In 1927, a disgruntled and very pettily angry Andrew Kehoe detonated explosives he had planted under the Bath Consolidated School, killing 38 children and five adults (including himself). Kehoe had also set the buildings on his farm ablaze after killing his wife, as well as destroyed his equipment and tied his horses' legs together so they were unable to escape the fire.

In the meticulously researched, quite detailed, and well-written Maniac, Harold Schechter provides the details leading to Kehoe's destruction of the symbol on which he focused his rage and the man who ran it - in fact, the entire history of how the township of Bath came to be in the first place comprises the opening chapters.

Eventually, we get to Andrew Kehoe and his wife, Nellie, who move into Nellie's family's homestead after her parents die. By all accounts, Kehoe is quick to lend a hand when people need it, and asks nothing in particular in return. He is an upstanding member of the community, attends church, and in general never strikes anyone as anything other than what he is.

This changes, though, when the Bath Consolidated School is constructed and a tax is levied for its upkeep and the salaries of those employed there, from teachers to janitor. After a bad year on the farm, Kehoe's rage is directed toward the school, the tax, and the head of the school. He manages to get himself elected to the Board, and immediately begins micromanaging what he can, attempting to torpedo the raise and vacation time of the head of the school, and instead of hiring someone to fix the issues that come up in the school - wiring, installing boilers, plumbing, and so forth - Kehoe, being a mechanically-minded man, does them instead. In his mind, he is saving the school money. In the process, he is also learning details he will use later in his nefarious plans.

When elections for the board come around again, to his shock, Kehoe is not supported by his party, having burned too may bridges with his aggressive and controlling ways. This fuels even more resentment.

By now months behind on his mortgage, Kehoe stockpiles 500 pounds of pyrotrol, an explosive used widely in WWI and manufactured in the millions of pounds by chemical companies in the US. He also purchases dynamite, which seems odd to us today, but both were considered normal ways to deal with things like boulders and tree stumps when clearing land for farming.

From this point, we get a ticking timeline of witness statements: from someone seeing Kehoe take crate after crate into the basement of the school, to movements of student and teachers in the school, to people who first notice Kehoe's farm on fire.

As the clock ticks to 9:45AM, the destruction begins, with more details of where people were, inside and outside the school. Warning: there are some gruesome descriptions of injuries as the people of Bath start digging through the rubble. Included in this part of the narrative is how, after sufficient rubble had been cleared and the dead and injured counted, the men who went into the basement made the horrifying discovery that Kehoe had packed all of the pyrotel he'd purchased in various parts of the basements, all wired to the same ignition battery. The battery was apparently not strong enough to detonate all of the explosives - had it been, the school would likely have been just a crater in the ground, and much of Bath and many of its inhabitants would have been killed.

This takes about half the book. The second half is a discussion of mass (and not so mass) murders and how they are viewed by the public, including bringing up previous mass murders like Bath when subsequent mass murders make the news. It's also a discussion about how atrocities like Bath can be readily forgotten because of other news - Schechter uses Lindbergh's solo, nonstop flight from New York to Paris, for instance, as an example. But, he always returns to Bath. From Columbine to Whitman in the Tower to the Alfred Murrah bombing in Oklahoma to Virginia State to Parkland, he hammers on stories about those hearkening back to Bath, one of the earliest known intentional mass murders in our collective history.

The first half is definitely stronger than the second, and - and this is a point he makes - likely more interesting, because of human nature. The second half, however, is worth the time to read. While the book is geared toward US readers, it would likely be of interest to readers in other countries who take an interest in the history of mass killings (not serial killings; this is not the story of a serial killer).

Five out of five stars.

Thanks to Little A and NetGalley for the review copy.

This book was very well written and you can tell the author did a lot of research. It was a very interesting read and I'd recommend it to any true crime lover.

Title: Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer
Author: Harold Schechter
Publisher: Little A
Release Date: 09 March 2021
Genre: Literary, nonfiction

I was given a free copy of Maniac in exchange for an honest review.

Summary

In 1927, while the majority of the township of Bath, Michigan, was celebrating a new primary school—one of the most modern in the Midwest—Andrew P. Kehoe had other plans. The local farmer and school board treasurer was educated, respected, and an accommodating neighbor and friend. But behind his ordinary demeanor was a narcissistic sadist seething with rage, resentment, and paranoia. On May 18 he detonated a set of rigged explosives with the sole purpose of destroying the school and everyone in it. Thirty-eight children and six adults were murdered that morning, culminating in the deadliest school massacre in US history.

Maniac is Harold Schechter’s gripping, definitive, exhaustively researched chronicle of a town forced to comprehend unprecedented carnage, and the triggering of a “human time bomb” whose act of apocalyptic violence would foreshadow the terrors of the current age.

What I Think

When I think of mass shootings, Columbine, Virginia Tech, the Amish school shooter, Parkland, and so many countless shooters come to mind. It’s hard to believe that this phenomenon is nothing more than a tragic development of the recent century. We don’t think of mass shootings or bombings that could have occurred any earlier. What Harold Schechter shows us in his new book is that these acts of murder have happened earlier, and even became a precursor to the modern mass murder.

