Quick, what do you think of when I say what happened after the American Revolution, and before the Civil War? The Louisiana Purchase? Yes! Ratifying the Constitution? Perfect! America’s first spree killers? Oh, didn’t see that coming did you? Well, don’t feel bad. Katherine Grandjean surprised me too with her excellent Kingdom of Devils.
The main characters are the Harp brothers. They are a couple of down-on-their-luck young men looking to make their way in the new America. They were also horse thieves, failed gamblers, and probably a bunch of other less-than-honorable things. What they certainly became was killers. They cut a wide swath through what would become Tennessee and Kentucky. They would murder at random in vicious and seemingly uncontrolled ways. Their spree would echo uncomfortably close to many more contemporary incidents we deal with today. And just like the most engrossing true crime stories, this one comes with more than one big twist.
Grandjean does an excellent job piecing together the Harps’ lives and their crimes. This is historical true crime, so the reader is warned that it does not follow the same formula of contemporary crime stories. Much of the book is taken up with explaining the setting and major events around the Harps in order to give the reader an idea of the “why” of their story. That said, the author tells a heck of a story. Make no mistake, Grandjean has to work damn hard to make this narrative hold together. She succeeds more than I thought was possible considering how spotty the records were for this time and place. A must-read for anyone who loves historical true crime, and highly recommended for everyone else.
(This book was provided as an advanced reader copy by NetGalley and Random House.)
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