A Devil’s Bargain

Bestselling author Lesley M.M. Blume documents the frenzied race to write the definitive account of the Manson murders—a race that included the likes of literary icons Truman Capote and Joan Didion. 

Three years after Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood took the literary world by storm and made Capote a star, another series of murders shook America to its core: the Manson murders. The trial is most famously depicted in Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter—but lesser known are the books that were almost written.  
 
Bugliosi wasn’t the only writer looking to pen the definitive book about the Manson trial. There was Truman Capote himself, who sought to defend his literary territory as America’s authority on crime writing; Joan Didion, fresh off the success of Slouching Towards Bethlehem; and several other reporters, hailing from tabloid to underground counterculture publications, hoping to make their mark—and their fortune—by any means necessary. What ensued was a professional race to the top, and—for some—a moral race to the bottom.
 
A Devil’s Bargain documents that feverish, high-stakes race for the ultimate publishing blood prize, and those willing to give up almost everything—even putting their lives on the line—to pursue it. It’s an origin story of true crime as we know it, and a portrait of an indelible moment in American literary and cultural history.

• “What a brilliant, bloody howl of a book. At once a terrifying thrill ride through the American berserk and a deep meditation on what it means—and what it takes—to reach for the greatest heights of one’s profession. A masterpiece.”
  Mark Braude, author of The Typewriter and the Guillotine
• "Lesley M.M. Blume’s A Devil’s Bargain, which uncovers the behind-the-scenes battle to become the best-seller-of-record about the Manson murders, is a delicious hybrid – true crime thriller meets high-level literary gossip. In the wake of tragedy, big-name writers played their own blood sport, and Blume has the goods."
  Jeffrey Toobin, author of The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson
• “Leave it to Lesley Blume to find a brilliant new way into the Manson saga, going deeper inside the American myth-making machine than ever before. As Blume demonstrates, the cutthroat race to produce a true crime masterpiece compelled both Didion and Capote, among others. With impeccable reporting, an insider's savvy, and a chic worthy of her subjects, Blume may just have done so herself.”
  Lauren Collins, author of When in French and They Stole a City