Harper Lee is perhaps the most famous one-book author in history. She published To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960 and then ... nothing. She didn't die young, she didn't stop writing but somehow or other the author of this magnificent book never managed to write another book. In Furious Hours, Casey Cep traces the convoluted circumstances that led Harper Lee to becoming this eternal literary enigma. From the false start with Go Set a Watchman to almost but not quite writing an account of the peculiar case of the Reverend Willie Maxwell, it seems that Harper Lee had other plans for her own career. This is both the tale of the book that Harper Lee did write but also the story of the one that she did not.

Cep divides her book into three sections. The first recounts the life of Willie Maxwell, one-time rural preacher who was also suspected of having murdered five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. He was also widely believed by his local community to be a practitioner of voodoo. With some rather fancy footwork from his lawyer Tom Radney, the Reverend was able to stay on the right side of the law. Until of course he was shot dead at his stepdaughter's funeral service, widely believed to have been his last victim. The man who shot him was later acquitted on the basis of an insanity defence put forward by the same Tom Radney who had been so diligent at keeping the Reverend out of jail all those years.

It is an incredible story, made more incredible by the fact that the Reverend was only killed in 1977. The whole thing sounds like some one of those fantastical cases which took place in the early Wild West but this is barely ten years before my own birth. I could see why it drew Harper Lee's attention. I am no fan of vigilanteism but I was reminded powerfully of the film A Time to Kill where Samuel L Jackson speaks his immortal line, 'Yes, they deserved to die! I hope they rot in hell!' I could certainly understand the desperation of a community who felt themselves at the mercy of a serial killer who seemed to have insurance policies on everyone he came into contact with and around whom innocent people seemed to be dropping like flies. The Reverend had to be stopped. If the law could not do it, someone else had to step up.

Furious Hours' second section deals with Tom Radney's life history and how he came to defend both the Reverend and then also the man who killed him. 'Big Tom' as he was known was clearly a larger than life figure. He had had a political career and then a high profile legal profile afterwards. In honesty, I found this section the least compelling. This is interesting because in the surviving fragment of Lee's planned book on the Reverend case, it seems that she was planning to centre it around Radney as protagonist.

The third part of the novel details the life and career of Harper Lee, her relationship with Truman Capote and her journey towards publication and then away from it again. The only explanations that I had ever heard for why Lee never published again were vague non-answers such as 'Perhaps that was the only story she ever had to tell' or that 'She disliked the limelight and only wrote for herself afterwards'. Cep makes it clear that neither of these excuses were correct.

Part of the issue seems to have been around timing. I wished that Cep had written more about Go Set a Watchman since this book proved so controversial when it finally hit the shelves. After all the excitement about a new book from Harper Lee, there was a curious backlash when people actually read the thing. I did not read it because an uncomfortable question mark lingered over whether a very elderly Harper Lee had been manipulated into publication, particularly given it was immediately after the death of her centenarian older sister who had previously managed Lee's affairs. I feel conflicted on this because Lee apparently felt humiliated by the speculation along these lines. But still, the general gist of the book seemed to be around highlighting the racism of apparent liberal characters and this made people uncomfortable both then and now.

Lee was pointing at how figures such as Atticus Finch would denounce lynching and decry racial injustice but then protest at the idea of ending segregation. I remember being in a museum in Washington when I was eighteen and looking at exhibition about people protesting about ending segregation in schools. I particularly remember a photograph of a friendly looking white woman holding a placard that said 'I like you but not in our school'. I was also reminded of Toni Morrison's Beloved where a slave character is saved by liberal white people but in their home they had a piggy-bank shaped like a slave, with the coins placed into the mouth. Harper Lee was told that people like this did not exist. She responded that in that case, large swathes of the Alabama population did not exist.

