Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free

"Scoundrel is an unusually engrossing work of nonfiction, a true-crime thriller that intersects seamlessly with the history and politics of its 1950s to ‘70s setting. Veteran author Sarah Weinman examines the fall and rise and fall again of the charismatic convicted killer Edgar Smith and why a colorful group of prominent crusaders, including conservative stalwart William F. Buckley, wrote to him for years and fought for his exoneration. With decades of correspondence and documentary evidence to draw on, Weinman goes deep into the psychology and social dynamics of the case, exposing the factors that led so many to fall prey to Smith’s charms and get the story so tragically wrong."