Binding: Paperback
Description: Award - winning author and journalist Nina Burleigh's mesmerizing literary investigation of the murder of Meredith Kercher the controversial prosecution the conviction and twenty - six - year sentence of Amanda Knox the machinations of Italian justice and the underground depravity and clash of cultures in one of central Italy's most beloved cities. The sexually violent murder of twenty - one - year - old British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia Italy on the night of November 1, 2007, became an international sensation when one of Kercher's housemates twenty - year - old Seattle native Amanda Knox as well as her Italian boyfriend and a troubled local man Knox said she vaguely knew was arrested and charged with the murder. When Perugia authorities concluded that the murder was part of a dark twisted rite a sex game led by the American with an uncanny resemblance to Perugia's Madonna they unleashed a media frenzy from Rome to London to New York and Seattle. The story drew an international cult obsessed with Foxy Knoxy a pretty honor student on a junior year abroad who either woke up one morning into a nightmare of superstition and misogyny the dark side of Italy or participated in something unspeakable. The investigation begins in the old stone cottage overlooking bucolic olive groves where Kercher's body was found in her locked bedroom. It winds through the shadowy arched alleys of Perugia a city of art that is also a magnet for tens of thousands of students who frequent its bars clubs and drug bazaar on the steps of the Duomo. It climaxes in an up - close account of Italy's dysfunctional legal system as the trial slowly unfolds at the town's Tribunale and the prosecution's thunderous final appeal to God before the quivering girl defendant resembles a scene from the Inquisition. To reveal what actually happened on that terrible night after Halloween Nina Burleigh lived in Perugia attended the trial and corresponded with the incarcerated defendants. She also delved deeply into the history secrets and customs of Perugia renowned equally for its Etruscan tunnels early Christian art medieval sorcerers and pagan roots. A New York Times bestseller The Fatal Gift of Beauty is the thoughtful compelling examination of an enduring mystery an ancient storied place and a disquieting facet of Italian culture: an obsession with female eroticism. By including the real story of Rudy Guede it is also an acute window into the minds and personalities of the accused killers and of the conservative Italian magistrate striving to make sense of an inexplicable act of evil. But at its core is an indelible portrait of Amanda Knox the strangely childlike enigmatic beauty whose photogenic face became the focal point of international speculation about the shadow side of youth and freedom.
Title: The Fatal Gift Of Beauty The Trials Of Amanda Knox
Author(s): Burleigh Nina
Publisher: Broadway Books (A Division Of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc)
Barcode: 9780307588593
Pages: 368 Pages
Publication Date: 7/10/2012
Category: True Crime