Well written and at times, very interesting. However, much of the book is a repetitive slog through legal arcana surrounding the insanity defense. I also puzzled over the author's decision to devote so much text to the biographies of the defense and prosecution team. This seemed particularly odd given the limited attention given to the murderers, their families, and that of their victim. There was little if no information about Nathan Leopold's post-parole lifetime, other than a sentence or two indicating that he married and traveled a lot. Perhaps this type of information wasn't available, and the author, compelled to fill the book with something, opted for exhaustive biographies of the opposing attorneys and a lengthy discourse on the nuances of an insanity defense.

I bought this book when it was first released and have re-read it two times. I was well-familiar with the thrill killing of Bobby Franks and Leopold and Loeb's involvement in the murder and subsequent cover-up. I had also seen the movie COMPULSION. I'm a former resident of the Chicago area and to many Chicagoans Leopold and Loeb have become local legend regarding what can happen when genius and evil collide and the cold and calculated results when human beings are devoid of conscience.
The story that Simon Baatz tells follows this scenario. Two wealthy and privileged young men from prominent Chicago Jewish families become sexually involved and one (Dickie Loeb) begins playing mind games with the other (Nathan Leopold). Leopold is a closeted homosexual and Loeb is apparently bi-sexual and not attracted to Leopold though not adverse to using sex to manipulate him. While both are intensely brilliant and graduate college while still in their teens, Loeb dominates in all things. Their pursuit of intellectual issues combined with sexual debauchery escalates to a daring game of commiting the 'perfect' crime. They become convinced that they can abduct and murder a somewhat random victim, concoct a ransom scheme, and get away with it all without even drawing suspicion on themselves. When they see the opportunity to execute their plan they grab a substitute victim (Bobby Franks) and murder him. They mutilate the body and dump it in a culvert in a lake area near Hammond IN.
It all seems to go well and the killers get a precarious thrill from evading suspicion until Franks remains are found. While dumping the body, Leopold's glasses fell out of his pocket. The glasses are of such a unique make that they are quickly linked to a specific optician and for all logical purposes this evidence is deemed as solid as we perceive dna today. A trial ensues which exposes the vagaries of the legal sytem of the day and the prevailing attitudes toward social class. No one less than the formidable Clarence Darrow is retained as the defense attorney who manages to get them off with life sentences. No one seems to escape from this without consequences. The Leopold, Loeb, and Franks families suffer the effects of this tragedy for decades to come.
I loved this book for all sorts of reasons. Baatz managed to crystalize the circumstances of this case and took it out of the realm of Chicago folklore. It was interesting and also frightening because it confronted an intellectual darkness in the soul that I really had never wanted to contemplate.

You may be relieved to learn that the book's title gets it wrong. This masterful account is less about the crime than it is about the lawyers and the courtroom drama. Such an account is long overdue. Simon Baatz's Darrow displayed two consistent traits throughout his professional career: his resourcefulness and his unrelenting opposition to the death penalty. Darrow's opponent, Cook County State's Attorney Robert Crowe, is not portrayed as a foil, but as a resourceful and ambitious lawyer. This is a book for both lawyers and non-lawyers. In addition to his meticulous research, the author knows how to tell a story.

This is an intersting true crime story. I liked the first third of the story but when the author began the bios of the mental health professionals and the lawyers it turned into a bore. Too much information about their backgrounds and not enough about the interaction with the killers.

This is a very readable and engrossing account of two psychopaths' attempt at committing the "perfect crime". A good history account makes the reader "know" the characters and gives the reader a feel of the prevailing times. The author does an excellent job of describing the main characters, capturing the era and reminding us how so much has stayed the same after the many decades since this crime and the subsequent trial. The book starts with all deliberate speed--the murder--and transitions into character history and analysis, using a variety of sources, including the trial transcripts. Various perspectives are painted vividly, from the poor family of the victim, to the defendants' aristocratic families, which steadfastly (and painfully) stand by their clearly guilty sons, to the creative machinations of the defense team, lead by Clarence Darrow himself. Treatment of the trial of these two remorseless defendants was especially interesting. In characteristic style, Darrow exploited and used the infant "science" of psychiatry to attempt to save his client (he only represented one of the killers)from the electric chair. Particularly interesting is how this trial put the young science itself on trial. The author shows an outraged public, which simply cannot understand how "world renowned" giants in the field, with identical data, can come to diametrically opposed conclusions. This book was sad, given its subject matter--the senseless murder of an innocent little boy by two infinitely unlikable social misfits-- but was exremely well researched and written.

