The Music of Murder

A True Crime Tale from Jazz Age New Orleans - The Axe Man Files

von Eliza Hawthorne

156 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

Between May 1918 and October 1919, someone walked into New Orleans homesthrough a chiseled-out back door, and left with an axe. The victims were mostly Italian grocers and their families, attacked intheir beds in the dark. The city locked its doors and did not sleep. Andthen, in March 1919, a letter arrived at the Times-Picayune, signed bythe killer, promising to spare any house where a jazz band was playing. That night, New Orleans played. The Music of Murder is the story of the Axeman, the city he terrorized,and the century of folklore that grew over the facts. Historian ElizaHawthorne moves through the case night by night, from the first attackon the Maggios' grocery to the final strikes and the silence thatfollowed, drawing on period newspapers, police records, court files, andpersonal letters. But this is not only a book about a killer. It is a book about who NewOrleans decided to protect and who it decided to forget. About theItalian immigrant families whose grief was reported as spectacle. Aboutdetectives working a case in a police department that could not betrusted. About a press that fed the panic it claimed to be covering. Andabout how a city under siege turned its own terror into music. Inside: The attacks, reconstructed chronologically from the surviving evidence The Axeman's letter, and what really happened on the night of March 19 The suspects, the theories, and an honest accounting of which ones therecord supports The victims, restored as people rather than headlines The afterlife of the case, from 1919 newspaper hysteria to the legend asit stands today Where the record is thin, Hawthorne says so. Where the story has grownpast the facts, she separates them. The case is still unsolved, and thisbook does not pretend otherwise. Includes a full bibliography and a discussion guide for book clubs. The Music of Murder is Book Five of the Shadows of the Past series, inwhich Eliza Hawthorne investigates the historical crimes that refused tostay buried.

• Reihe: Shadows of the Past
• Themen: Biographie, Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft Biografien und Sachliteratur Tatsachenberichte, wahre Begebenheiten True Crime
• ISBN: 9798235088511
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 12.08.2026
• Größe: 229 x 152 mm
• Verlag: Thrive Collective