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Beneath a Ruthless Sun
- A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
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Publisher's summary
Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and The Washington Post
"Compelling, insightful, and important, Beneath a Ruthless Sun exposes the corruption of racial bigotry and animus that shadows a community, a state and a nation. A fascinating examination of an injustice story all too familiar and still largely ignored, an engaging and essential read." (Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy)
From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller Devil in the Grove, the gripping true story of a small town with a big secret.
In December 1957, the wife of a Florida citrus baron is raped in her home while her husband is away. She claims a "husky Negro" did it, and the sheriff, the infamous racist Willis McCall, does not hesitate to round up a herd of suspects. But within days, McCall turns his sights on Jesse Daniels, a gentle, mentally impaired white 19-year-old. Soon Jesse is railroaded up to the state hospital for the insane and locked away without trial. But crusading journalist Mabel Norris Reese cannot stop fretting over the case and its baffling outcome. Who was protecting whom, or what? She pursues the story for years, chasing down leads, hitting dead ends, winning unlikely allies. Bit by bit, the unspeakable truths behind a conspiracy that shocked a community into silence begin to surface.
Beneath a Ruthless Sun tells a powerful, pause-resisting story rooted in the fears that rippled through the South as integration began to take hold, sparking a surge of virulent racism that savaged the vulnerable, debased the powerful, and roils our own times still.
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Critic reviews
“Riveting...King recounts this perplexing story with compassion and a vibrant sense of time and place…[a] sobering but expertly told saga.” (Washington Post)
“Chilling...Truth oftentimes beggars belief, and the 'true' in 'true crime' can be a promise that betrays as much as it entices. Not so with Gilbert King's scorching, compelling, and - unfortunately - still entirely relevant new work.”(NPR)
“A gripping tale of entrenched racism and complicity… King's reporting defies cliché with depth and specificity. He holds to verifiable facts and knows how to let a story and characters evolve… [Beneath a Ruthless Sun] haunts as an uncurtained stare into history.” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
Featured Article: Challenging Racial Bias in True Crime Stories
In cases involving Black and Brown victims, the reporting of true crime is its own kind of injustice. Bad things happen to Black and Brown women every day. But no one is talking about the color of their hair and eyes, their job, their education, or how much they are loved by family and community. Discover a growing gamut of podcasts that runs from deep-dive single case investigations to compilations focusing on missing and murdered Black women.
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Little Shoes
- The Sensational Depression-Era Murders That Became My Family's Secret
- By: Pamela Everett
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1937, a California crime stunned an already grim nation. Three little girls were lured away from a neighborhood park to unthinkable deaths. After a frantic week-long manhunt for the killer, a suspect emerged. Justice was swift, and the condemned man was buried away with the horrifying story. But decades later, Pamela Everett, a lawyer and former journalist, starts digging, following up a cryptic comment her father once made about losing two of his sisters. Everett unearths a truly historic legal case that included the genesis of modern sex offender laws and the last man sentenced to hang in California.
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Masterful presentation of secrets and crime case!
- By deb on 05-31-18
By: Pamela Everett
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Anatomy of Injustice
- A Murder Case Gone Wrong
- By: Raymond Bonner
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim’s body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case.
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A miscarriage of justice if I've ever seen it
- By Education is KEY on 10-11-17
By: Raymond Bonner
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Tulia
- Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town
- By: Nate Blakeslee
- Narrated by: James Boles
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Early one morning in the summer of 1999, authorities in the tiny West Texas town of Tulia began a roundup of suspected drug dealers. By the time the sweep was done, over 40 people had been arrested and one of every five black adults in town was behind bars, all accused of dealing cocaine to the same undercover officer, Tom Coleman.
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A Must Read
- By JOHN on 03-23-08
By: Nate Blakeslee
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Devil’s Knot
- The True Story of the West Memphis Three
- By: Mara Leveritt
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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“Free the West Memphis Three!” - maybe you’ve heard the phrase, but do you know why their story is so alarming? Do you know the facts? The guilty verdicts handed out to three Arkansas teens in a horrific capital murder case were popular in their home state - even upheld on appeal. But after two HBO documentaries called attention to the witch-hunt atmosphere at the trials, artists and other supporters raised concerns about the accompanying lack of evidence.
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Surprisingly disappointing
- By La Becket on 12-05-12
By: Mara Leveritt
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Helter Skelter
- The True Story of the Manson Murders
- By: Vincent Bugliosi, Curt Gentry
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 26 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the 20th century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? Now available for the first time in unabridged audio, the gripping story of this famous and haunting crime is brought to life by acclaimed narrator Scott Brick.
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Everything I remembered about the case was wrong..