Without making this a long review, if you are into Leopold and Loeb, this book is great. Covers their early years, and explains the background very well.

I remember my great-grandfather telling us what it was like to live in Chicago in the period between the death of little Bobby Franks, and the arrest of the two killers. This tense period fortunately lasted only a week or so (maybe ten days), based on some forensics work involving the glasses Nathan Leopold had left behind him in the marshy grasses of the culvert. The air, my grandfather said, was still like glass, you could barely breathe, even at night, and everyone seemed to be looking over their shoulder. There was an outpouring of offers to help from the gentile community to the hard-hit Jews of the Chicago area, and then once the arrests were made, and the Christians learned that two Jewish boys had murdered "one of their own," tensions lew sky-high. Simon Baatz discusses in detail how an ecumenical policy wsn't going to be working. Why, he asks, did this murder hit people where they lived? How did it become the crime of the century?

The killers were wealthy young men who did not need the $10,000.00 demanded in ransom, and thus the "motiveless malignity" perceived in the brutal slaying was itself a factor in the horror. The senselessness of the crime seemed to rhyme, Baatz argues, with the general loosening up of moral and social structures that the "roaring 20s" ushered in. In generakl Baatz works from a journalist's precision and accuracy toward a deeper historical and cultural analysis.

Like Tom Kalin's film Swoon, or Rope for that matter, Baatz' book doesn't hesitate to "go there" in terms of the two young killer's sexual relationship. It would be hard to say who was the dominant one, so intertwined were their fantasies and their needs (and their privileges as far as that goes). Sometimes you'd think it was Loeb--the ostensibly cuter, more popular one--but something Leopold emerges as a true "power bottom," manipulating the s/m drives of his partner for his own satisfaction. Leopold told court-apppointed shrinks that he envied every scrap of food or swig of water that Loeb took in, for food and water were getting closer to Loeb's wonderful body than he, Babe Leopold, ever could. What I hadn't known until reading this book is that the murderous pair were also suspected of a slew of other heinous crimes. Oddly, Baatz doesn't seem to take a stand on their involvement one way or another with any of these crimes. But I'm thinking, yes, at least one of them can be pinned to Leopold and Loeb. It just follows.

If you know nothing about the Leopold and Loeb case, Simon Baatz's book is a good place to start. The writing is on the dry side, and there are a number of small inaccuracies and biases that leap out at the knowledgeable reader. However, the basic personalities and chronology are laid out in orderly fashion, and festooned with attractive graphic elements. Photographs are mostly laid out within the flow of the text, rather than bound into a separate photo section.

Baatz's basic narrative is largely based on Hal Higdon's groundbreaking 1975 treatment of the case. Anyone mystified by some of the obscure sidelights in the case (e.g. the 'ABCD crimes') should turn to Higdon's 'The Crime of the Century.' Although Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post has dismissed Higdon's book as a pop history (see Editorial Reviews), this remark is not an informed judgment. Higdon's was the first in-depth nonfiction study based on primary sources. He had the additional advantage of being able to interview many witnesses and operatives who were still living 45-50 years after the Leopold-Loeb trial. Compared with the Baatz book, Higdon's shows both deeper research as well as a richer and livelier narrative.

I am troubled by a couple of sloppy bits in Baatz's book, regarding the 'ABCD cases' and the jailhouse murder of Dickie Loeb by James Day. The ABCD cases were unidentified and unsolved crimes of mutilation, theft, and possibly arson, that Leopold and Loeb were suspected of but never charged with. The exact crimes under consideration were never revealed, but there was a long list of possibilities. Daily newspapers in 1924 theorized that one of the crimes was the abduction and castration of a taxicab driver, Charles Ream. Like the Chicago press, Baatz accepts this a little too easily.

