Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free – A Mid-Century Biography of Manipulation

by Sarah Weinman

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.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, History, Audiobook, Biography, Mystery

608 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2022

About the author

Sarah Weinman is the author of The Real Lolita: A Lost Girl, An Unthinkable Crime, and a Scandalous Masterpiece, which was named a Best Book of 2018 by NPR, BuzzFeed, The National Post, Literary Hub, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Vulture, and won the Arthur Ellis Award for Excellence in Crime Writing. She also edited the anthologies Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit & Obsession (Ecco) Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s (Library of America) and Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (Penguin).

Weinman writes the twice-monthly Crime column for the New York Times Book Review. A 2020 National Magazine Award finalist for Reporting, her work has also appeared most recently in New York, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, the Washington Post, and AirMail, while her fiction has been published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and numerous anthologies. Weinman also writes (albeit less regularly) the “Crime Lady” newsletter, covering crime fiction, true crime, and all points in between.

She lives in New York City.

(sarahweinman.com)

Reviews

[Jill H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have never heard of the subject of this book.....a killer named Edgar Smith who played the legal system for all it was worth and was a master manipulator.

Smith was accused and tried for the brutal murder of a teenage girl in his home town and sentenced to death. For some reason which I didn't think was very clear, the arch-conservative William Buckley took up his cause and brought many other high profile individuals into his camp, especially attorneys of the rich and famous. Thus began the legal battle to have the verdict overturned. Smith spent 14 years on death row as the case was argued, denied, and reintroduced as it worked its way through the justice system. The story concentrates on these years and Smith's manipulation of the people involved. During that time, he wrote a book about his conviction which did rather well and solidified the support for him.He also struck up a "romance" with the book's editor which eventually ruined her life. I will go no further regarding the outcome since there are several twists in the story which would be considered "spoilers".

I thought the overuse of copies of his letters from death row to some of the major players who were defending him became repetitive and slowed down the narrative. But they did show the psychotic side of Smith and gave the viewer a look at the "real" Edgar Smith who was not exactly what he appeared.

An interesting book but very slow in places. And it is also surprising.

[Cecilia · Rating 2 out of 5]

A strange book. Or, at least, a book that leaves me with a strange feeling. It was both interesting and boring. (I think another reviewer really insightfully summed it up when they said it was both really well researched and superficial). It was a great topic for an article, maybe. But the details are terribly mundane, and all in all, it’s not very illuminating. I’m sorry I gave so much mental space to this horrible person and his enablers.

[Sol · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Scoundrel" by Sarah Weinman while an interesting if slightly basic read on the crimes of Edgar Smith and his ability to manipulate William F. Buckley Jr. and Sophie Wilkins, and through them the courts. However, I had two major problems with this book. One was that this book was described and promoted as the incredible and odd relationship between the three individuals mentioned above. I felt like Weinman focused so intently on Edgar Smith and his crimes, that the book seemed more about the crimes of Edgar Smith and less about the way that all of these people somehow connected to one another despite their superficial differences. I was frustrated that though Weinman mentioned briefly the ways that race, politics, class, and gender played into the relationship of the trio she completely neglected to examine that. Which lead to a second major problem I had with the book. It was simply a compilation of evidence and less of a story. There was no examination of how Edgar Smith's ability, as stated by him, being a white, middle-class, attractive man, was able to cheat the courts, during a time when questions were being raised about the false imprisonment of people of color. Weinman focused so heavily on Edgar Smith that the greater socio-political context of the time period truly got lost and I was left with another story of a white man who through benefiting from his crimes and manipulation was able to worm his way out of prison. Again this is an interesting read but presented both no new perspectives and no examination or discussion of really anything.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a disappointment on several levels.

I was familiar with the story of Edgar Smith, convicted killer on death row who rallied prominent people (most notoriously, William Buckley) to his defense. Smith's book "Brief Against Death" ranks as possibly the most nauseatingly deceptive, self-serving autobiography ever written. I was looking forward to reading about new facts in the case and a comprehensive update on Smith's career after his release from prison.

