The razor-sharp account of a notorious murder The 1924 murder of fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb shocked the nation. One hundred years later, the killing and its aftermath still reverberate through popular culture and the history of American crime. Hal Higdon’s true crime classic offers an unprecedented examination of the case. Higdon details Leopold and Loeb’s journey from privilege and promise to the planning and execution of their monstrous vision of the perfect crime. Drawing on secret testimony, Higdon follows the police investigation through the pair’s confessions of guilt and recreates the sensational hearing where Clarence Darrow, the nation’s most famous attorney, saved the pair from the death penalty. In-depth and definitive, Leopold and Loeb tells the dramatic story of a notorious crime and its long afterlife in the American imagination.

Among the criminal celebrities of Prohibition-era Chicago, not even Al Capone was more notorious than two well-educated and highly intelligent Jewish boys from wealthy South Side families. In a meticulously planned murder scheme disguised as a kidnapping, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb chose fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks at random as their victim, abandoning his crumpled body in a culvert before his parents had a chance to respond to the ransom demand. Revealing secret testimony and raising questions that have gone unanswered for decades, Hal Higdon separates fact from myth as he unravels the crime, the investigation, and the trial, in which Leopold and Loeb were defended by the era's most famous attorney, Clarence Darrow. Higdon's razor sharp account of their chilling act, their celebrity, and their ultimate emergence as folk heroes resonates unnervingly in our own violent time.

In the first book on this tragic event, "4:09:43," Hal Higdon, a contributing editor at Runner's World, tells the tale of the Boston Marathon bombings. The book's title refers to the numbers on the finish-line clock when the first bomb exploded.

In "4:09:43," Higdon views Boston 2013 through the eyes of those running the race. You will meet George, a runner from Athens, birthplace of the modern marathon, who at sunrise joins the eerie march of silent runners, all aimed at their appointments in Hopkinton, where the marathon starts. You will meet Michele, who at age 2 helped her mother hand water to runners, who first ran the marathon while a student at Wellesley College, and who decided to run Boston again mainly because her daughter Shannon was now a student at Boston University. You will meet Tracy, caught on Boylston Street between the two explosions, running for her life. You will meet Heather, a Canadian, who limped into the Medical Tent with bloody socks from blisters, soon to realize that worse things exist than losing a toenail.

In what may be a first, Hal Higdon used social media in writing "4:09:43." Sunday, not yet expecting what might happen the next day, Higdon posted a good-luck message on his popular Facebook page. "Perfect weather," the author predicted. "A 'no-excuses' day." Within minutes, runners in Boston responded. Neil suggested that he was "chilling before the carb-a-thon continues." Christy boasted from her hotel room: "Bring it "

Then, the explosions on Monday Like all runners, Higdon wondered whether marathoners would ever feel safe again. Beginning Tuesday, runners told him. They began blogging on the Internet, posting to his Facebook page, offering links to their stories, so very similar, but also so very different. Over the next several hours, days, and weeks, Higdon collected the tales of nearly 75 runners who were there, whose lives forever would be shadowed by the bombs on Boylston Street.

In" 4:09:43," Higdon presents these stories, condensing and integrating them into a smooth-flowing narrative that begins with runners boarding the buses at Boston Common, continues with the wait at the Athletes' Village in Hopkinton, and flows through eight separate towns. The story does not end until the 23,000 participants encounter the terror on Boylston Street. "These are not 75 separate stories," says Higdon. "This is one story told as it might have been by a single runner with 75 pairs of eyes."

One warning about reading "4:09:43" You will cry. But you will laugh, too, because for most of those who covered the 26 miles 385 yards from Hopkinton to Boylston Street, this was a joyous journey, albeit one that ended in tragedy. This is a book as much about the race and the runners in the race as it is about a terrorist attack. In future years as people look back on the Boston Marathon bombings, "4:09:43" will be the book that everyone will need to have read.

For over five decades, Hal Higdon, Senior Writer for Runner's World, has been fielding countless questions and dispensing valuable advice to millions of runners at all levels. Now, for the first time, Marathoning A to Z distills these years of knowledge into one handy volume that gives readers the inside scoop on training and racing better and more enjoyably. Marathoning A to Z takes every commonly (and not-so-commonly) asked question about the marathon and organizes them alphabetically by keyword. The topic, which is easy to find, is then thoroughly addressed in a few information-packed paragraphs. From "Aid Station Strategy" and "Altitude" to "Bad Weather," and "Black Toes," to "Carbohydrates" and "Cross-Training," topics fall into dozens of general categories including training, nutrition, rest and recovery, race strategies, equipment, weather, injuries, keeping mentally strong, traveling to and from the event, and much more. Always concise, eminently readable, and often humorous, Higdon's advice puts any runner's mind at ease no matter what the concern. Like having a personal coach with you every step of the way, Marathoning A to Z is the reliable training resource that can help any runner-from beginner to elite-achieve his or her marathon goals. (5 1/2 x 7 1/2, 240 pages, b&w photos) Hal Higdon is Senior Writer for Runner's World, author of many bestselling books on running, including Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide, and an elite masters runner. One of the founding members of the Road Runners Club of America he serves as a training consultant for The LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon and operates a successful training Web site, Virtual Training, that serves tens of thousands ofrunners every day. He lives in Long Beach, Indiana.