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FURIOUS HOURS CASEY CEP CASEY CEP IS AN AMERICAN AUTHOR AND JOUR- NALIST WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED ON THE EASTERN SHORE OF MARYLAND, WHERE SHE NOW LIVES WITH HER WIFE AND FELLOW NEW YORKER STAFF WRITER KATHRYN SCHULZ, AND THEIR BABY DAUGHTER. IN ADDITION TO THE NEW YORKER, CASEY’S WORK HAS APPEARED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PARIS REVIEW, THE NEW REPUBLIC, AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS. Casey's first book, Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, was published in 2019. Furious Hours debuted at No. 6 on the New York Times Hardcov- er Nonfiction Best Sellers List and won the 2020 ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction. The New York Times selected Furious Hours for its "100 Notable Books of 2019" and President Barack Obama selected it as one of his favorite books of 2019. Casey’s father was a farmer, and her mother a mail carrier. Casey is a mag- na cum laude graduate of Harvard University and has a M.Phil. degree in theology from Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar. Furious Hours describes dual crime stories that occurred in Alabama and the attempt by Alabama’s most famous novelist, Harper Lee, to write about them. The book is written in three parts – “The Reverend,” “The Lawyer” and “The Writer.” “The Reverend” Willie Maxwell was an African Ameri- can preacher and businessman, five of who’s wives and relatives died during the span of seven years, all after he had taken out life insurance policies on them. At the funeral of his adopted daughter, who had died in highly suspicious circumstances, the Reverend was shot twice in the head at point blank range in front of 300 witnesses by Robert Burns. “The Lawyer” Tom Radney represented Burns at his murder trial. Radney had previously repre- sented Reverend Maxwell in most of the criminal and civil suits that arose from the five mysterious deaths in his family. Despite the fact the killing occurred in front of 300 people, the jury of twelve white men acquitted Robert Burns based on the defense of insanity. “The Writer,” Harper Lee, covered the Burns trial with the intention of writ- ing a true crime story ala In Cold Blood, the Truman Capote blockbuster that Lee helped her friend Capote to research and write. The trial of Robert Burns occurred eighteen years after To Kill a Mocking- bird was published in 1960; sixteen years after the film starring Gregory Pick was released on Christmas Day 1962. Furious Hours tells the story of the difficulties Lee faced in attempting to write anything after Mockingbird. 53 JOURNAL