Duel With The Devil

Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr are rivals in everything from politics to winning cases in a courtroom. Almost as shocking to the city of Manhattan as finding the dead body of Elma Sands in a well, is the teaming up of the two rivals to defend the man accused of killing her. Burr and Hamilton are determined to make sure Levi Weeks gets a fair trial before the mob follows through with their threats to kill this supposed murderer. Collins provides the details to the teaming up of some of two talented lawyers and rivals in this real murder case.

There are three main parts to this book. The first introduces us to the events and people involved in the case. The second part deals with the trial. And the third part tells us what happened to the people involved in these events when the trial was over. Although I found the information about New York around 1800 interesting, I still thought the first part dragged a little bit. I found the second part to be the most interesting part of the book. I liked reading about an actual trial in early American history, and was very interested in learning how the case would turn out.

I did think there could have been more balance in the different story lines. Also, the two competing stories of the murder and the Hamilton and Burr teaming up did not seem to flow together as well as I had hoped. The writing was very interesting, but sometimes the order events were placed in made the events more confusing than they needed to be.

I will also note that the title and cover suggests that this book is about Hamilton and Burr's duel. While it is mentioned in the book, that is not the focus of Duel With The Devil. I think a clearer title would help people make a decision about reading this book.

I read this book as an ebook on my Nook. I had no problems reading it that way. The only minor issue I had was with the page count to the end of the chapter. It would tell you the page count to the end of the section and not to the end of the chapter. This was not a major problem, but it did make it harder to find an easy place to pause my reading.

If you like early American history or mysteries, I would recommend trying this book.

**I received a free copy of this book from Blogging For Books to review**

*Receiving a free copy does not change my review. It simply provides me with a copy of a book I would not have gotten to as soon, or have heard about otherwise.