It turns out that the "Scoundrel" (a curious name to give a cold-blooded sociopathic killer, suggesting more of a mischievous rascal) was, apart from having a jailhouse gift for language and a sleazy brand of charm, rather a dull character. The most interesting thing about him was his ability to con people of disparate backgrounds into working on his behalf. One of them was Sophie Wilkins, who worked for the Knopf publishing house, cultivated Smith and lobbied Knopf to handle "Brief Against Death". It's another curiosity of this book that Wilkins, whose relationship with Smith smacks of two-way exploitation, is given such sympathetic treatment by Weinman*, while Buckley, who unlike Wilkins didn't stand to gain career-wise, is viewed in a much more hostile way. We're told that Buckley's father was not only a bigot but a man who believed in (shudder) laissez-faire capitalism! This is irrelevant to William Buckley's support of Smith, but has more to do with Weinman's own politics, which seep into the book at other points. Weinman expresses outrage that people should have rallied behind Smith, seeing that "the lives of countless Black and Brown boys and men are permanently altered by the criminal justice system". It's never explained what the murder of a white teenager, Vickie Zielinski or Smith's experiences with the law had to do with race. At one point Weinman, having cited an early National Review article on the case by staff writer Donald Coxe, mentions in a footnote that Coxe and his wife soon returned to Canada, "where they felt they could have a better, and more affordable, quality of life for themselves and their children." What this has to do with the Smith case is even more mystifying, unless Weinman, raised in Ottawa, couldn't resist an opportunity for Canada boosterism (alternately, for a certain species of progressive, no opportunity to fawn on the Canadian system can be overlooked).
Seeing that the cover of Weinman's book announces how "a convicted murderer persuaded...the Conservative Establishment" to set him free, I was looking forward to seeing who else on the right wing was involved. But Weinman only has Buckley to point to. A number of well-known figures on the left also spoke out in support of Smith, but it would have been equally silly to proclaim that "the liberal establishment" was behind him. This is a minor irritant, but displays a lack of professionalism on the author's part.

Finally, Weinman has made a big deal out of supposedly being a spokesman for the "voiceless", women harmed by their association with Smith (the people who foolishly supported Smith, men and women, supposedly did so because it was easy then to disregard and erase women). In spite of this alleged attention to victims, which other recent true crime writers have boasted about, the focus of this book is heavily on Smith, in all his smarmy and repulsive glory.

*Wilkins and her colleagues at Knopf were remarkably careless in accepting Smith's version of events and disregarding or handwaving away facts brought out by the police investigation and trial. Whether it was anti-death penalty fervor or a perceived opportunity to produce a lucrative, best-selling book (or both), they have a lot to answer for.

[LBK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weinman is a master of true crime. Reading this, I couldn't understand why anyone believed this man but he absolutely preyed on people and was at his heart, a con man. Truly an unbelievable and alarming story but I feel like there are parallels to some folks now who get lifted up in the media.

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

I felt that this book was well researched. Probably stayed relatively true to fact. And related to a true crime that I had never heard of before.

However I felt that the story was way too long. There was a reference to personal letters between the criminal and his book editor that could have been greatly reduced. The author made her point of this man being persuasive - even while in prison and through the written media of his letters - many many times over. There were also sexual innuendos that took up pages that could have been totally eliminated. You already knew from earlier in the book that this man was a deviant jackass.

Edgar Smith, close and personal friend of William F Buckley, estimated to have approximately $30 million at his death, having spent thousands of dollars on this man, spent 15 years of his life in prison for the murder of a 15 year old girl - of which he had a number of court trials. Due to some changes in law, and his affiliation with Buckley, he was released. While incarcerated he wrote a book about his conviction and the subsequent murder, hence having a book deal and editor, arranged by Buckley. Smith was a degenerate, egotistical, blow hard. Very deserving of prison life, Smith went on to commit more crimes - even more deaths years later.

Now almost all people connected to Smith are dead - Smith included, after outliving most of them including ex-wives, witnesses, prosecutors, judges and William F Buckley.

