A Recommended Read from: The Los Angeles Times * Town and Country * The Seattle Times * Publishers Weekly * Lit Hub * Crime Reads * Alma

From the author of The Real Lolita and editor of Unspeakable Acts, the astonishing story of a murderer who conned the people around him -- including conservative thinker William F. Buckley -- into helping set him free

In the 1960s, Edgar Smith, in prison and sentenced to death for the murder of teenager Victoria Zielinski, struck up a correspondence with William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review. Buckley, who refused to believe that a man who supported the neoconservative movement could have committed such a heinous crime, began to advocate not only for Smith's life to be spared but also for his sentence to be overturned.

So begins a bizarre and tragic tale of mid-century America. Sarah Weinman's Scoundrel leads us through the twists of fate and fortune that brought Smith to freedom, book deals, fame, and eventually to attempting murder again. In Smith, Weinman has uncovered a psychopath who slipped his way into public acclaim and acceptance before crashing down to earth once again.

From the people Smith deceived -- Buckley, the book editor who published his work, friends from back home, and the women who loved him -- to Americans who were willing to buy into his lies, Weinman explores who in our world is accorded innocence, and how the public becomes complicit in the stories we tell one another.

Scoundrel shows, with clear eyes and sympathy for all those who entered Smith's orbit, how and why he was able to manipulate, obfuscate, and make a mockery of both well-meaning people and the American criminal justice system. It tells a forgotten part of American history at the nexus of justice, prison reform, and civil rights, and exposes how one man's ill-conceived plan to set another man free came at the great expense of Edgar Smith's victims.

• We started tracking this book on January 19, 2022.
• This book was $14.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 23 times in the past 1,358 days.
• The current price of this book is $1.99 last checked 15 hours ago.
• The lowest price to date was $1.99 last reached on October 6, 2025.
• This book has been $1.99 7 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $14.99 last reached on August 3, 2025.
• This book has been $14.99 10 times since we started tracking it.
• This book is currently at its lowest price since we started tracking it.

• Health, Fitness & DietingCounseling & PsychologyMental HealthMental Illness
• Politics & Social SciencesCrime & CriminalsCriminology
• Biographies & MemoirsTrue CrimeSerial Killers
• HistoryWomen in History

• Publication Date: February 22, 2022
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 464 Pages
• File Size: 143 KB