Blood & Ink: The Scandalous Jazz Age Murder That Hooked America on True Crime

Vanity Fair correspondent Pompeo debuts with a compulsively readable account of a sensational unsolved double murder a century ago. On Sept. 16, 1922, at an abandoned farm outside New Brunswick, N.J., the bodies of the Rev. Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills, who sang in the choir of his church, were found beneath a crabapple tree, posed in a manner to suggest intimacy. Hall was shot in the head, and Mills had been shot three times and her throat slit ear to ear. Both of their spouses were initially suspects, and Hall’s wife and her two brothers went on trial in 1926. The evidence wasn’t enough to convince the jury, however, and all three were found not guilty. Pompeo does a thorough job highlighting the questionable tactics of the scandal sheets of the period, such as a staged séance to elicit a confession. The Hall-Mills murders sold newspapers and brought thousands of curiosity seekers to the murder site before almost vanishing from memory as other scandals claimed the spotlight. Drawing on extensive documents related to the case that were lost until 2019, Pompeo provides the definitive account of the murders. This is essential reading for true crime buffs. Agent: Jen Marshall, Aevitas Creative Management. (Sept.)