Vendor
	Liepman Literary Agency Marc Koralnik
Original language
English

THE FATAL GIFT OF BEAUTY: The Trials of Amanda Knox

Nina Burleigh

Savvy true-crimereporting combined with a headline-hogging murder trial.

Shortly after the American exchange student Amanda Knox was accused of participating in the 2007 murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, in Perugia, Italy, during their year abroad, journalist Nina Burleigh moved to Tuscany to cover the case. She soon realized that it was much more than a true crime story. Burleigh attended every day of the trial, interviewed the police and prosecutor, and developed epistolary relationships with the three accused: Amanda Knox, her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and confessed murderer and African immigrant, Rudy Guede. In her deeply textured narrative of this world-famous murder, its controversial investigation and trial, and the reverberations of the outcome in Italy and abroad, Burleigh illustrates how a story that became a staple of tabloid news and true crime aficianados has deeper relevance as an examination of a clash of cultures and of a darker side of life under the Tuscan sun. Nina Burleigh is an award-winning author and journalist. She has written four books, Unholy Business (Collins, 2008), Mirage (HarperCollins 2007), and The Stranger and the Statesman (Morrow, 2003 She was previously published by JR Books (UK), Tokyo Shoseki (Japan), Czech Republic and Brazil.

Available products
Book Published 2011-08-01 by Broadway

Comments

Journalist/author Burleigh (e.g., Unholy Business) reconstructs a murder case that has proved to be about much more than murder.

"Burleigh's propulsive narrative and the many unsettling aspects of the case make this a standout among recent true-crime titles."

Read more...

Savvy true-crime reporting combined with a headline-hogging murder trial.

"THE FATAL GIFT OF BEAUTY is the real, the true, and the complete story of the Amanda Knox case. It will draw you into a nightmare world of murder, conspiracy, corruption, false accusations, police incompetence, abuse, lies, and manipulations. Nina Burleigh is a first-rate journalist who presents a meticulously researched and reported account, with every fact documented and sourced. It is an essential read for anyone interested in this case. More than a murder story, is a look into the dark and complex soul of Italy itself."--Douglas Preston, co-author of The Monster of Florence "[In] this powerful example of narrative non-fiction...Burleigh, who parses how the Knox trial was perhaps tainted, still presents a fair and unbiased portrait of a girl adrift in a foreign legal system and a culture rife with preconceptions about young American women."