[Athena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before this book, I hadn’t heard of Edgar Smith, his crimes, his books, or the relationships that championed his eventual release from prison. As time passes, the true crime genre has lost a lot of its appeal for me. But Scoundrel was touted as an examination of how Edgar Smith was able to manipulate the system and those with power to win his release from death row, despite his guilt and return to crime barely five years later. I thought this would be a heavier book that discusses how some can manipulate the system, despite their guilt, while so many others languish in prison under false convictions. That ultimately was not the case.

Scoundrel is a detailed timeline of Edgar Smith, from the murder he commits to his bitter end nearly 60 years later. Weinman tirelessly details his many legal efforts to overturn his conviction, the lengthy and numerous edits that went into his death-row memoir, and the many letters he exchanged with infamous conservative, William F. Buckley. Despite the wide scope the author takes, this book ultimately feels… superficial. Yes, we are privy to the many, many private letters exchanged between Smith, Buckley, and several other characters. Yes, we are presented with snippets of court documents, newspaper articles, among other written artifacts from Smith’s life. But the narrative never really progressed beyond “so this happened, and they wrote this in consequence.”

There is no doubt that Smith was guilty, nor do I doubt that he used his powerful friendships to manipulate an already broken system. But I don’t walk away from this book understanding what endeared him to the public, Buckley, or any of the other people in his web. Early in the pandemic, I read The Real Lolita by the same author, and this book suffers many of the same problems. Besides a blurb in the introduction about the intersections of race and class within the American justice system, the book never dug deeper than a retelling of the facts. While Scoundrel was interesting to read, I had hoped for something complex, and it never got there.

[vanessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t think the author did her own introduction justice. It begins by discussing how true crime has been changing in the past decade or so to pay more attention to the victims & survivors. There’s also mention that books about the justice system are paying more mind to how race and social class affect cases. Honestly, this book did none of that. It didn’t highlight these inconsistencies; instead it was a play by play of the life of Edgar Smith and his crimes. We paid too close attention to his misdeeds and his biography, without any real analysis as to why his case is indicative of what sociopathic white men got away with in the 1950s-1980s. Truthfully, I did not need to know about this man. Even the bits about how he got in with the publishing industry and with William F. Buckley didn’t necessarily take center stage.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about a guy named Edgar Smith. Edgar Smith murdered a teen-aged girl, was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and was sentenced to death. That’s when right-wing gadfly William F. Buckley swept in to free Edgar from his confinement, only to have Edgar come close to killing another woman. If you’re thinking that William F. Buckley kinda sounds like the bad guy in this story, you’re pretty much right. At the end of the day, Edgar Smith couldn’t help what he was; he was a psychopathic murderer and a congenital liar. Buckley, on the other hand, was a rich jackass who used his wealth and influence to set a psychopath free. And all because Edgar read the right-wing rag that Buckley published (that would be The National Review. Think of it as “Fox News for people who can read"). Buckley’s reason for helping Edgar is because “no one who reads The National Review could possibly be a murderer.” Uh-huh. This is what happens when your ego is the only functioning part of your brain.
It would be one thing if Buckley was just a right-wing dipshit who fell for a conman. As we’ve seen in the last seven years, he has plenty of company in that department. It’s his other actions in this matter that make him rather despicable. In articles he writes in support of his pet psycho, Buckley manages to denigrate Edgar’s victims with baseless and cruel accusations. And, once Edgar is back behind bars after Buckley frees him, Willie has the unmitigated gall to blame the court system for Edgar’s release! And who made that release possible, Willie? Was it the lawyers you paid for and your constant clarion calls for a duly-convicted murderer to go free?
I’m sure glad I got that whole “William F. Buckley was a real douchebag” thing off my chest. Now then… I think I was doing a book review. I don’t want you to think I’ve spoiled anything in what I’ve written so far. Oddly enough, Ms. Weinman starts with an introduction that covers every major point in this book, sort of like an outline for a college term paper.
That is where my criticism ends, because this is a very well-written book, one that’s hard to put down. Maybe that’s the idea behind the encapsulating introduction. Ms. Weinman is letting us know this train is going to crash. She spends the rest of the book showing us exactly how the engine barreled off the bridge into the gorge below, taking quite a few victims, literal and figurative, down with it. I’ve written before about the changing nature of true crime books and Ms. Weinman is a leader in that field. Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession, a compendium of modern true crime chronicles that she edited, is one of the best true crime books I’ve read in quite awhile. In Scoundrel, Ms. Weinman shows what a talented writer she herself is. She tracks a small-town murder case as it explodes onto the national stage, never dispassionately but never straying from the facts. Ms. Weinman doesn’t waste time on moralizing that Buckley is a mean-spirited rube who gets conned by a psycho. She simply lays out the facts that allow the reader (or, more specifically, this reader) to come to that conclusion. Much of this book depends on correspondence between Edgar and Buckley as well as Edgar and the editor of a book he writes. I can see why some people might feel like these sections tend to drag a bit. At the very least, the reader might be more than a little icked-out by the salaciously sexual content in the letters a 30-something Edgar writes to his 50-something female editor. In the end, these letters are an integral part of the story that she’s telling and would be poorer without them. It certainly didn't keep me from ripping through this book. She had me hooked. I really wanted to see just how this train would crash.

