Blood Ties tells the story of two of the most notorious Americans of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century: Theodore Durrant and Maud Allan. 

Intensely—if not unnaturally—bonded, the siblings achieved international celebrity when Durrant stood trial for the horrific San Francisco Belfry Murders of 1895. Guilty as charged, Durrant earned the moniker “The Demon of the Belfry,” while Allan, a rival of Isadora Duncan who enthralled kings and electrified the public with her scandalous “Vision of Salome” dance, was ultimately destroyed by misogynistic forces in the most controversial British trial of the time. Blood Ties unearths the layered and twisted details of Durrant and Allan, ultimately asking how and why history has rendered them largely unknown.