- By karen on 06-22-12
By: Vincent Bugliosi, and others
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Bending Toward Justice
- The Birmingham Church Bombing That Changed the Course of Civil Rights
- By: Doug Jones, Greg Truman, Rick Bragg - foreword
- Narrated by: Doug Jones
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, was bombed, killing four young girls. Who were the perpetrators? Due to reluctant witnesses and racial prejudice, the FBI closed the case without any indictments. But as Martin Luther King, Jr., claimed, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Bending Toward Justice is a detailed account of this key moment in our national struggle for equality and the long road to prosecuting those responsible for the tragedy, related by an author who played a major role in the investigation.
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Great piece of History
- By rita on 03-08-19
By: Doug Jones, and others
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Hate Crime
- The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas
- By: Joyce King
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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On June 7, 1998, James Byrd, Jr., a 49-year-old black man, was dragged to his death while chained to the back of a pickup truck driven by three young white men. It happened just outside of Jasper, a sleepy East Texas logging town that, within 24 hours of the discovery of the murder, would be inextricably linked in the nation's imagination to an exceptionally brutal, modern-day lynching. In this superbly written examination of the murder and its aftermath, award-winning journalist Joyce King brings us on a journey that begins at the crime scene.
By: Joyce King
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Wicked Takes the Witness Stand
- A Tale of Murder and Twisted Deceit in Northern Michigan
- By: Mardi Link
- Narrated by: Jim McCance
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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On a bitterly cold afternoon in December 1986, a Michigan State trooper found the frozen body of Jerry Tobias in the bed of his pickup truck. The 31-year-old oil field worker and small-time drug dealer was clad only in jeans, a checkered shirt, and cowboy boots. Inside the cab of the truck was a fresh package of expensive steaks from a local butcher shop, the first lead in a case that would be quickly lost in a thicket of bungled forensics, shady prosecution, and a psychopathic star witness out for revenge.
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Justice system Vs Conviction system
- By Sean on 11-14-16
By: Mardi Link
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A Death in Belmont
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Kevin Conway
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1963, with the city of Boston already terrified by a series of savage crimes known as the Boston Stranglings, a murder occurred in Belmont, just a few blocks from the house of Sebastian Junger's family, a murder that seemed to fit exactly the pattern of the Strangler. Roy Smith, a black man who had cleaned the victim's house that day, was convicted, but the terror of the Strangler continued.
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Excellent
- By Susanna on 01-13-15
By: Sebastian Junger
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The Assassin's Accomplice
- Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln
- By: Kate Clifford Larson
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Assassin’s Accomplice, historian Kate Clifford Larson tells the gripping story of Mary Surratt, a little-known conspirator in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, and the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government. A Confederate sympathizer, Surratt ran the boarding house where the conspirators met to plan Lincoln’s assassination. Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, The Assassin’s Accomplice tells the intricate story of the Lincoln conspiracy through the eyes of its only female participant, offering a fresh perspective on America’s most famous murder.
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Did She or Didn't She
- By c a cornelius on 06-04-21
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Killing the Dream
- James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
- By: Gerald Posner
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In the three decades since April 4, 1968, when Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot to death in Memphis, scores of books and articles have questioned whether James Earl Ray, King's killer, acted alone or was part of a larger conspiracy. Now, based on explosive new interviews, confidential files, and previously undisclosed evidence, best-selling author Gerald Posner finally resolves the simple truth of the last great political murder mystery of the 1960s, definitively proving that Ray acted alone.
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Enlightening
- By Thornton Mellon on 05-19-19
By: Gerald Posner
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Good Kids, Bad City
- A Story of Race and Wrongful Conviction in America
- By: Kyle Swenson
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In the early 1970s, three African American men - Wiley Bridgeman, Kwame Ajamu, and Rickey Jackson - were accused and convicted of the brutal robbery and murder of a man outside of a convenience store in Cleveland, Ohio. Almost four decades later, the men were exonerated. But while their exoneration may have ended one of American history’s most disgraceful miscarriages of justice, the corruption and decay of the city responsible for their imprisonment remain on trial.
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Life is not fair, but the hearts of these men!
- By Maureen Delaney on 03-24-19
By: Kyle Swenson
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Illusion of Justice
- Inside Making a Murderer and America's Broken System
- By: Jerome F. Buting
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Not since The Thin Blue Line has there been a true-crime saga as engrossing as Making a Murderer. Captivating audiences across demographic lines, it made Steven Avery a household name and thrust defense attorney Jerome F. Buting - and his fight against America's dysfunctional criminal justice system - into the spotlight. In Illusion of Justice, Buting uses the Avery case as a springboard to examine the shaky integrity of our law enforcement and legal systems, which he has witnessed firsthand for nearly four decades.
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Tells it like it is . . .