People like to point at other people and identify how they are prejudiced. It is less comfortable to see the plank in your own eye. All of this made it far easier to decry the fate of Tom Robinson in the 1930s than it is to comment on the battle being fought by his children and grandchildren during the 1960s. People just did not want to hear what Harper Lee had to say. It was also interesting too how by writing a book set in the 1930s, it allowed the readers in the 1960s to see racism as a historical problem. It also meant that the book very quickly became a period piece and Lee herself was seen as much older that she actually was.

Then there were other issues too, such as Lee's apparent hatred of taxation that meant that she wanted to avoid additional income. Then her wonderful editing team who guided her through the publication of Mockingbird subsequently retired and were no longer available. Then there was also her battle with alcoholism. One of her fellow tenants recalled her tipsily telling them that she had just put a three hundred page manuscript in the incinerator. Tom Radney commented on Harper Lee's work on the Reverend that Lee was fighting a battle with Scotch but that the Scotch appeared to be winning. But also, in choosing the Reverend as her subject matter, Lee had given herself no easy task.

Cep explains that there were positioning issues. How does the author of one of the most iconic works of fiction dissecting racial injustice then pivot to writing a book about a Black serial killer who could only be stopped by a vigilante? Then there were ongoing questions such as whether the Reverend's last surviving wife was, as Lee suspected, in fact an accomplice to his crimes. Lee was determined to stay close to the facts, having been made uncomfortable with how Truman Capote seemed happy to play fast and loose with the truth when he wrote In Cold Blood, a project which she collaborated on. But the facts were hard to find around the Reverend and despite all of her research, Lee seems to have struggled to find the story.

The sad truth is that there was no clear reason why Lee never finished 'The Reverend' beyond the fragment first chapter. It seems that her creative process was simply more tortured than most. Anyone who has ever tried to write knows how easy it is to fritter away your time not writing. Lee wrote her first novel after being given a cheque as a Christmas present from a friend so that she would not have to work for a year, allowing her to devote herself to her work. I imagine that it would be a lot harder to procrastinate when you are doing so on someone else's dime. But after that, she was too well off to be able to replicate similar circumstances. But the fact that she agreed to publish her early draft Go Set a Watchman makes me feel that Lee had some kind of shame attached to not managing a follow up book. So do her later reclusive habits. And that feels the saddest part of all.

As with so many other people, To Kill a Mockingbird was among the first 'grown-up' novels that I ever read. It opened my eyes to racism as a white British person growing up in West Lancashire. I watched the film and it was one of the first pieces that made me fall in love with black and white cinema. Harper Lee's one book is one of my all-time favourites. She may have had to temper down her message to get published but still, she shone a light on how an apparently pleasant community could still have hate and injustice at its core. I have always believed that stories have the power to make the world a better place and To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the best examples of this. It may not be perfect, no book is, but it comes pretty close.

Just as Lee struggled, it was clearly no easy task for Cep to round up the characters of this strange tale and draw them together. Still though, she manages to weave together a complex, compelling and ultimately very compassionate account of a book that was never written. It has certainly shed light for me on a writer who I have always found very intriguing. I think of how Lee responded when Tom Radney's girls remarked that they had only read one of her books. Lee laughed ruefully and told them, 'Nobody else has either'. It sounds as if 'The Reverend' could have been a wonderful book. But as it is, I hope that Lee has found her peace with what she did write rather than what she did not.

What a fascinating story!

I love Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird is n of my favourite books, so I was greatly interested in this book when I read the blurb.

It is essentially broken down into three parts - the first covers the story of a priest who seems to be followed by death wherever he goes, and the bizarre endings of many of his family members.

The second is where we get to meet a lawyer with political affiliations and aspirations and in the third part of the book, it is all tied together and shows how Harper Lee was involved.

I loved learning so much about her, and her strange ideas and way of life.

Fantastically interesting read which kept me flipping the pages!

Furious Hours by Casey Cep is a captivating and well-researched book that tells the true story of a murder trial that captured the attention of one of America's most beloved authors, Harper Lee. As someone who is fascinated by Harper Lee's life and work, I found this book to be an engaging and informative read that sheds new light on the author's life and career.

One of the strengths of Furious Hours is the depth of research that Casey Cep has undertaken. The book is meticulously researched, with extensive footnotes and references that provide a wealth of information about the people and events that shaped the story. Cep's writing is also engaging and accessible, making it easy for readers to follow along with the complex legal proceedings and the twists and turns of the murder investigation.

As someone who loves Harper Lee's writing, I was particularly intrigued by the sections of the book that focused on her life and career. Cep provides a fascinating insight into Lee's creative process, as well as the struggles she faced in the aftermath of the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird. The sections on Lee's involvement in the murder trial are also particularly intriguing, offering a glimpse into her fascination with the legal system and her desire to write a true crime book.

Overall, Furious Hours is a well-written and informative book that will appeal to anyone with an interest in true crime or the life and work of Harper Lee. While the focus of the book is primarily on the murder trial, Cep's exploration of Lee's life and career adds an extra layer of depth and intrigue. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery, as well as those who are interested in the history of American literature.

4.5 stars.

Many of my reading circle will not read true crime books because they are dry/ slow/ boring....take your pick of excuses. This one is definitely none of those. I had not heard of Reverend Willie Maxwell prior to this and I'm actually glad I came into the story with so little knowledge of the background. It helped reinforce how much skill had gone into this telling of his story and that of Harper Lee's investigation into the serial killer's life and death.

Rev Maxwell was a serial killer in the 1970's whose victims were close to him. He would take out an insurance policy on their lives.....then collect. The Rev used unusual tactics to keep from being prosecuted for the deaths, religion from both sides of the pew. If you didn't believe in one God, you were deviled by voodoo into leaving the Rev's name out of police investigations. The Rev was so successful as a serial killer, one of his relatives shot him to death to keep from being a victim.

Rev Maxwell's lawyer was very successful at keeping the Rev out of jail. So successful, he actually represented the Rev's killer who was found "not guilty". The trial was a sensational journey through 1970's Alabama and their good ole boy systems. It became such a huge event that Harper Lee, author of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, would sit through the proceedings and join the investigations as research for a book. This famous author and her findings fill the last section of the book. Her book was never published but the research was thorough and certainly would have been a best seller.

Casey Cep has skillfully presented the story of Rev Maxwell's crimes and his sensational murder at the funeral of his last victim. She shares Harper Lee's writing history, Lee worked with Truman Capote on IN COLD BLOOD, and her detailed research to bring Maxwell's story to publication. The research Ms Cep had to accomplish to document just how Maxwell was able to keep killing and collecting the insurance, is fascinating in and of itself. This is definitely a true crime read so masterfully presented that NO ONE could call it boring. 5 star for Cep and I'm going to check her back library now.

Thank you to the publisher for my eARC copy of this book. Unfortunately I didn’t love this book and therefore didn’t finish, I just didn’t connect with this one. Not for me, sorry.

I think that the students in our school library need to hear lots of diverse voices and read stories and lives of many different kinds of people and experiences. When I inherited the library it was an incredibly sanitised space with only 'school readers' and project books on 'the railways' etc. Buying in books that will appeal to the whole range of our readers with diverse voices, eclectic and fascinating subject matter, and topics that will intrigue and fascinate them was incredibly important to me.
This is a book that I think our senior readers will enjoy very much indeed - not just because it's well written with an arresting voice that will really keep them reading and about a fascinating topic - but it's also a book that doesn't feel worthy or improving, it doesn't scream 'school library and treats them like young reading adults who have the right to explore a range of modern diverse reads that will grip and intrigue them and ensure that reading isn't something that they are just forced to do for their English project - this was a solid ten out of ten for me and I'm hoping that our students are as gripped and caught up in it as I was. It was one that I stayed up far too late reading and one that I'll be recommending to the staff as well as our senior students - thank you so much for the chance to read and review; I really loved it and can't wait to discuss it with some of our seniors once they've read it too!

I was disappointed in this. I found it long winded, confusing and very hard to follow.

The most enjoyable bit was about Harper Lee for me. Sorry just not one for me on this occasion. Almost did not finish

'Furious Hours' was very much a book of two halves for me. The first half - about the Reverend Willie Maxwell who was accused but acquitted of murdering five of his family members for their insurance money before then being killed himself - was fascinating. Unfortunately the second half - about the life of the writer Harper Lee (of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' fame) and her own interest in the case and intention to write a book about it - didn't hook me at all and I found myself struggling to finish what had, up until then, been a really engaging narrative.

Although related, the two narratives didn't seem to hang together particularly well and the sudden jump to the examination of Harper's interest and background upset the pace for me - I found myself putting the book down and not having the same compulsion to return and pick it back up. I also found that the level of detail in the second half really increased and there were more long descriptions, which bogged down the otherwise lively and engaging writing.

I did persevere and finish the book - and I'm glad I did because there are sections of this that are fascinating and the way the narratives all tie together at the end is really interesting - but it didn't hook me or sustain my interest quite as much as I had hoped from the opening.

I was super excited to read this after watching a movie about Harper Lee and then exploring works of Truman Capote, Lee’s friend and contemporary. This book was very weighted in research and context, some of which was pretty heavy going. The is a murder but not in the twisty bouncy delivery of a murder mystery. I liked learning about Harper but it took a lot of work to get there.

There were moments of real interest and some moments of real tedium. I enjoyed it but was slightly disappointed.

Furious Hours is the story of an Alabama serial killer, Willie Maxwell, who escaped justice until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his final victim. The vigilante was acquitted despite there being hundreds of witnesses, thanks to the same attorney who had defended Maxwell. In the audience during the trial was Harper Lee, who was hoping to write her own true-crime classic after helping her friend Truman Capote do the same seventeen years earlier.

I did not finish this book because it simply didn’t interest me enough. I am by no means saying that it is a bad book or not worth a read, but it didn’t do anything for me. Now, I don’t read much non-fiction and I definitely wouldn’t call myself a true-crime fan, so it’s entirely possible that I didn’t really give this book a fair chance. I made it about 10% in, and that consisted almost entirely of a historical background of the American South. The title and blurb make the book sound much more interesting than I found it to be.

Looking at other reviews, it sounds like Furious Hours would be a solid choice for readers interested in criminal cases, trials and true-crime. It just wasn’t for me.

Have not had a chance to read this yet, but will keep it on my list for a rainy day! Appreciate being offered the reading copy!

This is a really thorough and really interesting book that combines true-crime with biography. Harper Lee has always interested me as an author, and it was fascinating, although somewhat heartbreaking, to get a bit more insight into her very private and mysterious life (shockingly, I didn't know about the Capote connection before this book either!).

My only criticism is that, in some places, it felt too long. But I realise that's because the author wanted to be as thorough as possible - and to that end, I think he successed!

I enjoyed reading this book, or rather, I should say two books in one. I like the fact that the book was obviously very well researched, and included a lot of new information - reading about a crime I have never heard of, insurance fraud, and the life of Harper were all new to me. Due to this, it’s also not a book you can put down for weeks and then come back to it. At times, I found the long descriptions and the details tiring, but in overall, the book was really interesting.

This is a book about 3 different people. The first, Rev William Maxwell was killed at a funeral in Alabama but he was well known before then as someone who had been suspected of murdering at least 4 people for their life insurance. Although arrested and charged he was never convicted. The second is Tom Radney, an attorney that both defended Maxwell in his murder cases as well as the man accused of killing him. The third is the author Harper Lee. She watched the trial of Robert Burns who shot Maxwell with the view of writing a book. However the book never materialised.

This was a really good book which has obviously taken a lot of research to complete. Really interesting read.

