Alex Hortis

Mar 23, 2024 | journalgazette.net | Gregg Olsen |Alex Hortis |Casey Sherman |Susan Zalkind

These true crime works are newly available through the Allen County Public Library.

Mar 5, 2024 | crimereads.com | Alex Hortis

“The trial of Polly Bodine will take place at Richmond, on Monday next, and will, no doubt, excite much interest,” wrote Edgar Allan Poe on June 18, 1844, for the Columbia Spy. Poe had recently moved to New York where, he declared, “I intend living for the future.” He got a temporary lift when he sold “The Balloon Hoax” story, a fictional account of the first transatlantic balloon crossing to Moses Yale Beach of the Sun. THE ATLANTIC OCEAN CROSSED IN THREE DAYS!! screamed the Sun in April 1844.

Dec 6, 2023 | kirkusreviews.com | Alex Hortis |David Grann |Elie Wiesel |Marion Wiesel

A lively history of early New York through one woman’s horrendous ordeal. 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.