From the “Tit for Tat” Department
After my ranting about right-wing douchebag William F. Buckley, I would be remiss not to mention that Ms. Weinman references an incident in which liberal douchebag author Norman Mailer championed the release of career criminal Jack Abbott. Shortly after Abbott was freed in 1980, he murdered a man and was sent back to prison. It would be easy to paint Mailer with the same brush I’ve used on Buckley, but there are some glaring differences between the two cases. Abbott was already set for an early release from prison, whereas Buckley managed to get a guilty man off of death row. To my knowledge, Mailer never denigrated or lied about Abbott’s victims the way Buckley did concerning the female victims of Edgar Smith. In a quite ironic twist, when I Googled the Mailer/Abbott incident, one of the first results was an article published in 2017 in The New Republic, the very magazine that Buckley founded. In the article, the author makes a big deal about how Mailer’s publishing success left him with an oversized ego, mirroring William Buckley’s inflated sense of self-worth on his initial publishing success. The author states that Mailer’s arrogance led him to run a losing campaign for mayor of New York City, exactly like William Buckley did. All these amazing parallels to the case of Buckley and Smith, yet not once does the author mention that the guy who founded the magazine that she's writing in freed a murderer long before Mailer ever did. The author of that article? Sarah Weinman.

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh! The photos were 4 star. Could have added several.

This was a decent rendition. Written at an average prose flow ability but with lack of focus continuity.

The author's bias was obstructive and made it circuitous at points. When it actually wasn't so in chronological time and event. I doubt I will read more of hers.

This guy was a mental case with vast personality and association skills. It is not that rare. Dozens to hundreds get out of prison to reoccur worse crimes presently. Innocent victims in the 1000's daily.

His original sentence would have been the fairest. And would have ended any opportunity for more victims of his brutality. Which occurred.

[Alex Cruse · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars.

A true WTF book. Literally how this man played the system and the people around him is angering and will leave you going “how?!” often.

[Barbara Nutting · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just read the Introduction and skip the book or skip the introduction and read the book! The introduction tells the whole story, so there are no surprises. Another reviewer suggested just reading Wikipedia and don’t bother with the book at all - I agree.