Thanks to Netgalley, Random House Cornerstone UK and Casey Cep for the ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

Furious Hours (Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee), Casey Cep

The true crime story of an Alabama serial killer, his murder and the true crime book that Harper Lee worked on but never released following To Kill a Mockingbird.

This is divided into three parts, all equally deeply descriptive, well researched and well written. The first third follows the strange life of the Reverend Willie Maxwell, the five murders he is accused of committing, the legends that sprung up around him and finally his demise.

The second follows the man who defended him and the man who killed him, Tom Radney and Robert Burns. Mostly focusing on Radney who had a brief political career before becoming an astounding lawyer. This third also follows the trial and outcome of Burn’s trial which by a strange twist of fate, Radney also ended up defending.

The last third follows Harper Lee, from childhood to Mockingbird to her attempts to write her own true crime novel based on Maxwell and Burns. Sadly this was never released.

This is incredibly well researched, having met with Harper Lees relatives. Casey Cep has stunning insights into what she was attempting to compile. The original case is a strange one. Willie Maxwell and tried and executed by Robert Burns within seconds. But never by a court of law. Casey Ceps writing brings huge clarity to a case that would read as completely baffling. Her final third reads as a tribute to the writer who never got to finish the book for herself.

Fascinating reading, a standout in its genre.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #RandomHouseUK for my copy of this book

This was a heavily researched book, with so much background information at the start I almost forgot the premise of the book.
As a huge legal thriller fan, I was fascinated by Harper Lee and what motivated her to write To Kill A Mockingbird.
Whilst I enjoyed the actual trial part of the book, I feel it could have been condensed a little more and the two parts of the book made a little more cohesive.

I loved this book. As someone who loves reading about writers and what inspires them, this book ticked all the boxes for me.

I loved that the Casey Cep spent a lot of time laying out the scene by talking about the political and social climate of Alabama at the time of Reverend Willie's murder and the subsequent trial of his killer. I love that she spent time filling in as much history as she could before moving on to WHY Harper Lee was inspired by this case in particular.

I think if you go into this book knowing that it's not a book about Harper Lee, but a book about a case of murder in Alabama with some very slight similarities to To Kill a Mockingbird it is a very enjoyable read.

If you're expecting a bio of Harper Lee, this isn't that book.

Casey Cep has an amazing voice as a non fiction author and at times I felt utterly transported to Alabama in the 1950's, '60s and 70s.

As a huge fan of Harper Lee, this book was on my radar for quite some time and thankfully, I was not disappointed.

This book is broken down into three parts; part one is the alleged crimes against Reverend Maxwell, part two is about the trials of his lawyer and part three is about Harper Lee.

Reverend Maxwell was accused of the murders of five members of his family who all died in suspicious circumstances at the side of a road. These deaths made Rev Maxwell a rich man because before their deaths, he took out life insurance on each of them. All the deaths were recorded as natural deaths so Maxwell was never convicted, however everyone in town believed he was using voodoo to kill his victims.

At the last 'victims' funeral, Maxwell was shot and killed by another family member. The most interesting part here is, the lawyer who defended the shooter also defended Maxwell against his "crimes".

I absolutely loved reading about Harper Lee. I was fascinated to learn she helped Truman Capote write his novel In Cold Blood which lead to her wanting to write a true crime book about Maxwell. She lead such an interesting life and it made compelling reading.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I am not a fan of Non-Fiction however this almost read like Fiction. Infact, while reading about Maxwell I had to check I was infact reading a true story. This book has been meticulously researched, you really have to keep reading to keep track of whats going on! I highly recommend this book to fans of Harper Lee but also true crime fans.

Thank you to @netgalley and Random House for the chance to review this book.

This was an amazing book to read. Really two books in one (the Maxwell case and the life of Harper lee) that collide with the fury of its title. This book captures the spirit of a true crime book while also showing the pursuit of an author trying to deal with her own fame while trying to write in the journalistic way that so alluded her in her life. I was not able to put this book down and found myself enthralled from beginning to end.