| Posted: 18 February 2011 at 11:19am | IP Logged | 8
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About a 150 pages into THE OLD DEVIL: CLARENCE DARROW - THE WORLD'S GREATEST TRIAL LAWYER by Donald McRae. Ever since I became obsessed with the history of Chicago a decade ago, Darrow's name has popped up quite frequently. I think he's a fascinating character. This book is good, but spends a wee bit too much time using his affair with Mary Field Parton as both a framing device and the lens through which his story is told. That certainly bogs down the first fifty or so pages, but once you get to the courtroom it's fairly riveting. The book focuses on the last years of his life and the three trials that cemented his legacy; Leopold and Loeb, the Scopes Monkey trial and the racially charged Sweet murder trial. I know quite a bit about Leopold and Loeb after reading the excellent FOR THE THRILL OF IT: LEOPOLD, LOEB, AND THE MURDER THAT SHOCKED JAZZ AGE CHICAGO by Simon Baatz. Outside of a general overview, I know very little about Scopes and have never heard of the Sweet murder trial, so I'm looking forward to getting to that part of the book.
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