Lover’s Lane: The Hall-Mills Mystery

Two lifeless bodies, one belonging to Edward Hall, a local and well-liked minister, and the other to Eleanor Mills, a singer in his church’s choir, are found in a park in a quiet New Jersey suburb on September 14, 1922. The circumstances surrounding the slaying are at first unknown, but the subsequent investigation uncovers a not-so-secret affair between the two victims and attracts an array of colorful witnesses with competing testimonies on what exactly happened that fateful night. Were Mr. Hall and Mrs. Mills victims of a stickup gone wrong, a case of mistaken identity, a scorned spouse, the Ku Klux Klan, or something else? In the latest in his acclaimed Treasury of XXth Century Murder series of causes célèbres, cartoonist Geary (The Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti) recounts the infamous unsolved lover’s lane murder that rocked New Brunswick in the 1920s. By providing an objective account of the murder and tumultuous investigation, Geary introduces readers to the case and allows them to draw their own conclusions based on the known facts. And his clean, purely linear artwork is not only a delight to look at but serves the narrative in a near perfect union of pictures and words. (Aug.)