Lisa Belkin

“Belkin’s judicious research parlays into an engrossing, expansive narrative that reads like a real-life Greek tragedy. It will spur contemplation and debate in an audience far beyond just true crime diehards.”

— Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
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“The author masterfully builds hand-wringing anticipation… An impressive work of in-depth narrative journalism that artfully conveys the countless paths a life can follow and exposes the instinctual human desire for alternative endings… An absorbing, thought-provoking inquiry into what it means to change and defy the odds.”

Kirkus Reviews

“Lisa Belkin’s Genealogy of a Murder reads like the best novels, with rich characterizations and can’t-put-it-down pacing.”

— Mimi Swartz, executive editor, Texas Monthly, and author of Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart

“Genealogy of a Murder is a deeply researched, intensely personal investigation that bristles with tension from start to finish. Masterfully composed and remarkably courageous, it is a hauntingly powerful story that’s impossible to forget.”

— Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize – winning author of Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

“In this riveting narrative, Lisa Belkin brings history to life. Weaving philosophical, psychological, historical, and personal threads, she dissects how the past shapes us and makes us who we are. Meticulously researched and beautifully constructed, this book reads like historical fiction — though it is, almost unfathomably, true.”

— Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train and The Exiles

“Lisa Belkin has taken an incredible story and unraveled it in the most masterful way. This is an intensely readable, fascinating book that will be with you for a long time.”

— Julie Klam, author of The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters: A True Story of Family Fiction

“A generational saga both exquisitely detailed and majestically sweeping.… This wonderful book by master storyteller Lisa Belkin carries the reader effortlessly along, revealing profound truths about the history of our country, the intertwined nature of our personal stories, and the forces — often hidden — driving our own lives, our own loves, our own times.”

— Liza Mundy, author of Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II

“Lisa Belkin is a beautiful writer even when addressing wrenching topics, as shown in this elegy of a police officer’s murder and the path to it. This is an exquisite exploration of how our meandering human paths converge, in love, in success, in tragedy.”

— Nicholas D. Kristof, coauthor of Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope