Nathan Fruedenthal Leopold and Richard Albert Loeb were both born in Chicago, Illinois. The former was born in 1904, and the latter was born in 1905. Leopold was exceptionally smart, studying several languages and other subjects. He graduated with honors from the University of Chicago, and planned to attend Harvard to study law. He was also very into birds, donating specimens to the Field Museum, as well as winning national recognition for his contributions to birding. Loeb was also exceptionally smart, graduating from the University of Michigan at age 17. He was into crime novels and read extensively. It is interesting to note these facts about these two, because they were both extremely smart and gifted in academics, came from wealthy families, lived in nice neighborhoods, and were college educated. A lot of times, people think that criminals are the underbelly of society, but this is a shining example of how that isn't strictly the case. As brilliant as these two were in academics, they found themselves taken with the idea that they were supermen, based on writings by Friedrich Nietzsche. Upset that the petty crimes they had been committing were not getting them enough attention for their amazing superhuman powers, they decided to commit the "perfect crime".

If you are unfamiliar with the Leopold and Loeb case, this book is very well researched and contains all the facts of the case. I had already listened to a couple of podcasts and watched an episode of some show about this case, but I still managed to learn a great deal about the two as individuals. It is very thought provoking to consider how people like this find themselves together and committing crimes, despite having every advantage in the world to be thriving members of society. This book is part of The Last Podcast On The Left reading list, so if you are one of the ones who follows that and needs one of those books...here you go. This book is also available to listen to on Audible Plus currently, though I found this copy at the library. I highly recommend this if you are interested in older true crime cases.