The James Day matter is more alarming. Day slashed Dick Loeb to death with a straight razor, one day in a prison shower stall. Day smoothly explained it away as self-defense against a sexual predator (Loeb). Prison chaplains and inmates who knew the two men said that Day was clearly lying, and had some other agenda--revenge, perhaps, or blackmail. The most unpalatable thing about Day's story was that Day slashed Loeb six dozen times but didn't have a mark on him himself. For whatever reason (boredom?), Baatz accepts Day's account without challenge.

Baatz sometimes shows a refreshing skepticism. Traditionally the capsule summary of the case has been, "Two brilliant boys who thought they could get away with murder!" But of course they didn't get away with murder...and neither were they the sharpest knives in the drawer. About five years ago I wrote an Amazon review of the Hal Higdon book. I griped that Higdon and other commentators on the case had been a little too gullible in accepting Leopold and Loeb's pretenses of rare and spectacular intellectual brilliance--their IQs of 210 or whatever, Leopold's claim to be fluent in 27 languages! I flatter myself that Simon Baatz may have read my Amazon review, because he makes much the same point toward the end of the book.

In addition to being a compelling read, Simon Baatz does what few authors (to my mind anyway) have done: he has provided a complete picture of our criminal justice system. Beginning with the anguish of the victim's family and ending with the death of the last and finally remorseful conspirator, Baatz captures all the essential elements of crime and punishment. The planning, the execution, the investigation, the subsequent trial, and the incarceration are all here.

Diving into the depths of depravity, the trial walks you through a seemingly circular debate over the senselessness of crime and the usefulness of punishment. Accompanying this especially good description of the trial and the controlling law are equally good descriptions of the lawyers and the criminal justice philosophies they espoused. Not so good is the background of the Nietzschien philosophy espoused by the boys or the ways in which they personified it to others (except for the murder of course). Descriptions of the planning and execution of the crime make up for this deficiency in their creepiness and with the remaining portions of the book present a story that is as well told as it is well researched.

That would be Clarence Darrow. He saved the lives of the two educated, arrogant young men who appear on the cover. The nuance and logic of his arguments were lost on many at the time, and would probably be lost on most citizens today, but it was a crafty, brilliant defense.

The details of the crime -- disgusting though they were -- are necessary in order to put Darrow's defense in context. Leopold and (especially) Loeb are extremely difficult to like or root for, so Darrow's opposition to the death penalty is presented in purely moral terms. The readers of this book, and those following the trial back in the 1920s, would be hard-put to argue on behalf of these two on an emotional basis.

My only gripe about this book is so much of it is devoted to the crime and the trial and so little to Nathan's and Richard's lives in prison. I wonder how they felt about the old man who spared their lives, or how often they kept in touch with one another. I don't want to be a spoiler for anyone unfamiliar with the story, but one of the young killers manages to change his life in meaningful way in prison. I would have liked to understand more about that.

As it is, though, this book paints an intriguing portrait of a great legal mind. Amid the squalor that was Nathan and Richard and their horrific crime against Bobby Franks, we can find a hero in Clarence Darrow.

"For the Thrill of It" is well written & the narrative flows. Simon Baatz focuses on the details of the murder but also discusses the social forces which made the murder possible and shaped the trial's outcome. I plan to buy this for my cousin who lives in a Chicago suburb & whose parents must have read about Leopold & Loeb in the daily newspapers.

I've read a lot about this case and was intrigued by this newest book - I bought the Kindle version - which is fine and didn't have some of the glitches others mentioned in their reviews.

Anyway - this book started out like a horse out of the gate - immediately engrossing - THEN hit a snag with the profiles of the lawyers - and the trial itself which is portrayed from the perspectives of the psychiatrists and psychologists and NOT from the perspective of Clarence Darrow and the State's attorney, which would be so much more compelling.

The book runs out of steam - I STILL have not finished it - because what was so promising from the opening pages has become a messy slog. Too bad, because this should have been a crackerjack of a book!

