The unputdownable true crime story about a killer who preyed on children but was not much older than his victims. When fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874, Boston’s nightmarish reign of terror came to an end. Called the “Boston Boy Fiend,” he was finally safely behind bars. But questions remained about how and why a teenager could commit such heinous crimes. Acclaimed true crime writer Harold Schechter brings his brilliant insight and fascinating historical documentation to this unforgettable exploration of one of America’s youngest serial killers. You've probably never heard of Jesse Pomeroy unless you've read Caleb Carr's 1994 novel, The Alienist , which features a brief prison interview with "America's most famous lifer." But this legendary bogeyman will be hard to forget after you read his life story. Pomeroy tortured and murdered children in Boston in the 1870s. He was himself a child at the time, only 14 when he was finally arrested. Author Harold Schechter, a New York literature professor who has made a name for himself documenting nonfiction accounts of heinous crimes, deftly resurrects the past from newspaper accounts, letters, and other historical documents, including a reform school's massive volume disturbingly titled History of Boys . Schechter doesn't take the easy way out. He could have just pieced together reports and accounts, letting the record stiffly tell the tale. Instead, he blends his research into a seamless story, fascinating in its horror, as well as its ability to turn the century-old characters into real people. The reader will be pleased to find copies of engravings, photos, and sketches of Pomeroy, from his heyday as "boy-fiend," as well as his later days behind bars, when fellow inmates changed his nickname to a less-sinister "Grandpa." Schechter sets out to teach a lesson, and in Fiend he succeeds at reminding us that modern times don't have a monopoly on juvenile terror. --Jodi Mailander Farrell Harold Schechter is Professor Emeritus at Queens College, where he taught classes in American literature and myth criticism for forty-two years. His essays have appeared in publications including The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , Los Angeles Times , and many more. An esteemed true crime historian, he has written the definitive accounts of some of America’s most infamous murderers, including the nonfiction books Fatal , Fiend , Bestial , Deviant , Deranged , Depraved , and The Serial Killers File . He is the editor of the Library of America volume, True Crime: An American Anthology. He has twice been a finalist for an Edgar Award. His most recent books include Butcher’s Work: True Crime Tales of American Murder and Madness and Murderabilia: A History of Crime in 100 Objects . In addition to his work in narrative nonfiction, Schechter is the author of an acclaimed series of detective novels based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. He lives with his family in New York. Chapter One He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray beard....The very village was altered; it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors -- strange faces at the windows -- everything was strange. -- Washington Irving, "Rip Van Winkle" AUGUST 1, 1929 Dressed in the street clothes they had given him -- a shabby gray suit, its baggy pants supported by galluses; a rumpled white shirt, its collar too small to button; an old silk tie that dangled halfway down his chest; and a grotesque, checkered cap that sat on his head like an enormous mushroom -- he emerged into the sun-drenched prison yard. In his right hand, he clutched a paper-wrapped bundle about the size of a shoebox. His entire fund of worldly possessions was inside: a Bible, two or three poetry books, a few legal documents, some old, dog-eared letters. Above him -- patrolling the walls and stationed in the armored cupola of the gray, stone rotunda -- the rifle-wielding guards peered down curiously at the spectacle below. A crowd of journalists -- reporters, photographers, representatives of international wire services -- had assembled in the yard. At the first glimpse of the shambling old man -- his face half-hidden by the brim of his comically oversized cap -- they began calling his name, snapping pictures, shouting questions. He pulled the brim lower over his eyes, tightened his mouth into a deep frown, and allowed the attendants to hurry him past the crowd and toward the rotunda. The clamor of the mob was deeply unnerving. Still, their presence was a source of some satisfaction -- a confirmation of his celebrity. He had always taken pride in his status as "America's most famous lifer," in the awed looks he drew from new inmates when they caught their first glimpse of him.