"Lauren Nicole Henley has produced an absolute page-turner highlighting the female serial killer armed with an ax. Following the trail of blood that alarmed America in the early twentieth century, this book is a way-shower on true crime, fusing together multiple deaths with a hungry media, protective communities, religion, gender, and the making of a criminal in a powerful way." - Sowande' M. Mustakeem, author of Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage
"Inquisition for Blood tells a riveting story. In this deeply researched book, Lauren Henley writes a compelling history about race, gender, and intraracial crime in the American South. Offering readers details about a series of brutal murders in Progressive-era Louisiana, Henley explains how white media accounts, state agents, and individual endeavors constructed gendered Black criminality. Inquisition for Blood is a must-read for those looking to understand the roots of Black female criminality." - LaShawn Harris, author of Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs & the Police Killing That Galvanized New York City
"In Inquisition for Blood, Lauren Henley investigates a series of ax murders that took the lives of entire Black families in the early Jim Crow period, as well as the life of the Black woman who confessed to several of the killings. Through extensive research that encompasses court and legislative records, regional and national newspapers, as well as archival records, Henley elucidates how crime, religion, the media, injustice, and incarceration were often shaped by white perceptions of race to such an extent that, very often, the truth was lost." - Karen L. Cox, author of Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South
"In this beautifully written work, Lauren Henley recovers the forgotten saga of the Ax Man and Clementine Barnabet. As it challenges historical understandings of the 'serial killer,' it asks us to confront our lingering fascination with spectacular acts of violence." - K. Stephen Prince, author of The Ballad of Robert Charles: Searching for the New Orleans Riot of 1900