A through, well research, yet easily read book on Leopold and Loeb. I read this book in only knowing of the names in history past. It truly enlighted me to the facts of the case, their personalities, the lawyers arguments, the crime itself, the sentencing and the final outcome of the case. I give credit to Simon Baatz for a book that doesn't glamorize the subjects but only sticks to the facts of the case. For any historian, lawyer, law enforcement officer, crime buff, and sociology student a very good book. It's laid out in a way that makes the book flow for it's readers. I will have to give this book 4 stars. Taking away a star for the repeditiveness in the case concerning the lawyers, their lenghty backrounds and for the repeditive volume of information on Clarence Darrow.

Simon Baatz's account of the grotesque murder committed by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb is an incredible read. Rarely does a professional historian from the Ivy League make the move towards publishing a piece for the popular audience. Writing in a style of the "true crime" genre Baatz is able to capture a realism through a true-to-life narrative style that is gripping and magnificently informative at the same time.

Leopold and Loeb have gone down as infamous killers whose lawyer made the death penalty look "cruel and unusual" as our Constitution declares. However, their story isn't as complicated as their defense attorneys made it out to be, and it would not have been any loss to society if they had been hanged. But our understanding of crime was forever changed by two of the most privileged and violent young men to live in Chicago during the 1920s. Much of the strategy behind the arguments we make and encounter today originated in their courtroom 85 years ago.

Hence, Simon Baatz is to be commended for his meticulous research and lively writing style in that he has brought to life a a truly distressing episode in American legal history which has become more of the stuff of myth than reality. Trial transcripts and first hand reports always tell a more interesting story than newspaper editorials and revering lawyers who embellish the details to suit their interests.

They killed "for the thrill of it."

Two young men, both rich. And both, above all, too smart for the police.

The story of Leopold and Loeb is true and old. (It happened way back in the 1920s and "shocked jazz age Chicago.")

Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold hatched a plot to kidnap 14-year-old Bobby Franks, the son of a Chicago millionaire. Then they killed him. For the "thrill of the experience."

"For the thrill of it" charts the course of the murder -- and the courtroom drama that unfolded afterward.

It is considered the definitive work on Leopold and Loeb. And maybe it is (I haven't read the others).

The book is "technically" well-written, but lacking in narrative. It promises to draw "the reader into a world of speakeasies and flappers, of gangsters and gin parties, with a spellbinding narrative of Jazz Age murder and mystery. (I must've missed those parts, even though I was looking really hard.)

The details of the crime are bold, complete with sentences like: "He jammed a rag down the boy's throat, stuffing it down as hard as possible, forcing it in with his fingers past the boy's teeth, pushing against the resistance of the tongue." When the boys went to hide the boy, they first stopped for hot dogs and root beer. With the decaying body still in the car!

Clarence Darrow, the famed attorney (the Johnnie Cochran of the day), defended the young men.

I won't tell you what happens next.

For the Thrill of It is a nice, solid overview of the Leopold and Loeb case. Before beginning this book, I knew only the most basic of facts regarding these notorious killers, and I find that after having completed the book, I most likely know all there is to know.

The book itself starts out with a bang, describing the murder and the investigation leading up to the apprehension of Leopold and Loeb. After a very unfortunate (and LENGTHY!) detour into the history of Darrow and Crowe (the defense and prosecution, respectively), the book picks up steam again before going into too much droning detail regarding the psychiatric testimonies given in court. At one point, it just felt like piling on, and I longed to be done with reading about what psychiatrists thought of Leopold and Loeb as this section consisted mostly of different psychiatrists saying the same things, over and over again.

All in all, this is an enjoyable book, and the lengthy detours didn/t really detract from my overall impression. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a breezy read about the Leopold and Loeb case.

