Shadow Men: The Tangled Story of Murder, Media, and Privilege That Scandalized Jazz Age America

＂On the morning of May 16, 1922, a young man’s body was found on a desolate road in Westchester County. The victim was penniless ex-sailor Clarence Peters. Walter Ward, the handsome scion of the family that owned the largest chain of bread factories in the country, confessed to the crime as an act of self-defense against a violent gang of ＂shadow men,＂ blackmailers who extorted their victims’ moral weaknesses. From the start, one question defined the investigation: What scandalous secret could lead Ward to murder?＂--

JAMES POLCHIN, Ph.D., is the author of Indecent Advances, a finalist for the Edgar Award. He has taught at the Princeton Writing Program, the Parsons School of Design, the New School for Public Engagement, and the Creative Nonfiction foundation. His writing has appeared in several places, including The New Inquiry, Lambda Literary, Brevity, and the Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, where he is a contributing writer. A Clinical Professor at New York University, he lives in New York City with his husband, the photographer Greg Salvatori, and a Labrador named Albert.