From the author of Above Suspicion the "riveting" true story of
Charles Stuart, who murdered his pregnant wife and pinned the crime on a
black man in 1980s Boston (Kirkus Reviews).
On October 23, 1989, affluent businessman Charles Stuart made a frantic
911 call from his car to report that he and his seven-months-pregnant
wife, Carol, a lawyer, had been robbed and shot by a black male in the
Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston. By the time police arrived, Carol
was dead, and the baby was soon lost as well. The attack incited a furor
during a time of heightened racial tension in the community.
Even more appalling, while the injuries were real, Stuart's story was a
hoax: He was the true killer. But the tragedy would continue with the
arrest of Willie Bennett, a young man Stuart identified in a line-up.
Stuart's deception would be exposed only after a shocking revelation
from his brother and, finally, his suicide, when he jumped into the
freezing waters of the Mystic River.
As the story unraveled, police would put together the disturbing pieces
of a puzzle that included Stuart's distress over his wife's pregnancy,
his romantic interest in a coworker, and life insurance fraud. In an
account that "builds and grips like a novel" (Kirkus Reviews), New
York Times journalist Joe Sharkey delivers "a picture of a man consumed
by naked ambition, unwilling to let anyone or anything get in his way"
(Library Journal). Revised and updated, this book also includes a new
epilogue by the author.