- By Regan Williams on 11-26-17
By: Jerome F. Buting
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Blood in the Water
- The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
- By: Heather Ann Thompson
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 22 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment. Holding guards and civilian employees hostage, the prisoners negotiated with officials for improved conditions during the four long days and nights that followed. On September 13, the state abruptly sent hundreds of heavily armed troopers and correction officers to retake the prison by force. Their gunfire killed 39 men - hostages as well as prisoners.
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Tragic Events, Well-Told
- By David on 10-27-17
What listeners say about Beneath a Ruthless Sun
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Hale
- 12-22-23
The story itself. I live in the 5th circuit.
I knew most of the officials. I practiced law in the areas for 30 plus years years.
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- Gillian
- 04-26-18
As In The Beginning, So GoethThe Entire Book
And by that I mean: We start the book off with Jesse, our victim/hero, and get a sense of whom he is, his childlike ways and mental capacities. Then we digress like crazy to the weather, citrus princes, Blanche's childhood, the love who was shot down during the war, some of the culture of the area and Florida in general. Really, it takes quite a while before we get back to the main story.
That's how all of Beneath a Ruthless Sun is. Main story, digressions to various civil rights members, civil rights activities, the sheriff department's ruthless ways, atrocities committed against the civil rights movement, a little about Mabel, some about Jesse and his mother Pearl, more atrocities, and on it goes.
Fortunately, King is such a good writer, writes in such an emotionally evocative manner, that I was engaged throughout, barely noticing I'd gone down a rabbit hole with him until he brought the story back to the main people, the main point. (Also, I've never read/listened to Devil in the Grove so I can't tell just how much is lifted from it per se, but that crime, those victims are covered in GREAT detail here too).
Farr does a decent job with the narration--doesn't strive overmuch to make verbal/vocal distinctions between genders, so no growly men, no high-pitched women to distract from it all.
All in all, I spent 14+ hours interested in the subject matter and really, really interested in the people. It is shocking; it's outrageous, and in the end, I wonder if justice truly was served and if lost years were made up for.
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17 people found this helpful
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- Single Again
- 05-21-19
State Inflicted Domestic Terrorism
A microcosm of the conditions and circumstances people of color have endured in America for 400+ years and are continuing to endure. I find it invaluable to read these well documented and indisputable historical accounts of moral depravity, otherwise it would be difficult for me to imagine if not impossible to imagine the moral abyss by which a diseased society can exist.
https://www.combatingpoliticalcivicilliteracy.com/
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2 people found this helpful
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- Nancy
- 06-21-19
Excellent!
Excellent read for everyone. Well documented story that exposes the horrible corruption, racism and bullying in the south during the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. The story really makes you stop and think about the difference between right and wrong and injustice.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kathleen Broglio
- 02-17-20
Disturbing well done account
Highly recommend. We can see something akin to this potentially happening again today in our current Political environment
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- Johnny
- 05-16-23
Great Listen
What a terrifying experience to have lived through in Florida. It is hard to believe that in just a few counties over anyone other that white men had an easy time in life. This story saddened me as I believe that we have changed for the positive and don’t understand why Floridians ever behaved this way in the first place. We are only 2 generations removed from this story and must not go back.
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- Sylvia M. Raymond
- 05-28-18
Disturbing!
As someone who grew up in Florida during this time, this was an eye-opening, disturbing, true account of the injustices perpetrated on African Americans in Florida. It also told of the tireless and valiant fight by a few to right these wrongs and find justice.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Lisa Belle
- 03-01-20
Priceless, Not to be Missed
Wow - my mind is blown after finishing this book. Totally captured and held my attention and now I’m just spinning at it all. Super well-narrated, excellently written, great book.
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- Matt
- 06-08-23
Excellent story to make you mad
This book follows much of the same story line as “Devil in the grove”. The corruption that was taking place under Willis McCall in lake county Florida during his tenure as sheriff is probably unparalleled anywhere else in the country. As I have listened to both books I have felt that there is a special place in hell for people of such wicked devices, how someone could be so full of hate and yet in such a powerful position is a very scary prospect. This is a very interesting and equally sad story of the miscarriage of justice because people in supposed power refused to allow the truth to be known.
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- Buretto
- 09-06-20
Deeper than race
Powerful and insightful story of injustice in Jim Crow era Florida. What sets this story apart from most is that, while it is very much a story of institutional racism, it also lays bare the twin of that particular evil, the disposability of so-called "waste people". I think it exposes a layer of complexity to life, whether it's 1957, 1972 or 2020, which is rather blithely categorized as simply racism. The roots are much deeper than race, it's just that skin color is the most obvious, identifiable sign of otherness, and thereby able to be dismissed as lesser, and undeserving of human rights or consideration. But as the author demonstrates, it doesn't stop there, and we all would be remiss to think it does. Black, white, and all ethnicities for that matter, can learn from this story. It's in us all, every one.
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