Things are getting strange in Paradise, Massachusetts. Police chief Stone is called to the junior high school with reports of lewd conduct by the school's principle, Betsy Ingersoll. Ingersoll claims she was protecting her students when she inspected each girl's undergarments in the locker room. Jesse would like nothing better than to see her punished, but her high-powered attorney husband stands in the way.

In this illuminating exploration of women, violence, and obsession, Rachel Monroe interrogates the appeal of true crime through four narratives of fixation. In the 1940s, a bored heiress began creating dollhouse crime scenes depicting murders, suicides, and accidental deaths. Known as the "Mother of Forensic Science," she revolutionized the field of what was then called legal medicine. In the aftermath of the Manson Family murders, a young woman moved...