Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of
the American Revolution
by Katherine Grandjean
Okay, I may have stretched our book club’s theme, "The Dogs of Summer," a little bit this past month. In my defense, the two cozy mysteries I read were rather lackluster and this book was engrossing. So, I will fall back on the old definition that a villainous person who lacks integrity could be referred to as a “dog” (though dogs are generally extremely good “people” in my estimation) and that the Harps reign of terror ended in August of 1799, which is definitely summer.
It all started on the American frontier of Kentucky and
Tennessee. Wiley and Micajah Harp killed dozens of people in rather vicious
ways, as some sort of vendetta for the difficulties life had handed them, as
though taking revenge on society at large.
In this book, Grandjean not only displays a well-researched
history of Wiley and Macajah, who are very difficult to pin down, but affords
us a far better understanding of the time and place where they lived, and
murdered.
The Harps would have been children while the U.S. was
still a colony of England, and lived through the Revolutionary War. It was a
harsh time of deprivation.
“At that time, it was not uncommon to see the penniless and
desperate, braving the elements, as they entered Kentucky—women and children
shivering in the ice and snow, wading through creeks ‘with out Shoe or Stocking,
and barely as maney raggs as covers their Nakedness.’”
Though only as far west as Kentucky and Tennessee, it was
very much the frontier in 1799. In fact, part of the
very trouble that befell the Harps was because the settlers were pushing the
line between U.S. land and Indian Territory. The government finally decided to
make the settlers abide by the treaty and those who had settled beyond the line
lost their homes. This meant losing all they had spent in purchasing what they
thought were land investments. They had been conned.
I’m not one for true crime books, but I loved this book for
the historical portrait it provided of the people and how society functioned,
as well as government, including the police force, such as it was.
For all the hardship, there was a decent amount of records
taken down that the author was able to use in piecing together the story. The book
opens at Farris’s Tavern – “Perched a bit beyond the Gap in a no-man’s-land of
mountainous rock.” Jane Farris’s deposition regarding what she observed at the
Farris Tavern the day Thomas Langford was murdered provides some picture of his
interaction with the Harps. The author posits that, “To step into a warm tavern
with a hopping fire was a relief. It must have seemed a safe haven on this
desolate stretch of road.” It was anything but for Langford.
I was also struck by the mystery of whether the wives of the
Harps really had much to do with killings. Were they forced into compliance? Were their sentiments aligned with the men or did they abhorr their actions? There is simply no way to know.
In the end, Grandjean proves her contention that the Harps
were not so much serial killers as “spree killers” bent on taking revenge on
the society that they believed was responsible for their woes. It is a
fascinating portrait of our history and a true American horror story.
I would recommend it for anyone interested in learning more
about the reality of our American history.
