The wilderness of ruin a tale of madness, Boston's Great Fire, and the hunt for America's youngest serial killer

Available from OverDrive (1)

Something

Summary

Documents a series of child abductions in Great Fire-devastated Boston and the discovery of their teenaged killer that sparked a system-changing investigation and influential debates among the world's most revered medical minds.

Contents

The inhuman scamp
The bridge
The marble eye
The boundless sea
The great fire
Loss of innocence
Katie
The wolf and the lamb
The twisted mind
Patience personified pomeroy
Madness unleashed
Unearthed.

Published Reviews

Publisher's Weekly Review: "Delving deep into the history of Boston circa the 19th century, Montillo (The Lady and Her Monsters) unearths a riveting true-crime tale that rivals anything writers in the 21st century could concoct. Jesse Harding Pomeroy, an adolescent from a deeply troubled family, earns notoriety in working-class Boston and surrounding towns by kidnapping and torturing young boys. The sensational journalism of the period soon turns him into a subject of grotesque fascination in the city and beyond. After Jesse is apprehended by court order and sent off to reform school, his mother secures a commutation that returns the teenager to the city, with monstrous results. A masterly storyteller, Montillo skillfully evokes the poor and patrician neighborhoods that served as a backdrop for the crimes, particularly after the 1872 fire that ravaged the city center. The police investigations that tracked down Jesse are stunning in their similarity to modern-day sleuthing. Alongside the graphic, disturbing details of Pomeroy's crimes, Montillo chronicles the contemporary fascination with mental illness by writers such as Herman Melville, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and other paragons of 19th-century Boston. A host of doctors and lawyers also figure prominently in these pages, as they all try to understand what drove a young boy to commit horrific crimes that gripped a city for decades. B&w illus. Agent: Rob Weisbach, Rob Weisbach Creative Management. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved."
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Additional Information

Subjects	Pomeroy, Jesse Harding, 1859-1932 Serial murderers Massachusetts Boston Biography Juvenile homicide Massachusetts Boston Murder Massachusetts Boston History True Crime Nonfiction History Boston (Mass.) History 19th century. Electronic books. 1859-1932. 19th century.
Publisher	New York :HarperCollins,2015 HarperCollins2015
Edition	1st ed.
Contributors	OverDrive, Inc.
Language	English
System Details	Mode of access: World Wide Web. Format: Adobe EPUB eBook Format: Kindle Book Format: OverDrive Read Requires Adobe Digital Editions or Amazon Kindle
Description	1 online resource
Bibliography Notes	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN	9780062273499 9780062273499
Other	Classic View