I love True Crime but Ms Weinman is no Ann Rule. I found this pretty boring and mechanical.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story itself is reasonably interesting, but I really wanted Weinman to go beyond straightforward narrative and to analyse this story to tell us why it matters. William F Buckley Jr was a reactionary and a racist who devoted his life to building the conservative movement. What about Edgar Smith's story caught and held his attention for so long? Buckley was a man convinced of his own intelligence and contemptuous of almost everyone else's; he was not a man open to either self-reflection or humility. He believed firmly in the authority of the police and law enforcement, dismissing with contempt concerns about police misconduct, lawbreaking, and brutality. So why did he side with the criminal against law enforcement in this case? He certainly withheld his sympathy from people who deserved it a whole lot more than Edgar Smith did, so why was he so ready to extend it to Smith? How did his advocacy of Smith's innocence fit into his larger political concerns and priorities? Without some analysis or thoughtful engagement with Buckley's ideas, he's a cipher, a patsy, just someone Smith conned. And there's much more to be said about the celebrity accorded Smith, albeit briefly. What was going on in the culture in the 1970s that contributed to Edgar Smith becoming such a focus of attention? Smith was certainly ready to take advantage of those cultural currents, but Weinman doesn't have anything to say about what they were. Without some contextualization or broader cultural framework, the story of Edgar Smith and William Buckley and all the others who circled in Smith's orbit is just an odd story, nothing of significance beyond its factual elements.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book but unbelievable that a man could be so evil and deceive so many people especially a famous person like William T Buckley.Edgar Smith murdered a young 15 year old girl and then tried to say his friend did it.He ended up being on death row for 14 years before Buckley and other people helped set him free by thinking he was innocent.It nearly cost another young woman her life by releasing him.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah Weinman’s books have followed a familiar pattern of bringing to life the women of whom are the object of inspiration for horrible, powerful men. Just as she did in The Real Lolita, Weinman covers the lives of the women Edward Smith assaulted, with special detail to the one he murdered, and how he connived his way to an early prison release thanks in part to William F. Buckley, who denigrated the victim without knowing her. Not as tight of a story as her other book, but still mostly well told and important for understanding how the female victims and survivors of violence are often pawns in a larger narrative.

[Sherrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

***I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway***

I liked this book but I can't help but feel like it could have been so much MORE than what it was. The author did a fantastic job researching Edgar Smith and the case that sent him to death row (the murder of a 15 year old girl). She provided back story to all the key people in his life and laid out the story chronologically, clearly, and as far as I can tell...accurately.

But, there's so much more going on than the facts. How did Edgar Smith get women to fall in love with him from prison? What were they feeling? How did he get a famous and successful conservative businessman to bend over backwards for him repeatedly? Why does our justice system fail so many in such myriad of ways? I feel like Scoundrel only scratched the surface of those questions when it could have delved so much deeper.

It's really unfortunate that the author doesn't disclose much about her correspondence with the murderer til the last couple chapters. Even that small bit of connection helped draw me in, but by then the story was basically over.

If you're really into true crime, and like stories that stick to the facts, you will like Scoundrel. It just wasn't it for me.

[britt_brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Convicted murderer Edgar Smith was a master manipulator and incredible con artist. While on death row, he maintained ardent epistolary affairs, built relationships on deceit (most notably with conservative political commentator William F Buckley), and ultimately got what he wanted. A scarily brilliant psychopath; mediocre book.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 3.5. I first heard of this book after the author appeared on a Know Your Enemy episode, at which point I read her previous book, The Real Lolita. While I liked The Real Lolita fine, I vastly preferred Scoundrel, which felt like a solid improvement. However, a lot of the issues I found with Weinman's previous work are here as well.

The best part of this book is the story itself, which is fascinating, appalling, and at times ridiculously funny (the Hatkik chapter had me in tears while brushing my teeth, thank you audible). This isn't a part of criminal justice history that a lot of people know about, and I think Weinman overall did a good job of rendering it in a compelling way. I found some people say they found the writing dull or boring, but personally I disagree and think it suits the genre just fine.

Despite appreciating the story, I had several issues with the book overall. For one, while I loved the way Weinman emphasized women (Buckley's wife and secretary stand out in particular) as especially perceptive of Smith's bullshittery, I found that his actual victims fell to the wayside much of the time. This is compounded by the fact that there was a lot more graphic description of assault and murder than I expected, as that was generally absent from The Real Lolita. The book opens by saying the true crime genre has progressed in terms of its depiction of victims, becoming more progressive and respectful in its portrayals. However, Scoundrel itself seemed not to put much focus on the women Smith murdered, instead focusing much more on the Buckley/Wilkins/Smith dynamic. I understand this choice, but it still did not fully sit right with me.

