Book Talk: Roseanne Montillo on her new book “The Wilderness of Ruin: A Tale of Madness, Boston’s Great Fire, and the Hunt for America’s Youngest Serial Killer.”

Courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers

It is the early 1870s in Boston. Local children begin to disappear from working class neighborhoods of the city. Some turn up bloody and bruised after torture. Others never return. With the city on edge, authorities believe the abductions are the work of a psychopath. Then they discover that the killer, fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy, is barely older than his victims. Montillo’s historical novel is a tale of gruesome murder and depravity but at its heart the story of a great American city, divided by class, culture, and neighborhood, riveted by a criminal case that would have a critical impact on the judicial system and medical consciousness for decades. Free and open to the public; no reservations required. A book-signing will follow the event.