In May 1924 two 19 year old boys kidnapped and murdered a 14 year old boy. The murderers, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, were highly intelligent and arrogant individuals who subscribed to the Nietzschean notion of the "superman" who was outside the law. Their victim was selected almost at randon, and their rationale for killing him was to experience pleasure at committing a perfect crime. A tiny mistake led to Loeb and Leopold's arrest a few days later. Their wealthy families were able to hire the best defense attorney available, Clarence Darrow, and their subsequent jury-less trial became one of the major news events of the year, while they themselves became two of the first criminal celebrities.

Simon Baatz's training as a legal historian well equipped him to do an excellent job telling Loeb and Leopold's story. In meticulous detail, he describes their early, highly promising lives and their months of planning to commit the perfect crime. Then he traces the daily process by which they were tracked down, arrested, and brought to trial. There are some fascinating short biographies of the prosectors and judges involved in the case, especially Clarence Darrow. I found most interesting the coverage of the different theories pronounced by advocates of various branches of what was still the fairly new science of psychology, and of the controversy that raged over whether Loeb and Leopold should be hanged or imprisoned for life. Baatz rounds out the story by describing the subsequent lives of the main protagonists.

This is a well written book which well explains why the Loeb-Leopold murder so fascinated America, and why it was symptomatic of many of the tensions and changes which influenced the country through the 1920s.

Leopold, and especially Loeb, exhibited the DSM IV criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder. I was impressed by the doctors' references to "Disorders of Personality" long before there was a DSM classification for Antisocial Personality Disorder. They were ahead of their time in addressing personality disorders. They got it absolutely right. They nailed it.

This readable, illustrative effort narrates one of the most sordid crimes ever. In Chicago in 1924 rich collegians Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb kidnapped and murdered young Bobby Franks for thrills. Contributing to the crime were the killers' fantasies, homosexual relationship, and arrogant view of themseles as Supermen ala philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Readers learn all about the brutal crime, its planning, execution, the evidence (eyeglasses) accidentally left with the body, interrogations, and confessions. Then came the media-event trial, which drew nationwide coverage ala O.J. Simpson. Famed attorney Clarence Darrow defended the two brutal killers in an attempt to defeat capital punishment. His strategy was to have his clients change their pleas to guilty at the last moment, then use psychiatric testimony to prove them mentally diseased but not insane and thus deserving life in prison rather than the noose. Obviously State's Attorney Robert Crowe and his alienists took a different view. Readers learn about the competing psychological testimony, which was given soley to determine sentencing. There is also a look at the trial's lengthy aftermath.

Author/historian Simon Baatz keeps the pages turning with his riveting prose. The account here is somewhat different than the one found in Hal Higdon's excellent CRIME OF THE CENTURY - no mention of the State's Attorney's intimidating remarks in his summation, a different take on Loeb's murder in prison, etc. Still, this is a very readable, illustrative account.

This readable, illustrative effort narrates one of the most sordid crimes ever. In Chicago in 1924 rich collegians Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb kidnapped and murdered young Bobby Franks for thrills. Contributing to the crime were the killers' fantasies, homosexual relationship, and arrogant view of themseles as Supermen ala philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Readers learn all about the brutal crime, its planning, sloppy execution, the evidence (eyeglasses) accidentally left with the body, interrogations, and confessions. Then came the media-event trial, which drew nationwide coverage ala O.J. Simpson. Famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow took the case in an attempt to attack capital punishment. The strategy was to plead guilty, then use psychiatric testimony to show the killers were mentally diseased but not insane and thus deserved life in prison instead of the noose. Obviously the State's Attorney and his alienists took a different view. Readers learn about the competing psychological testimony, which was given soley to determine sentencing. There is also a look at the trial's lengthy aftermath.

Author/historian Simon Baatz keeps the pages turning with his riveting prose. The account here is somewhat different than CRIME OF THE CENTURY by Hal Higdon - no mention of State's Attorney Bob Crowe's intimidating remarks in his summation, and a different take on Loeb's murder in prison. Still, this is a very readable, illustrative account.

This shocking story was a part of our family reading because our son, an aspiring actor, was playing the lead role in "Never the Sinner" which was another historical representation of the Leopold and Loeb saga. We wanted to read the whole story. Wow.
Intriguing, and well written, and TRUE!!