Book of the Year Award, 2009 ForeWord Magazine, True Crime category

Jackson County Historical Society's 2009 Outstanding Achievement Award for the Historic Book of the Year

It has been 100 years since multiple tragedies befell members of the prominent Swope family in Independence, Missouri. But Deaths on Pleasant Street gives those shadowy events and the ensuing scandal the immediacy of today's headlines.

I began the book in early afternoon, and was unable to sleep until I'd turned the last page. Rarely does historical nonfiction deliver so effective a combination of exhaustive research and inspired storytelling.

-C. W. Gusewelle, journalist and author

The trial of western Missouri's crime of the twentieth century may be stone cold, but Giles Fowler's master sleuthing and briskly paced narrative restore this still-unsolved country-house mystery to vivid life. Deaths on Pleasant Street will captivate history buffs and whodunnit fans alike.

-Harry Haskell, author of Boss-Busters and Sin Hounds

With a creeping sense of dread reminiscent of Gaslight and the immersive reporting that recalls In Cold Blood, Deaths on Pleasant Street elevates a sensational case of Victorian intrigue, skullduggery, ruinous accusations, and black horror to the exalted realm of literature. Poring through a trove of historic manuscripts, legal records, and the delicious yellow journalism of the era, Fowler has done graceful service to the dead by telling the tale-with consistent and unfailing writerly flair-more fully and fairly than it has ever been told, or could possibly have been told at the time.

-Patrick Beach, author of A Good Forest for Dying