The Mad Sculptor

(, UK Airports ed)

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Description

An unputdownable true crime story set in the pulp-fiction obsessed world of 1930s America. On Easter Sunday 1937, Bob Irwin a handsome, failing sculptor with a history of depression and psychopathic episodes commited a grisly triple murder. Creeping back to the flat of his ex-landlady in a swish New York borough, Irwin killed her, her lodger, and her stunning daughter Ronnie with an ice-pick, an apparently motiveless homicide that would shock the entire country. Firmly in 'you couldn't make it up' territory, and crafted like a Chandler novel, THE MAD SCULPTOR thrillingly relates Irwin's crime, flight, and capture, his trial and its aftermath, whilst painting a warts-and-all portrait of 1930s America.

Reviews

Reads like fiction but it's chillingly real. * The Philadelphia Inquirer *
Top-drawer true-crime. * Booklist *
A rich historical tapestry [with] a novelistic sense of character, pacing and suspense. * Publishers Weekly *

Author Bio

Harold Schechter is a professor of American literature. He is the co-author of THE A TO Z ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SERIAL KILLERS. He is also the author of a series of acclaimed historical novels featuring Edgar Allan Poe.