DOOMED

On July 14, 1921, Sacco and Vanzetti were found guilty of gunning down two employees of the Slater and Morrill shoe factory in the town of South Braintree. The evidence was flimsy. Sacco had been caught with a gun whose bullets were similar to those found in the victims' bodies, but an exact match was never made. In addition, both had multiple alibis. At issue was that Sacco and Vanzetti were self-proclaimed anarchists. Throughout the trial, the prosecution focused on the citizenship and radicalism of the defendants—and in the minds of experts who've studied the case, those issues served to condemn the two men. As the trial increasingly turned into a political witch-hunt, sales-hungry newspapers fanned the flames even higher. The jury spent just six hours deciding the defendants' fate: guilty of murder in the first degree. The verdict carried with it the death penalty.

Doomed: The Tragic Case of Sacco & Vanzetti prompts young readers to examine issues that still command front-page headlines—the plight of the underclass, the persecution of immigrants, prejudice, political scapegoats, media bias, and the death penalty. This is a page-turning look at a true-crime that gripped the nation nearly a century ago—and it's sure to fascinate young readers today.

John Florio and Ouisie Shapiro are the authors of One Nation Under Baseball: How the 1960s Collided with the National Pastime (University of Nebraska Press, 2017) and One Punch from the Promised Land: Leon Spinks, Michael Spinks and the Myth of the Heavyweight Title (Lyons Press, 2013). They're also contributors to The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Vice Sports, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN. Florio is also the author of the critically acclaimed Jersey Leo series, which includes Sugar Pop Moon (Prometheus, 2013) and Blind Moon Alley (Prometheus, 2013). Shapiro is a five-time Emmy award-winning writer/producer with over 30 years of experience in sports television. War in the Ring (Roaring Brook Press, 2019) was their first book for young readers. They are married and live in Brooklyn, NY.