My larger issue is that I think Weinman could have done more systemic analysis throughout this story. In a weird way, she crafts a "Great Man Narrative" around Smith, depicting him as simply so cunning and manipulative that there was no way any prison system could contain his brilliance. But, she does no analysis about how Smith's characteristics and victim typology (disenfranchised young women) assisted in his getting out. She references these facts but does not dig into what it really means, and how much Smith's release was contingent upon the social construction of redemption and "what a good man looks and talks like." I think this makes the story feel a lot weaker, as tying in a more systemic analysis could have made the story feel more impactful and resonant. As it stands, Scoundrel feels more like an anecdote than an indictment.

Still, I thought this was an interesting book and am glad I read it, if for nothing else than the extremely funny/shocking Hatkik section. I would be interested in reading whatever Weinman wrote next and I really hope she dives more into systems and analysis than she has previously.

[Robert Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah Weinman tells the story of the convicted criminal (murder and attempted murder) Edgar Smith and those who entered his circle. Edgar Smith was a pure sociopath who was also an attention seeker. There were plenty of people who gave him that attention, especially those such as William F. Buckley and Sophie Wilkins, who corresponded with him for years helping him to get his foot in the door of the world of authors. His is a story of seeking freedom at whatever cost, gaining freedom, and losing freedom because old habits die hard.

While I know that the "love" letters between Sophie and Edgar support the claim of "how a convicted murderer persuaded the women who loved him," I honestly could have done without all of the time given to them. I also know that William F. Buckley pretty much was the representative of the Conservative Establishment, but I would have preferred some more details from some other people. I also would have liked some more details on the legal side of the cases, too.

The coda is appreciated because it tells the story of Edgar's first crime and how that crime impacted the victim for her entire life. This was also shown elsewhere, too, with the family of the girl he murdered alongside the woman he stabbed and nearly killed. This focus is important in a work of the true crime genre.

Additionally, this book would have been stronger if more could have been shared about the thoughts and actions of Sophie Wilkins and William F. Buckley once they no longer believed his innocence.

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most crime writing alternately entertains and repulses the reader. Such is the case with the story of convicted murdered Edgar Smith, who was sent to prison for murdering a 15 year old girl. Smith read the National Review political magazine and began a correspondence with right wing publisher William F. Buckley. To fully understand the times, it would be good to watch some of the televised debates between Gore Vidal, who is gay, liberal and handsome, and Buckley with his sneering looks and rodent like teeth. Buckley loathed Vidal, and Vidal further antagonized as he could only do best by calling Buckley a neo Nazi and then writing Myra Breckenridge, a transgender main character. Vidal was ahead of his time in many ways nd I do respect Buckley's intellect but I enjoyed seeing this narcissistic pomposity get reeled in and played hard by a sociopath. Buckley provided Smith with financial management, legal help, and a publisher for his story. There the plot thickens as women are introduced to this plot. Sophie Knopf, an editor with Knopf, worked on publishing Smith's book Brief Against Death. Sophie is addicted to the dopamine rush of a relationship with a violent sociopath, but she begins to learn just what kind of crazy Smith is when the book gets published and he irrationally lashes out at her as well begins relationships with other women. The last part will be his undoing. No spoilers, but I am pretty you guess how this tragedy ends.

[Gronk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew nothing about Edgar Smith before picking this up from the library.
Weinman writes clearly and the narrative is well paced. The title is a bit misleading - Weinman shows us that Smith convinced many that he didn't commit the murder he was convicted of, but she doesn't show us *how*. People were simply duped. Weinman writes this about one of his dupes: "She couldn't fathom that Edgar had actually done it when he'd written such wonderful letters to herself and to Buckley."

What's interesting to me is the reason he was released from prison. His conviction was "overturned on the grounds that his unsigned confession was coerced and was therefore uncontitutional." He was to have a new trial within 60 days or he would have to be released.
A new trial was not held - instead he accepted a plea in which he admitted to killing Zielinski. The judge sentenced him to 25-30 years, credited the 14.5 years already served, gave time off for good behavior, and suspended the rest of the sentence. This was not a case of Smith duping the courts IMO.

