Chapman was a wife and mother of five who had founded one of Philadelphia’s first boarding schools for girls. But her comfortable life and marriage to prominent local scientist William Chapman changed forever the night Lino Espos y Mina appeared at their door, requesting lodging. It wasn’t long before the Cuban con artist had entrenched himself in the Chapman home and begun an illicit affair with Lucretia. A little over a month later, William Chapman was dead from a lethal dose of poison. Lino and Lucretia were eventually arrested and charged with murder—and the double trial of the century began.

Wolfe skillfully weaves court transcripts, love letters, and period recollections into an edge-of-your-seat historical thriller about the crime that rocked pre–Civil War America. With its shocking verdicts that raised troubling questions about sexism and racism, this mesmerizing true-crime tale still resonates nearly two hundred years later.

Open Road Media would like to thank you for your interest in this title, and we encourage you to share your thoughts with the book community. We hope you will take your time to post your review on Goodreads or retailer sites, such as Amazon, iTunes and Barnes & Noble. If you would like to stay up-to-date on more Open Road Media titles, please go to our publisher page and click “Add to Favorites.”

Linda Wolfe is the author of five true-crime books: The Professor and the Prostitute and Other True Tales of Murder and Madness, Love Me to Death, Double Life, The Murder of Dr. Chapman, and Wasted: Inside the Robert Chambers-Jennifer Levin Murder, an Edgar Award nominee and a New York Times Notable Book. She is also the author of My Daughter, Myself, a memoir; The Literary Gourmet, a classic cookbook; and Private Practices, a novel. Wolfe's articles and essays have appeared in a wide variety of magazines, among them Vanity Fair, the New York Times Magazine, and New York magazine, of which she was a contributing editor. She currently writes a column about books for the website www.FabOverFifty.com.