Minnie Dean, the respectable ex-schoolmistress who was so proud of her garden . . . did she use it as a graveyard and was she the merciless poisoner of legend? Was Charles Clements fully sane when he butchered his wife with a tomahawk? Did Hugh Sweeny, in fact, kill his mistress and set fire to her cottage to cover his crime?

These and other crimes are described in HANLON: A CASEBOOK - a selection of many of the famous cases, mainly murder, that were defended by Alfred Charles Hanlon. In the latter years of the nineteenth century and in the first three decades of this, Hanlon's name was a legend in law. While carving out a one man law practice from the entrenched partnerships of Otago's legal society, Alf Hanlon was to defend, usually with dramatic success, a great number of murder cases. Whatever the outcome, the cases herein show the skill and originality that were to give Hanlon a place in New Zealand's legal history.

- from the back cover.

Published by BCNZ Enterprises, 1985.
Good secondhand condition, though with a faded spine on the otherwise intact dust-jacket.

Cover image may differ slightly form that shown.