The Historic Trial that Divided the Women of America Pearl, a stunning flapper in the Roaring Twenties, has danced for Rudolph Valentino, and enjoys the company of any man she chooses--until she decides to carry on an affair with Morgan, a married rural man with two children. Morgan's wife, Ina, disguised in borrowed clothing, guns Pearl down when she finds her on a midnight train with her arms around Morgan. The next day, Pearl's body is placed on public display for a town of strangers, and her killer is applauded in the streets by hundreds of country women. A "dream team" of defense attorneys is hired, and the stage is set for a sensational jazz era clash between two distinct views of a woman’s role in modern society—that of the “virtuous” rural mother dressed in gingham and the “scarlet woman” from the city who would deny a mother and her babies the necessities of life. Should death ever be the price for adultery? That is the question the jury—and readers—are faced with in THE UNWRITTEN LAW. The court scenes are similar to those depicted in the movies Inherit the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird. The author's work and research are definitely worthy of becoming a movie script. by Lynnae Price This is really a must read. I was unable to put it down. Finished the book in two days. It grabbed my attention from the first chapter. By Ernestine If you read only one book this summer, I suggest this one! It is very well written and I can envision a movie! by Connie My research and writing of this book had its origins in reviewing microfilm photocopies for a student's college English research paper.  To insure that my English 102 students understood how to use direct quotes and paraphrases, I required them to include photocopies of their cited materials. This particular student's paper was on the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago. On the same front page was the news about the opening day of the murder trial which I have described in my book.   The more I read about the case, the more obsessed I became with learning all the details that led up to Pearl's murder on the train, and to the eventual verdict handed down to the jealous wife who committed the crime. Along the way, I was privileged to speak with the descendants of many of the primary participants in  The Unwritten Law .  I visited the microfilm room at the University of Kentucky, where I obtained every available newspaper account of this well-publicized trial, later traveled to the Kentucky communities of Whitley City and Somerset, and visited Pearl's surviving sister in a nursing home in Louisville. Foremost in my mind during the writing of this book was to get every detail as correct as possible so many decades after the events had transpired, while at the same time trying to tell the story without showing bias toward either side in this criminal trial which so symbolized the changing roles of women in American society in the Roaring Twenties.  It is my sincerest hope that the reader will find me successful in these efforts. If you had been a member of the jury for one of the most sensational murder trials in the 20th century, how would you have voted? More than 60 years before the O.J. Simpson murder trial, another courtroom drama dominated the headlines. In 1928 a Kentucky farmer's daughter from Whitley City, Ky. stalked and murdered her husband's Louisville lover on a passenger train. The next day, the young mother of two was cheered by hundreds of women on the streets as police escorted her to a local studio for a newspaper photo. At the same time, her victim's body was being prepared for viewing at the local funeral home to satisfy the morbid curiosity of a town of strangers. Newspapers speculated her defense would invoke the unwritten law, a widely held belief that the killing of a man or woman who intruded into a marriage, especially one in which children were present, was justifiable homicide. A "dream team" of defense attorneys was hired, and the stage was set for a clash between two distinct views of a woman's role in modern society, that of the "virtuous" rural mother dressed in gingham and the "scarlet woman" from the city who would deny a mother and her babies the necessities of life. Should death ever be the price for adultery? That is the question the jury--and readers--are faced with in THE UNWRITTEN LAW. The author has carefully reconstructed events leading up to the dramatic murder and trial to allow the reader to sit in the crowded Somerset, Ky. courtroom in February 1929. There, they will listen to the testimony, weigh the evidence, and personally sit in judgment of the woman who murdered Pearl Decker Owens. Will they be outraged--or relieved--by the verdict? How we feel about the outcome may tell us a lot about ourselves. Read the book, discuss it with friends, and ask yourselves, was justice served Danny Cantrell is a life-long resident of the Appalachian region. He has worked in both the coal m