Book Signing sponsored by the Wake County Historical Society

The post-Civil War “New South” reflected the nation at large as wealth and power shifted from a landed aristocracy to families in business and finance. “Yet for all the advantages that new wealth and social position might bring to those in high places, it would not exempt them from life’s ‘slings and arrows,’ in some cases the result of outrages of their own making.”

Life and Death in High Places takes a close look at four families of Raleigh’s “New South,” detailing lives of privileged wealth marred by “a disputed marriage, a secretive offspring, a very public murder covered nationwide, extended litigation, a hidden room, a tragic suicide, and ensuing family dispersals.” The story includes the first known detailed summary and analysis of related litigation ending with one of North Carolina’s most famous criminal trials (a book chapter is scheduled for inclusion in the North Carolina State Bar Journal, March 2022).