Jacob and Nancy Jane Young, “highly respected residents of Indianapolis” (2), were brutally murdered on the banks of Indiana's White River in September 1868. The investigation into their deaths uncovered a Ponzi-like scheme and pointed the finger at several of Young's associates, including Nancy Clem, a neighbour and local businesswoman. The police investigation resulted in three murder charges against Clem, her brother Silas Hartman and another neighbour, William J. Abrams. For the first time in Indianapolis, three of its residents faced trial on the charge of premeditated murder. Like many other cities in the American Mid-west, Indianapolis was rapidly growing in the mid-nineteenth century. From a population of under 19,000 in 1860 the city expanded to over 48,000 in 1870. With such rapid expansion came the growing pains felt by many cities, one of which was an increase in crime. The murder of the Youngs was the most sensational of crimes and it captivated the city in 1868 and for several years afterwards.

The Notorious Mrs Clem bears all the marks of a well-researched book (though I would like to have seen a bibliography in addition to endnotes). Wendy Gamber's attention to detail is impressive, but at times overwhelming. There are multiple trials covered in this book and a cast of what feels like thousands appears in the witness stand. As each trial essentially rehashes the same ground, the tweaking of small details by the witnesses – while vital from the judge and juries’ perspectives –leaves the reader somewhat baffled and confused. Though the story is not suspenseful, Gamber's occasional use of foreshadowing detracts from what suspense there is.

The murder trials that dominate this book are not without interest. It was rare for a woman to be charged with murder, and rarer still for the case not to be one of domestic homicide. The prosecution regularly castigated Nancy Clem for being a businesswoman who worked independently of her husband, and indeed, it seemed, without his having any real knowledge of her business dealings. Rather than seeing that as something to be suspicious of, her defense attorney, John Hanna, praised her independence and self-reliance, arguing that as a young widow with a son she had supported them both. He suggested that it should not be seen as a flaw that when she remarried she chose to remain self-reliant and continue to keep her own business dealings separate from those of her new husband. He appealed to the jury to see the value, importance and respectability of women who worked.

Such glimpses offer fascinating insights into how women were perceived in Gilded Age America. The trials raise issues of gender, race and class, and while Gamber is careful to place them in a broader framework she misses the opportunity to develop these themes more extensively. The intricacies of legal argument are well dealt with, but one of the difficulties with focussing so heavily on the trials is that the end result, while significant for those accused and for the families of the victims, is largely inconsequential for society at large, with no broader repercussions and few lessons learned. The fact that juries decided not only on the guilt or innocence of the accused but also on the sentence is briefly considered, but a more in-depth analysis of this controversial practice, which was used in at least nine states by the 1880s, would have been enlightening.

The book is at its best when it ventures outside the courtroom. There are small digressions that would have been interesting to see explored more; the journalist Laura Ream has an engaging cameo here, particularly in relation to her campaign to have William Abrams released from prison. However, a more extensive consideration of the role of women in the exploding newspaper industry as well as as murder suspects could have been developed. The chapter on the Indiana Reformatory Institution for Women and Girls, the first exclusively women's prison in the United States and one which had a female superintendent, is absorbing. The ideology behind the reformatory was that it would be transformative and encourage inmates not to reoffend by replicating an “idealized middle-class home” (219). However, the reality was more brutal than that and the superintendent, “Aunty Smith,” and her staff used considerable violence. Clem's career as a saleswoman for Slavin's Infallible Tonic, a “Female Regulator for all female complaints,” and her venture into providing medical advice to her customers is also fascinating. There is an understandable draw to focussing on Nancy Clem's murder trials but the really interesting stories take place beyond the rather dry rhetoric of the courtroom.