Nutcracker

The New York Times–bestselling classic true-crime story of Frances Bradshaw Schreuder, the Manhattan socialite who persuaded the one assassin who couldn't refuse her—her teenage son—to kill her multimillionaire father

In August of 1983 Shana Alexander, acclaimed journalist and chronicler of the lives and criminal trials of Jean Harris and Patty Hearst, wrote to New York City ballet patron Frances Schreuder on the eve of her murder trial. Schreuder stood accused of unlawfully causing the death of her father, Franklin Bradshaw, and of soliciting, encouraging, and aiding her prep school–student son in the homicide in the hope of financial gain. Alexander never received a response, but she flew to Salt Lake City and met with Schreuder's mother, the matriarch of the Mormon dynasty—eighty-year-old Berenice Bradshaw.

Nutcracker is the true story of this crime—the twisting four-year police investigation, the derailed cover-up and conspiracy, the dramatic trials. It is also the tale of a family riven by greed and madness. Drawing on interviews with all the major players, Alexander paints a powerful portrait of a psychopathic woman driven by avarice, so depraved that she persuaded her own son to commit grand-patricide.

Nutcracker was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime of 1986.

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Shana Alexander (1926-2005) was a writer and commentator for Life, Newsweek, and 60 Minutes, as well as the author of seven nonfiction books, including the New York Times bestsellers Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder: A Family Album, which was made into a television miniseries, and Very Much a Lady: The Untold Story of Jean Harris and Dr. Herman Tarnower, a winner of the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. The daughter of song composer Milton Ager and entertainment-industry journalist Cecelia Ager, Alexander chronicled her coming-of-age in a privileged, unconventional family in her acclaimed memoirHappy Days.

“Engrossing . . . Lurid enough to satisfy anyone’s craving for sensation.” —The New York Times

“It rivals Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. . . . A story of unmitigated horror.” —Willie Morris

“A Chekovian family tragedy . . . Alexander’s compelling narrative builds in intensity around this uniquely twisted woman.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Chilling reading . . . leaves the reader stunned.” —The Kansas City Star

“No other book better depicts the making of a psychopath.” —Abraham L. Halpern, MD, former president of the American Board of Forensic Psychiatry

“A tale Edgar Allan Poe could have imagined, Alfred Hitchcock could have filmed, and fortunately Shana Alexander did write expertly.” —Maya Angelou

“[A] tale of murder and betrayal . . . Enough to keep a reader up half the night.” —San Francisco Chronicle