MAY 2024 - AudioFile
Using the infamous 1843 murder trial of Polly Bodine of Staten Island, narrator Erin Bennet recounts the rise of tabloid journalism and the public's fascination with true crime. Indicted for killing her sister-in-law and niece, Bodine was the first American woman to be tried for capital murder. Her case perfectly illustrates media sensationalism. Bennett's delivery reflects the tone of the text: at times informational, at times incredulous, and at times fascinated with the workings of the justice system. Historical references to the impact of P.T. Barnum and Walt Whitman, as well as connections to recent cases like those of Amanda Knox, Casey Anthony, and O.J. Simpson, abound. Listeners will find themselves engaged by the in-depth research, captivating characters, and ultimate outcome of this historic case. K.S.M. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 01/15/2024
In this excellent work of true crime, historian Hortis (The Mob and the City) examines the case of Polly Bodine (1810–1892), who became infamous after she was accused of murdering her sister-in-law and infant niece. In December 1843, someone killed 24-year-old Emeline Houseman and her daughter, Eliza, in their Staten Island home before setting it on fire. Emeline’s father pointed the finger at Bodine, the last person seen with his daughter, theorizing that she’d killed the pair while trying to steal their silver. After Bodine gave conflicting alibis to authorities, she was charged with the murders. Her first trial ended in a hung jury, and the case was moved to Manhattan for a second trial. That jury convicted Bodine, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. A third and final trial held upstate ended in Bodine’s acquittal. Newspapers including the New York World seized on the story, stirring up public interest in the crimes and villainizing Bodine for her supposed avoidance of justice during her multiple trials. Hortis’s fastidious historical detail makes the episode come to life, and he successfully evokes contemporary tabloid scandals like the Amanda Knox trial without stretching the point too far. Fans of Daniel Stashower will love this. Agent: Scott Mendel, Mendel Media. (Mar.)
null Malcolm Gladwell in T
Hortis retells the story of the famous Apalachin incident, in 1957, when several dozen mobsters from around the country gathered at the upstate New York property of Joseph Barbara, Sr., for a weekend retreat.
David Dominé
In The Witch of New York, Alex Hortis invites us along on a bumpy yet entertaining ride that features the dueling attorneys and unscrupulous shysters who transformed the terrible murder of a mother and child into this country's seminal tabloid trial. Meticulous research and concise writing adroitly capture the zeitgeist of 1840s New York City, in the end effectively demonstrating how "tabloid justice would, one way or another, alter American law."
Susan Wels
Against a backdrop of scandal sheets and tabloid justice in 1840s New York, Alex Hortis deftly chronicles the sensational murder trials of Polly Bodine, the most infamous woman in America, and their lasting effects on the public’s imagination.
Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker
Hortis retells the story of the famous Apalachin incident, in 1957, when several dozen mobsters from around the country gathered at the upstate New York property of Joseph Barbara, Sr., for a weekend retreat.
The Daily Beast Ronald Fried
But what is less amusing is the way that this ‘man of honor’ denies any involvement in narcotics trafficking, a claim that is convincingly debunked by mob historian C. Alexander Hortis in his deeply researched book The Mob and the City.
Gangland News Jerry Capeci
If there’s a better book on the early history of Cosa Nostra in America, I haven’t seen it.
From the Publisher
Praise for The Mob and the City:
Kirkus Reviews
2023-12-06
The sad, sordid story of the first American woman to face trial for capital murder.
Mary Houseman Bodine (c. 1810-1892) was excoriated as “a fallen woman” and murderer before she was even tried in court for the deaths of her sister-in-law and infant niece in 1843. Having moved back to her father’s house on Staten Island, after leaving her abusive husband and taking her two children with her, Bodine often stayed over at her brother’s cottage, which was adjacent to her father’s. On the night of the crime, with only a shaky alibi when the house next door burned down, and perhaps the last to have seen her sister-in-law alive, Bodine was quickly suspected of the murders and also robbery, compounded by her disappearing into Manhattan and apparently pawning items at shops around town. Hortis, a constitutional lawyer, crime historian, and author of The Mob and the City, looks at how the rivaling tabloids and their owners—including James Gordon Bennett of the Herald and Moses Yale Beach of the Sun—tried to outdo each other in sensational coverage of Bodine’s story, relying on hearsay and fabrication to sell more papers. The author capably describes the melee of commerce and scandal that bristled in early New York City. The details that emerged—of Bodine’s romance with an apothecary in Manhattan, the boss of her teenaged apprentice son, and her advanced pregnancy—added to the prurient interest at the time, as did articles by Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman and a witchlike wax figure in P.T. Barnum’s museum. Hortis has combed the archives for material related to Bodine’s three explosive trials, and the book ultimately ends in her acquittal in a Newburgh, New York, court in 1846; he makes palpable the shameful character assassination and “slut-shaming” that Bodine endured.
A lively history of early New York through one woman’s horrendous ordeal.
