Blood & Ink: The Scandalous Jazz Age Double Murder That Hooked America on True Crime

by Joe Pompeo

Overview

New York Times Editor's Pick & Best True Crime of 2022

“Blood & Ink is among 2022’s best works of true crime.” —Washington Post

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. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063001749
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	12/05/2023
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	358,510
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Joe Pompeo is a correspondent at Vanity Fair, where he covers the media industry. He previously worked at publications including Politico and The New York Observer, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the Columbia Journalism Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his family. 

Editorial Reviews

"Pompeo retells the whole sordid business with care and authority, deftly pacing its astonishing developments... Blood & Ink is among 2022’s best works of true crime." — Washington Post

“Blood & Ink is an addictive whodunit and a vivid depiction of a crime that gripped a generation of newspaper readers.”  — New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice

"Engrossing . . . Pompeo's book is as much about the rise of tabloid journalism and the American public's appetite for lurid true-life tales as it is about the crime itself." — Wall Street Journal

“Joe Pompeo vividly brings to life all of the color, drama, and intrigue of a century-old murder case that continues to baffle investigators to this day. Set against the backdrop of a form of journalism that would metastasize in the decades that followed, Blood & Ink is a deft piece of investigative reporting and storytelling that refuses to lose its grip on the reader.” — Bryan Burrough, bestselling co-author of Barbarians At the Gate and Forget the Alamo

“A compulsively readable account of a sensational unsolved double murder a century ago . . . Pompeo provides the definitive account of the murders. This is essential reading for true crime buffs.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Pompeo expertly tells the rip-roaring tale of a century-old murder and the ongoing mysteries surrounding the deaths of a minister and his choir-singer lover. Pompeo also shows how the rise of the New York City tabloids kept the scandal alive from one generation to the next. I couldn’t put it down. You won’t be able to either.” — William D. Cohan, bestselling author of House of Cards

“Pompeo brilliantly presents one of the most fascinating cases in the annals of true crime, the Hall-Mills murders. Pompeo investigates a story that fuses religion, betrayal, greed, and adoration, which offers us a complex and tragic portrait of a love story that seemed almost doomed from start.” — Kate Winkler Dawson, author of American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI

"A deliciously tawdry, well-told tale . . . [Pompeo's] research is exhaustive, his command of details complete, the narrative fast paced and captivating . . . The result is first-rate historical true crime." — Washington Independent Review of Books

From the Publisher

★ 07/25/2022

Vanity Fair correspondent Pompeo debuts with a compulsively readable account of a sensational unsolved double murder a century ago. On Sept. 16, 1922, at an abandoned farm outside New Brunswick, N.J., the bodies of the Rev. Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills, who sang in the choir of his church, were found beneath a crabapple tree, posed in a manner to suggest intimacy. Hall was shot in the head, and Mills had been shot three times and her throat slit ear to ear. Both of their spouses were initially suspects, and Hall’s wife and her two brothers went on trial in 1926. The evidence wasn’t enough to convince the jury, however, and all three were found not guilty. Pompeo does a thorough job highlighting the questionable tactics of the scandal sheets of the period, such as a staged séance to elicit a confession. The Hall-Mills murders sold newspapers and brought thousands of curiosity seekers to the murder site before almost vanishing from memory as other scandals claimed the spotlight. Drawing on extensive documents related to the case that were lost until 2019, Pompeo provides the definitive account of the murders. This is essential reading for true crime buffs. Agent: David Marshall, Aevitas Creative Management. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

09/01/2022

Vanity Fair correspondent Pompeo tells two stories: a century-old unsolved murder and the rise of sensational and tabloid journalism. In 1922, the bodies of Reverend Edward Hall and choir singer Eleanor Mills, both married to other people, were found arranged in an intimate pose near a crabapple tree in New Brunswick, NJ. Phil Payne, editor of the New York Daily News, hired a top reporter to follow this case. Payne himself was soon scooped up by the New York Daily Mirror, launching an NYC tabloid war that would rage until the Mirror folded in October 1963. Pompeo shows how tabloid journalism was an unprecedented force that not only changed the course of justice in the murder investigation but also shaped the modern world. The accused, for example, were able to schmooze reporters in hopes of being portrayed more sympathetically, and the investigation and two trials resulted in aquittal. The case's physical evidence, transcripts, grand jury proceedings, and depositions survived, some by pure chance, which enabled Pompeo to present a full picture of what transpired. VERDICT This enthralling, well-researched book will be a nice addition to libraries' true-crime and mass communication sections.—Michael Sawyer

Library Journal