Juniata High School

The other week I picked up a book at an antique shop that looked interesting, and I decided to read it. The book, The Bellamy Trials, was written by Frances Noyes Hart. This particular copy’s copyright date was 1927. It is about the trial of Stephen Bellamy and Susan Ives, who was accused of Murdering Bellamy’s wife, Maudlin.  I’ll avoid spoilers in this review if anyone reading this decides to give it a read, but in my opinion, it was dry. It was mainly due to the period and the language used. Though it had good descriptions, they were wordy and unnecessarily long for me. It also moved slowly. However, some of the things I found very interesting were when the trial was about to close and the verdict was delivered. As far as I found online, it also was based on a true story. It did give you a good look back into how things (especially the courtroom) ran at this time as well. Some other things not entirely related to the writing itself and more to the book I found intriguing were the random names and addresses scrawled on the front and the back of the book. And some things throughout this particular copy were crossed out. It wasn’t a great read, but it wasn’t horrible, either. If you’re either into courtroom mysteries or older literature, I would check it out; otherwise, it’s probably not for you!