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Shadow Men: The Tangled Story of Murder, Media, and Privilege That Scandalized Jazz Age America
Bottom of the pile
21
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
39/100Critics
4/100Scholars
Author:
James Polchin
Publisher:
Counterpoint
Date:
June 11, 2024
On the morning of May 16, 1922, a young man's body was found on a desolate road in Westchester County. The victim was penniless ex-sailor Clarence Peters. Walter Ward, the handsome scion of the family that owned the largest chain of bread factories in the country, confessed to the crime as an act of self-defense against a violent gang of "shadow men," blackmailers who extorted their victims' moral weaknesses. From the start, one question defined the investigation: What scandalous secret could lead Ward to murder?
What The Reviewers Say
Polchin knows the era, and brings to his account a wealth of colorful supporting detail.
The criminal probe at the center of Shadow Men is absorbing. Unfortunately, the book, with its many unresolved riddles, lacks a satisfying denouement..
If the author doesn’t definitively prove that sexual relations between Peters and Ward drove the latter to murder, neither did the courts. Regardless, Polchin’s investigation yields a compelling social history that makes clear the power of the press, wealth, political clout, and influence in determining legal outcomes and obfuscating the heart of scandalous affairs..
Polchin... combines a novelist’s gift for narrative and a journalist’s eye for detail in this riveting work of true crime..
