In Cara Robertson’s “enthralling fresh reserve,” The Trial of Lizzie Borden “the reader is to serve as judge and jury” (THE BRAND NEW York Instances). Predicated on two decades of research and recently unearthed evidence, this true criminal offense and legal history may be the “definitive account to date of one of America’s most notorious and enduring murder mysteries” (Web publishers Regular, starred review).

When Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally hacked to death in Fall River, Massachusetts, in August 1892, the arrest of the about The Trial of Lizzie Borden couple’s younger daughter Lizzie turned the situation into international news and her murder trial into a spectacle unrivaled in American history. Reporters flocked towards the picture. Well-known columnists took up conspicuous chairs in the courtroom. The defendant was relentlessly scrutinized for signs of guilt or innocence. Everyone—wealthy and poor, suffragists and public conservatives, legal scholars and laypeople—got an impression about Lizzie Borden’s guilt or innocence. Was she a cold-blooded murderess or an unjustly persecuted female? Do she or didn’t she?

An essential little bit of American mythology, the popular desire for the Borden murders has endured for more than one century. Told and retold in every conceivable genre, the murders possess secured a location in the American pantheon of mythic horror. In contrast, “Cara Robertson presents the story with the thoroughness one expects from an attorney…Fans of crime novels will love it” (Kirkus Evaluations). Based on transcripts from the Borden legal proceedings, modern newspaper accounts, unpublished regional accounts, and recently unearthed characters from Lizzie herself, The Trial of Lizzie Borden is usually “a fast-paced, page-turning examine” (Booklist, starred review) that offers a window onto America in the Gilded Age. This “remarkable” (Bustle) publication “should be at the top of your reading list” (Popsugar).