The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright

The True Story of Mass Murder in Paradise

By: Casey Sherman

Narrator: Justin Price

Sourcebooks

ISBN: 9781464241895

Publisher: Sourcebooks non-fiction

Publication Date: 06/09/2026

Format: Hardcover

My Rating: 5 Stars (ARC)

JUN 2026 MUST-READ BOOKS

The scandal. The genius. The murder that shocked America.

Frank Lloyd Wright was more than the mind behind America's most iconic buildings—he was a man whose turbulent private life captivated a nation. The famous architect's stormy marriage to Kitty Wright and his infamous affair with another woman, Mamah Borthwick, ignited one of the country's first celebrity scandals, splashed across headlines from coast to coast.

Then, in August 1914, scandal turned to horror. A tragedy at Taliesin, the Wisconsin home Wright built as a monument to love, shook the very foundation of Wright's life—and catapulted him back to the front pages of newspapers across the country as readers clamored for glimpses of his very darkest moments.

In The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright, New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman delves beyond the myth of Wright's genius to reveal a man of relentless ambition, consuming passion, and devastating loss. With haunting intimacy and propulsive storytelling, Sherman delivers a portrait of an artist who could not escape the shadows of his own making—and who rose, again and again, from the ashes.

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Praise

"Casey Sherman maps the human trail between genius and catastrophe. The reporting is exacting, the storytelling propulsive. Along the way we get Wright unvarnished: charm, ego, scandal, and the choices that put a killer in his house. This is true history with the snap of a thriller. As an armchair architecture enthusiast, even one who has visited Taliesin, I thought I knew a lot about this story, but I turned the last page seeing Wright, and the tragedies that shadowed him, anew. Haunting."

― Laurie Gwen Shapiro, author of The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage That Made an American Icon

"The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright is the wildest of wild rides! In Sherman's capable hands we see all aspects of this tragic story beautifully told: the love, the anguish, the blood, the fire, and the brilliance of one of America's most iconic and gifted architects. Fans of history and true crime will rejoice!"

― Kristin Dilley, co-host, Mind Over Murder Podcast

"Only Casey Sherman could have captured the scope, the intimacy, the passion and the tragedy of Frank Lloyd Wright. This book is of literary and historical importance―full of suspense and fascinating details, it also reads like a riveting, cinematic novel. It will blow you away!"

― Laurent Bouzereau, director, HBO's Faye and JAWS @ 50

"Sherman exhibits both a novelist’s sense of pace and a reporter’s eye for detail in this arresting true crime narrative of great passion and great tragedy. It’s a heartbreaker."

― Publisher’s Weekly

"Highlighting a nearly forgotten event in Wright’s life, this account of the Taliesin murders will appeal to general and true crime readers."

― Library Journal

"Spellbinding and gratifyingly substantive history."

― Kirkus

About the Author

Casey Sherman is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today & Boston Globe Bestselling Author of 17 books including “The Finest Hours” (now a major Walt Disney Studio motion picture starring Chris Pine & Casey Affleck), and “Patriots Day” (now an acclaimed motion picture from CBS Films starring Mark Wahlberg and Kevin Bacon). Sherman’s 2023 true crime bestseller “Helltown,” is now in development as a limited television series for Amazon Studio. Sherman will serve as Executive Producer on the project, which is slated to star Oscar Isaac (“Dune”), with director Edward Berger (Netflix – “All is Quiet on the Western Front”), and produced by Team Downey (Robert Downey, Jr. & Susan Downey - HBO’s “Perry Mason”). Sherman’s other books include James Patterson’s “The Last Days of John Lennon,” which spent more than 23 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, “12: The Inside Story of Tom Brady’s Fight for Redemption,” and “Hunting Whitey: The Inside Story of The Capture & Killing of America’s Most Wanted Crime Boss. Sherman has appeared on more than 100 television and radio programs and is a contributing writer for TIME Magazine, Esquire, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Boston Magazine and the Boston Herald. INSTAGRAM