I recently had the chance to write a cover blurb for the new book In Search of SACCO & VANZETTI: Double Lives, Troubled Times, & and Massachusetts Murder Case that Shook the World, by Susan Tejada. Here's what I came up with--
"Susan Tejada gives us Sacco and Vanzetti as real human beings ripe with complexity, which makes their sad case all the more compelling. In the process, she opens a window on a younger America, and presents this cause celebre case as what it is, a classic drama of an unsolved crime cutting so close to society's rawest nerves that it can spill spark heated arguments a century later. This is an important story told well."
Here's the longer, starred review from Booklist--
"This is a terrific reexamination of the Sacco and Vanzetti case by journalist Tejada, whose lively writing and reporter's eye offer a fresh, invigorating perspective on otherwise familiar characters and historical episodes. She brings the suspense and engagement of a good thriller to the events surrounding the April 1920 murders of a Massachusetts paymaster and security guard. . . . Her examination of the case and her "alternative theory" of their guilt or innocence are both compelling. . . . In the process, she has also written a very entertaining and perceptive history of early twentieth-century radicalism, anarchism, the Wobblies, and the American Labor Movement." --Booklist (starred review)
Check it out. Hope you enjoy it. --KA