Maniac is different in the respect that it sets the reader up to what is going to happen later. We learn of Andrew Kehoe’s beginnings, why we moved to Bath, Michigan and his disgruntlement of the township’s taxation of the public in order to build and run its first school. His hatred for the school principal was so great that Kehoe accepted a position in the school board just to antagonize the man.

I thought the novel was masterfully written; Schechter gave us enough information about Kehoe, his life, and the township to understand what was going on without bogging us down with information that would have distracted us from the main story.

This is one of the few times where I would have liked to have known more about what was going on. Kehoe had burned down his farm before committing his crime at the school, effectively killing his wife and his livestock. I would’ve liked to known more about Nellie (his wife), her relationship with her husband, and whether or not his personality was the reason she was committed to an asylum only to be brought back and killed. It doesn’t detract from the story, but since it was something he did before going to the school, I would’ve liked to have known more.

All in all, the story was well paced. Schechter opens up with the modern mass shooter, brings us back in time to one of the earliest mass murderers, then brings it all together with how Kehoe’s actions are similar to those in modern times.

For those who’ve read Dave Cullen’s Columbine won’t want to miss this book coming in March 2021.

Wow! This was a great book but hard to read. The horror that was inflicted on innocent children is a difficult thing the take in and is enough to turn turn your stomach and break your heart.

Although it was such a difficult subject, it is extremely well researched and written. Schecher does a great job at not only laying out the history of the area as well as this horrifying incident. Maniac truly shines in its examining of why this event is not as known or as talked about as some other, often smaller, tragedies. Especially when considering the amount of mass murder reported in our current times.

While I enjoyed what was in the book, it felt unfinished. There were multiple strands of narrative that didn't ever get tied together. For example, the Charles Lindbergh tangent could have been braided in to the discussion of eugenics, but it is left dangling. Instead there are chapters about his Atlantic crossing with no understanding of why they are included, other than to show it was a popular new item at the time.

Harold Schechter’s Maniac is a quick, interesting look at Michigan’s Bath School Disaster. It was the deadliest school massacre in U.S. history, perpetrated by Andrew Kehoe in 1927.
My awareness of violent tragedies in schools began with Columbine and I had never heard of this mass murder that occurred seventy years earlier. It was interesting to learn about how other contemporary events at the time (such as Lindbergh’s first solo transatlantic flight) overshadowed the news of this massacre.
Thanks to NetGalley and Little A for the advanced digital copy of this book.

Perfect for lovers of true crime.The author vividly portrays the horrific act .The title of a serial killer might of been invented here.The people of the town the victims are really well written.Adark book that kept me turning the pages.#netgalley#littleA

Remarkable that I'd never heard of this story before! For that reason, it's an interesting read, but beyond the standard information, MANIAC never quite goes further. Schechter seems to be attempting to forge connections between modern school shootings, but beyond just stating the facts, he doesn't actually FIND any real connections. There were also strange tangents (why so much about Lindbergh?!) that didn't make sense.

As a fan of reading true crime novels I was really intrigued by the subject matter of such a horrific event that I had never heard of before.

Given that this massacre occurred in 1927 (well before my existence), it was very helpful to have the additional context of other major events that were taking place at that time. However, at a certain point, it started to feel more like a list of separate facts and less like a cohesive story.

Readers that appreciate a no-nonsense, just the facts, style of writing will enjoy this book. However those, like myself, that are looking for a little bit more depth and insight into the life and mind of the killer/victims involved in this tragedy may be left wanting more.

We had not lived in Lansing, MI very long before people referred to the Bath school bombing. I had never heard of Bath, MI or the school bombing. But the history was legend in Lansing.

In 1927 a farmer blew up the new consolidated Bath school, that had 250 children inside. At the same time, his own house and farm buildings blew up. He had murdered his wife and placed her body in one of the farm buildings. He drove to the school to see the carnage and when the Superintendent of Schools came to his car to talk, the farmer set off an explosion in his car, killing them both and killing and harming bystanders.

Forty-four funerals. Nearly the entire Fifth Grade class was dead. Lansing doctors said it was as bad as anything they saw in WWI.

Andrew Kehoe's wife inherited a farm in Bath, MI. They moved in and Kehoe became a good neighbor, involved in the community. When crop values fell he was broke. He focused on the taxes for the newly built school as the cause of his ruin.

Kehoe had an "inventive genius" and exceptional mechanical skills. But a closed head injury may have caused a personality change. He killed his sister's cat. He was seen abusing animals by Bath neighbors and friends. But few suspected he was capable of such evil.

Kehoe collected his explosives. In plain sight, he entered the school where he set up a system of explosives. He remained unemotional and detached even knowing what he was going to do.

Schechter shares the stories of people who heard the explosion and raced to the scene. He narrates the desperate struggle to find the survivors and the awful sight of blasted bodies.

Lansing was fifteen miles away. Victims were taken to the hospitals there, and first responders from Lansing and surrounding communities flocked to help at Bath.

