Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

By Casey Cep 
@cncep 

In Furious Hours, Casey Cep masterfully brings together the tales of a serial killer in 1970s Alabama and of Harper Lee, the beloved author of To Kill a Mockingbird, who tried to write his story. Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members, but with the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative assassinated him at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell’s murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend himself. Sitting in the audience during the vigilante’s trial was Harper Lee, who spent a year in town reporting on the Maxwell case and many more trying to finish the book she called The Reverend. Cep brings this remarkable story to life, from the horrifying murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South, while offering a deeply moving portrait of one of our most revered writers.

Interview with the Author

Midtown Scholar BookStore Author Reading Series
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and The Last Trial of Harper Lee
6/25/19      78 min

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Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast
Harper Lee & Murderer Willie Maxwell w/ Casey Cep
8/1/19      72 min

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NYT’s Book Review
Harper Lee’s Unwritten True-Crime Book
5/17/19      56 min

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The Avid Reader Show
Casey Cep Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and The Last Trial of Harper Lee
7/24/19      49 min

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Live at Politics and Prose
Casey Cep: Live at Politics and Prose
5/24/19      60 min

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Watching America
“Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee” with Casey Cep
6/20/19      54 min

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WYPL Book Talk
Casey Cep – Furious Hours
6/22/19      41 min

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