The Last Trials of Clarence Darrow: An Intimate Portrait of the Leopold & Loeb, Scopes, and Sweet Cases

“Wonderfully evocative… Donald McRae captures the Great Defender in all his complexity.... A joy to read.” — Kevin Boyle, National Book Award-winning author of Arc of Justice

"Astonishingly vivid." —James Tobin, Award-winning author of Ernie Pyle’s War

The story of the three dramatic trials that resurrected the life and career of America’s most colorful—and controversial—defense attorney: Clarence Darrow. Many books, plays, and movies have covered Darrow and the trials of Leopold and Loeb, John T. Scopes, and Ossian Sweet before: Geoffrey Cowan’s The People v. Clarence Darrow; Simon Baatz’s For the Thrill of It; Kevin Boyle’s Arc of Justice; Meyer Levin’s Compulsion and the film adaptation of the same name; Inherit the Wind; but few, if any, have achieved the intimacy and immediacy of Donald McRae’s The Great Trials of Clarence Darrow.

Donald McRae is the acclaimed author of five nonfiction books, including Every Second Counts: The Race to Transplant the First Human Heart and Heroes Without a Country: America's Betrayal of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens. He is the only writer to have won the William Hill UK Sports Book of the Year Award twice. In 2005 he was named Feature Writer of the Year for his work in The Guardian. McRae lives near London with his family.