HELL'S HALF-ACRE

A spirited, occasionally plodding account of a murderous Kansas clan.

It’s no In Cold Blood, but this history of a band of cutthroats proves that the epithet “Bloody Kansas” was not confined to the Civil War. Indeed, when searchers arrived at a cabin in the southeastern corner of Kansas in 1873, the veterans among them immediately recognized the smell of death. The place had been inhabited by a mysterious group of settlers who lured travelers indoors and then dispatched them, dumping their bodies nearby or in the cellar. “Their case,” writes Jonusas of the Bender gang, “is a stark reminder that buried beneath the myth of the outlaw are very real criminals whose violence left an indelible imprint on communities across the frontier.” That is certainly so, though the dramatic tensions in her story sometimes go slack when she cuts away for historical disquisitions. Nonetheless, she ably captures the dangers involved in the westward trek that so many of the Benders’ victims did not live to see through: “If travelers were lucky enough to escape death at the hands of the natural world,” she writes, “there were myriad bizarre accidents to fall foul of.” And then there were the Benders themselves, whose neighbors knew that terrible things happened whenever they were near but who nevertheless looked the other way as the list of victims mounted. One young woman, in particular, achieved a certain degree of untouchability: Even if “the more superstitious citizens of Labette whispered to one another that she was a witch,” the menfolk were taken with her. The narrative holds up until the author recounts how the Benders disappeared when the law began to close in; her extended theorizing about what happened to them goes too long. Still, it’s a story that, grisly and unsolved, fascinates on its own merits.

A smart though bumpy melding of frontier history and true crime.