FREE: True Crime Book "Poison Widows" Great read!! Hardcover

The listing, True Crime Book "Poison Widows" Great read!! Hardcover has ended.

Book in Excellent condition, no missing pages or photos. Hardcover

Former Columbia law professor Cooper (Lost Love: A True Story of Passion, Murder and Justice in Old New York, LJ 8/93) re-creates a sensational but forgotten crime of the 1930s. Working from newspapers, archival records, and interviews, he reconstructs the story of three men in Philadelphia who convinced Italian immigrant wives to solve their domestic problems in drastic fashion. After taking out life insurance policies on their husbands, the women were provided with a special "white powder." The mystery powder turned out to be arsenic or antimony, and the ringleaders, two cousins named Herman and Paul Petrillo and their partner Morris Bolber (a.k.a. Louie the Rabbi), received a healthy cut of the insurance. Cooper focuses on the two attorneys who rose to fame during the trials: Vincent McDevitt, an up-and-coming assistant district attorney, and Raymond Pace Alexander, the first black lawyer to defend a white client successfully. Their stories are as remarkable as the crime itself. Recommended for large true crime collections. [Cooper is the husband of novelist Judy Blume.AEd.]AMichael Sawyer, Northwestern Regional Lib., Elkin, N.