The professional life of Clarence Darrow – renowned US lawyer and leading civil libertarian – is already well-documented, but Donald McRae fleshes it out with a more personal take on the "magnificently ugly" philanderer. Darrow's long affair with journalist Mary Field Parton frames a vivid retelling of his three most famous court cases: defending an evolutionist against the church; a black physician accused of killing a member of a lynch mob; and Leopold and Loeb, two wealthy teenagers who killed a younger boy for fun. Viewed through Field Parton's eyes, Darrow's flawed brilliance is compelling – McRae has won awards for his sports writing and brings the best of that genre to The Old Devil, recreating court scenes in prose so juicy, it's easy to forget this is not a novel.