The novel combines a 'true crime' story, that of serial killer Harry Powers, who wooed, then murdered vulnerable widows in the 1920's. He was caught in 1931, executed in 1932 and Phillips tells us the story of his last victims, Chicago housewife Asta Eicher, and her three children, Annabelle, Grethe, and Hart. Powers promises Asta a life of hope, takes her and her children to Quiet Dell, West Virginia, and murders them, burying their bodies in a ditch in his backyard. This horror story, based on facts and transcripts, contrasts with the fictional imaginings of Phillips, the other half of the novel. She adds a woman observer, Emily Thornton, an independent Chicago Tribute reporter, who follows for the paper the hunt and conviction of Powers. She is accompanied by a friend, Eric, a Tribune photographer, also sent to cover the story. But the counterpoint to the true crime is the romance between Emily and Asta Eicher's banker and friend, William Malone.
Malone and Emily meet for the first time when Emily returns to Chicago, after the murders of the Eicher's are discovered, and she wants to talk with anyone who knew the Eicher's, in this case, it's the banker Malone. If there is such a thing as love at first sight, it happens to them, and their passionate love affair is a vivid contrast to the facts of the Eicher murders, and the trial and eventual execution of Harry Powers. I admit to being a bit shocked to read so much about their feelings for each other, their brief trysts in between the trail, their longing glances, their 'heart felt' vows of love, like something out of a Harlequin romance, though I admit to having never read one.
Thus, I am not the enthusiast that Blogger Nina Sankovitch is though I did enjoy the novel. It is wonderfully written, interestingly put together, and who can resist the arrest and trial of a serial killer combined with a passionate love story. Not me!
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