Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free

Written by Sarah Weinman

Narrated by Gabra Zackman

A Recommended Read from: The Los Angeles Times * Town and Country * The Seattle Times * Publishers Weekly * Lit Hub * Crime Reads * Alma

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.

 Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9780062899804

Sarah Weinman

Sarah Weinman is the author of Scoundrel and The Real Lolita and the editor, most recently, of Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit & Obsession. She was a 2020 National Magazine Award finalist for reporting and a Calderwood Journalism Fellow at MacDowell, and her work has appeared in New York magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and the Washington Post. Weinman writes the crime column for the New York Times Book Review and lives in New York City and Northampton, MA.

Reviews for Scoundrel

[nx74defiant · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The story of a death row prisoner who gets support from well known people. He convinces William F. Buckley to support him. He becomes a best selling author. A difficult person to read about.

[Paul K. Ogden · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting story. While it was well written, the material could have been presented in a more concise manner. For example, we didn't need to read about every letter Sophie sent to Edgar.

[Kayla Okarski · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Giving up halfway through. More of a chronological account of this man’s time in prison than anything else.

[akblanchard_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In this rather dry true crime tale, convicted murderer Edgar Smith's jailhouse devotion to the National Review magazine attracts the attention of its publisher, William F. Buckley. The conservative icon and his friend, emotionally deprived editor Sophie Wilkins, encourage Smith’s latent literary gifts, and the convict publishes a few self-serving tomes. Once he obtains his freedom, Smith continues his pattern of developing relationships with needy women. Ultimately, however, his baser impulses catch up with him.Author Sarah Weinman quotes extensively from Buckley’s, Wilkins's, and Smith’s letters to each other. This feature lends the book an air of authenticity, but also bogs down the pace of the story. The man at the heart of the narrative, Edgar Smith, isn't all that interesting, and the reader never gets a sense of the conditions that made him a sociopath.Without all the quotes, this might have made a good article for a magazine.

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Scoundrel by Sarah Weinman is that wonderful type of true crime book that combines the crime, and thus the criminal's, story with the stories of those affected by the crime. In doing so, it illustrates many of the issues still facing how we want our "justice" system to function.Any true crime book has to walk that fine line between sensationalism and reportage. Many readers, even those of us reluctant to admit it, still want a bit of the sensational. Weinman keeps that aspect down to what is only natural for a crime of this sort, especially one with the afterlife this one had. Victims are often overlooked in these accounts, much less so here. And peripheral people are rarely mentioned, yet they are given some room here for their stories. In particular it is the women who are overlooked beyond their roles as either victim or supportive spouse/parent. We see here just how many women ended up hurt or manipulated because of the dysfunctionality of our "justice" system. Yes, I am using quotation marks as scare quotes because our system is about almost everything except justice, with the usual exception of for white males (from their perspective anyway).The writing here keeps the reader moving forward while also having what seemed to me to be almost asides that highlight some element that speaks to the larger issues, such as the disconnect between public support and private doubt based on experience. These asides don't hinder the overall narrative of the book but serve to keep the reader attuned to things beyond just what happened.I would recommend this to readers of true crime as well as those interested in cases that speak to our "justice" system and how it should function. Also readers who want to know a little more about the people involved besides just the criminal.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.