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

 Why would anyone live in Alabama?  The political, cultural, and social history of Alabama during the George ("I will never be out-niggered again") Wallace years is on stark display in this fascinating book by Casey Cep.

Before getting to the actual trial and relating it to the book that Harper Lee wanted  to write, Cep delves into the lives of the three main characters: Maxwell, the serial killing reverend who killed multiple wives and others for their insurance; Maxwell's killer who shot him in front of 300 witnesses; and Tom Radney, as very likeable man who defended  Lee and who had been physically threatened, his family terrorized, and his homes and possessions vandalized because, as state senator, he had supported Ted Kennedy's nomination to run for president the year that George Wallace run as an independent. And Harper Lee's peripheral link to the trial.

The insanity defense has a long history.  It was even written into the Code of Hammurabi more than 3000 years ago. By the early 20th century it had fallen out of favor, seemingly allowing murderers to get away with murder and it had been outlawed in several states, but not Alabama. It was the only defense left to the defense.  Burns had shot Maxwell from three feet away in front of 300 people and had confessed at least twice.

It's not your typical murder mystery or courtroom drama, Lee, a close friend and colleague of Truman Capote, sat in on the trial in Alexander City taking notes.  Lee struggled to write a book about the trial, apparently worried it would never live up to her famous first book.  She had been closely involved with Capote as his friend and research assistant in the writing of In Cold Blood , but she never wanted to be associated with the "new journalism" epitomized by Capote, Mailer, and Talese.

The section on Lee is a letdown. The reader keeps waiting for more on the book that never got written. Not to mention the debacle over <i>Go Tell a Watchman.</i> The writing is very good, if sometimes impenetrable, e.g. "her letters, which had at one time been Pentatuchal in plot and Pauline in syntax...."