Book Review: "Kingdom of Devils" by Katherine Grandjean

Introduction

In late-18th century Appalachia, Tennessee and Kentucky convulsed with paroxysms of violence perpetrated by who some call America’s first serial killers. In Kingdom of Devils, Katherine Grandjean relates the story of Wiley and Micajah Harp, a pair of brothers who terrorized locals and travelers by committing heinous murders. This biography traces more than just their actions, however; Grandjean embeds the Harp brothers in the emergent chaos inherent with new political, cultural, social, and economic realities in the aftermath of the American Revolution.

Historical Context & Synopsis

Like many early American folklore and legends, the grainy truth resides among the more elaborate fabrications. And, again like many tales, there's a scarcity of real evidence to help us discern facts from fiction. In the case of the Harp brothers, Grandjean, Associate Professor of History at Wellesley, has scoured through archives and dusty books to find scraps of the truth. From Wiley's marriage bond to local court records, the sources point to a likely disaffected pair of young men who - perhaps disgruntled by lack of or failed opportunities - meted out punishment on those they perceived to have harmed them or simply possessed what they didn't. 

Historians estimate the Harps killed anywhere from 39 to 50 victims. In a time when local policing took the form of sheriffs, deputies, and townsfolk, it's likely the Harps committed more crimes than we know. Their victims were mostly men, but their final crime involved the deaths of a young woman, her infant son, and a boarder. It was then that their reign of terror eventually ended.

Review

Kingdom of Devils reflects that America didn't just become a cohesive unit after its separation from England. Instead, the new country roiled and grappled with changes. Some met the challenges head on and succeeded while others, like the Harps, struggled to find their bearings and perhaps engaged in nefarious deeds in response. 

Where the book falls in some aspects is when the author makes blurry hypotheses and generalizations about the Harp brothers’ motivation and Appalachia as a whole and its alignment with the creation of identity and ethos after the American Revolution. 

“Appalachia’s disease may only have been a more severe case of something that infected men across the United States in the wake of the American Revolution. Everywhere, in the new republic, men struggled. Shaken free of traditional safety nets, loosed into new places without family, and drunk on a giddy cocktail of new markets and new expectations, they stumbled. Then they fell.” (loc. 1405)

Writing about Wiley Harp, Grandjean remarks, “But with [the pattern of someone trying to win but losing] in view, he represents the origins of something distinctly American—the ethos of individualism, liberalism, and the power of the market colliding with the realities of failure and loss of face” (loc. 1506).”

The Harp murders occurred only about a decade after the official conclusion of the American Revolution. Therefore, I think it's a stretch to emphatically but perhaps preemptively apply such emerging patterns, something “distinctly American”, to two people and one crime spree when there little existed a true “American” identity and culture at that point in time. 

Overall, Kingdom of Devils offers readers a fast-paced, deeply-researched, and well-articulated look into the early American past and a crime with victims who should not be forgotten.

Thank you to the author and Random House for a NetGalley copy! All thoughts and opinions are my own!

Book Summary:

Title: Kingdom of Devils
Author: Katherine Grandjean
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: June 2026
Page Count: 352pp

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