The first story to give me a healthy Augustinian appreciation of human depravity when I was a boy was the infamous murder of Bobby Franks committed by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. When I finally got around to reading Nietzsche, the crime came to symbolize the natural outcome of proud striving to seek an excellence “beyond good and evil.” But it seems it also makes a helluva story.
Joseph Epstein, writing in the Wall Street Journal , has only good things to say about For the Thrill of It , Simon Baatz’ new history of the case. Having not yet read it myself, I can’t responsibly give a full-throated recommendation, but if you can stand a little gruesomeness and have thirty bucks lying around, it could be worth your time.