What IS surprising is how anyone, presented with the information Weinman presents about the initial trial, could believe him to be not guilty. Buckley states had he been on the jury he'd have had reasonable doubt and voted not guilty. Even without modern forensics I don't understand how that would be possible given the evidence (even without the confession). Except that he was a good looking white man with charm who managed to write well.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for an ARC of this title.

I was a fan of the thorough approach Sarah Weinman took in The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World, and her curatorial eye in Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession, so I was very excited to see she was writing another true crime book about a case I hadn't heard anything about.

Edger Smith is a real piece of work, and Weinman does a great job of using various sources to show us just how he committed his many crimes, but also convinced everyone he was innocent (until that all fell apart in the 70s). I would have maybe loved a little more about his (apparently mostly terrible) work as a published author, but otherwise this does a great job of telling this story without glorifying its central figure.

[Erika Nerdypants · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my second book on killers who became protégés of leading intellectuals in the 1970s. In Austria, Jack Unterweger was championed out of prison and became a published author, only to go on to kill again. Edgar Smith, the subject of this book, escaped death row because of influential writers, and editors at Knopf publishing house who went to bat for him, believing in his innocence. When they succeeded, and it turns out they were just as wrong as their colleagues in Austria, another woman nearly lost her life.

Smith and Unterweger are sociopaths, doing what sociopaths the world over do. They lie, cheat, manipulate and kill. Awful, but nothing new. I wish this book could have given more insight into what motivated those intellectuals to champion their cause in the first place. Sophie Wilkins, the editor at Knopf is the only one who seems to examine her own culpability with any kind of real honesty, even when it is to her detriment. More than once Janet Malcolm's excellent "The Journalist and the Murderer" came to mind while reading this book.

[MM Suarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of Edgar Smith and his heinous crimes but I certainly had heard of William F. Buckley and I am not all that surprised that a white, entitled, arrogant man like him was persuaded and became an advocate for this killer, since men like Buckley consider themselves infallible, once he made up his mind that Smith was wrongly convicted (in spite of all evidence to the contrary) that was all she wrote.
Edgar Smith happened to be white and attractive, had Buckley become an advocate for any of the many black and brown men wrongly convicted of a brutal murder, now that would have surprised me. One of the most disgusting parts of the book (there are plenty) was reading editor Sophie Wilkin's sexually explicit letters to Smith, yuck!

[Avid Reader and Geek Girl · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

This was an interesting read. I liked that it was more about life than the violent crimes of the man. And mostly about the relationships within his life. The narration was excellent for a non-fiction book. This is also a guide in why never to just take someone at their word when they're convicted of a crime and claim they're innocent. And why you do need proof that there was something wrong with their trial or the investigation.

[Karla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading how people are so easily manipulated is frustrating. That he manipulated for his own gain, as do so many other people who never get caught, is awful. And a part of the mental health conversation. What happened to him in early life where he could not feel empathy for others? Or learn to take responsibility for his crimes? I wish the author would have delved into his mental issues - book was complete as it was but this additional evaluation would have been interesting.

[Siobhan Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think part of the challenge with this book is that Smith and his story are both so dislikeable that it's hard to enjoy the book. It's just frustrating to read about how he managed to weasel his way into people's hearts and minds - especially since he didn't seem that clever or creative. Like other books about legal proceedings, this one definitely had some dry moments, but Weinman did her best to make the plot and proceedings accessible to everyday readers.

[Angela's Booked · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so intriguing. Very well-written. Some parts felt like a work of fiction because I couldn’t believe what a smooth talker Edgar Smith was and how he got all these women he got to fall in love with him is beyond me.

[Rita Kerr-Vanderslice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scoundrel is interesting because of the relationship between Buckley and Smith but I'm not sure I got enough insight into why Buckley was so taken in by this dude. I wanted more of an exploration of why.

[Lindsay Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible story. So well researched and written. Just wow.