Blood & Ink

The Scandalous Jazz Age Double Murder That Hooked America on True Crime

By: Joe Pompeo

Narrated by: Robert Petkoff

Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo investigates the notorious 1922 double murder of a high-society minister and his secret mistress, a Jazz Age mega-crime that propelled tabloid news in the 20th century.

On September 16, 1922, the bodies of Reverend Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills were found beneath a crabapple tree on an abandoned farm outside of New Brunswick, New Jersey. The killer had arranged the bodies in a pose conveying intimacy.

The murder of Hall, a prominent clergyman whose wife, Frances Hall, was a proud heiress with illustrious ancestors and ties to the Johnson & Johnson dynasty, would have made headlines on its own. But when authorities identified Eleanor Mills as a choir singer from his church married to the church sexton, the story shocked locals and sent the scandal ricocheting around the country, fueling the nascent tabloid industry. This provincial double murder on a lonely lover’s lane would soon become one of the most famous killings in American history—a veritable crime of the century.

The bumbling local authorities failed to secure any indictments, however, and it took a swashbuckling crusade by the editor of a circulation-hungry Hearst tabloid to revive the case and bring it to trial at last.

Blood & Ink freshly chronicles what remains one of the most electrifying but forgotten murder mysteries in U.S. history. It also traces the birth of American tabloid journalism, pandering to the masses with sordid tales of love, sex, money, and murder.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Old Cold Case

I enjoy hearing about a col case from the 1920s. I did find it hard to keep up with so many people involved.

Gripping!

As a true crime dabbler this story caught my attention. It’s so much more than a story about murder! It’s a veritable time capsule for the people living a hundred years ago.
Very well written and well narrated! A must read/listen for anyone interested in true crime or the 1920’s!

Intriguing

Well written with many twists and turns. Unfortunately sloppy police investigation and the way the crime scene was managed, contributed to the perfect murders for the century.

The whole is less than the sum of its meager parts

It was an ambitious effort, weaving historical threads together and creating a compelling overall story. The problem is that none of the threads are particularly intriguing, which leads to an even less intriguing final woven narrative. By the end, when the author sets off on other tangential elements which bear little or no relevance to the actual stories up to that point, the listener is resigned to the idea that this is all there is folks.

Knew the Story, Loved the Book!

I studied this case in a law class at Rutgers years ago. I’ve been interested in it ever since. Pompeo did a tremendous job keeping a familiar story very interesting!