Kehoe had planned his own demise, taking with him the school superintendent.

When Schecter first introduced Charles Lindbergh into the story I was confused. I learned that his historic flight dwarfed the story of the Bath School disaster. It faded into memory as new, lurid murder stories took over the headlines. We do have short attention spans.

Schechter sets the crime in context of the history of mass murderers and serial killers. It was interesting to learn that Kehoe purchased the explosives legally; after WWI, new markets were needed and they were promoted for farm use. A post-war drop in crop profits impacted farmers.

Kehoe's horrific crime of terrorism shocked the rural community of Bath, Michigan, and still appalls today.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Maniac by Harold Schechter dives deep into the account of Andrew Mahone and his infamous and devastating legacy of committing one of the first recorded mass murders in the United States. I really enjoyed reading this book. It did read more like an academic dissertation re: published into a book, however, that being said, it is a fantastic look into mass murder and the making of 3-4 famous murderers. Schechter does write a lot about events leading up to the murders, with a lot of detail on historical times and dates. This book is great if you are a true crime junkie, a killer buff, or just like historical narratives on disturbed people.

This story isn’t new to me, and the author didn’t provide much that I didn’t already know. Yet despite this, the book was so well-written that it would be remiss of me not to give it 5 stars. In fact, I read it all in one sitting. Fascinating and horrific.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

I enjoy true crime stories, and this one was pretty good. I liked the author’s “just the facts, ma’am” approach to the crime, and how the mass murderer of the school came to be that way. Inserting other events (while interesting to learn) was a distraction for me. I thought it was going to be about the Bath schoolhouse murders. Adding more serial killers I was already aware of was, in my opinion, a touch of overkill (no pun intended). The story veered off in so many different directions it was confusing, along with being a little too dry. I wish the author had stayed with the Bath murders theme. It felt like this book was thrown together haphazardly.
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for an advance ARC in exchange for my honest opinion..

Overview:
This book recounts the history of the events leading up to the Bath School Disaster in 1927. Andrew Kehoe perpetrated an attack on the local school, causing the deaths of 45 people (including 38 schoolchildren) and injuring a further 58.

The book goes into quite a bit of detail in the early chapters on the history of Bath as a township, as well as the history of Michigan as it relates to its treatment of Native Americans when it was first settled, it sets the scene for the exact environment Kehoe lived in and gave the reader a very clear picture of how things may have looked in the town in 1927.

The history of Kehoe's life and his family, as well as his financial and personal struggles create a full picture of the perpetrator and what stressors led to his actions. It is a very objectively told story with events recounted factually, however it does not lack empathy. Kehoe is not painted as a misunderstood or downtrodden individual but rather a more abrupt, cold man who had a history of bizarre and hateful actions, including one memorable story in which it is made clear that Kehoe worked a horse near to death, then finished it off with blows of his fists.

The portrait painted of Kehoe and the other citizens of Bath is well constructed, incredibly well researched and the footnotes add a lot of information to the story that I found incredibly interested. As a person who loves history and true crime, Harold Schechter's new book is one I thoroughly enjoyed and I will be reading all of his other books very soon.

(I will be adding my review to my website closer to the release date of this book in accordance with the author's wishes)

After reading the author's previous book about Belle Gunness, I knew I had to read this one too. Mr. Schechter has a wonderful way of tying in other important events happening around the same time to give the reader perspective to the enormity of the crimes committed. It's just amazing that this kind of thing happened so long ago but now will not be forgotten. I will definitely recommend this book to true crime readers and will look out for other books by this author.

This is a very interesting book about the first serial killers to have the name. Lovers of true crime fiction will enjoy it.

Maniac is an account of the 1927 Bath Consolidated School disaster, which remains the worst school massacre in US history. Let me start with, I'm a resident of the area where this took place and I'm familiar with the crime. This book is PACKED with information, almost to the point of being overwhelming. I felt as if the author included almost every detail he uncovered in his research. Comparing other crimes and criminals also seemed unnecessary, adding little but length to the book. The chapters on the first intercontinental airplane flight, while interesting and tied together at the end could also have been omitted without sacrificing the important parts of the topic.

This book is not for everyone. Some readers will be turned off by the excruciating, gory details. My favorite part of of the book was when the author subtly pointed out that this tragedy could have been avoided at so many different points by so many different people. The perpetrator has clearly been planning this crime for a number of years and gave so many hints to friends, neighbors, and acquaintances.

This book was okay, interesting to a point, but it wasn't what I would consider a GREAT read. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This is one of those true crime books which is so compellingly written that you have to double check that it is, in fact, a true account and not just fiction. I had not heard of this case before and it was a bit saddening to realise so little has changed... I really commend the author for their ability to paint a picture of the times and the people so vividly,

This book sheds light on one of histories greatest tragedies. The horror that shook this small town is unimaginable. This is a a horrible blemish on our history that shouldn’t have been pushed aside or forgotten to the past. This book shows the nature of the man who committed this crime in great detail and brings light to a story that shouldn’t have every been overshadowed.