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Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder: A Family Album Kindle Edition

by Shana Alexander (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 358 ratings
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New York Times Bestseller: The “compelling” story of Frances Schreuder, who persuaded her son to kill her multimillionaire father, Franklin Bradshaw (The Washington Post Book World).

In August of 1983 Shana Alexander, acclaimed journalist and chronicler of the lives and criminal trials of Jean Harris and Patty Hearst, wrote to New York City ballet patron Frances Schreuder on the eve of her murder trial. Schreuder stood accused of unlawfully causing the death of her father, Franklin Bradshaw, and of soliciting, encouraging, and aiding her prep school–student son in the homicide in the hope of financial gain. Alexander never received a response, but she flew to Salt Lake City and met with Schreuder’s mother, the matriarch of the Mormon dynasty—eighty-year-old Berenice Bradshaw.

Nutcracker is the true story of this crime—the twisting four-year police investigation, the derailed cover-up and conspiracy, the dramatic trials. It is also the tale of a family riven by greed and madness. Drawing on interviews with all the major players, Alexander paints a powerful portrait of a psychopathic woman driven by avarice, so depraved that she persuaded her own son to commit grand-patricide.

A finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, Nutcracker is “a Chekovian family tragedy [that] builds in intensity around this uniquely twisted woman” (The Washington Post Book World).
 
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  1. Print length
    581 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Open Road Media
  5. Publication date
    February 17, 2015
  6. File size
    4872 KB
  7. Page Flip
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Engrossing . . . Lurid enough to satisfy anyone’s craving for sensation.” —The New York Times
 
“It rivals Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. . . . A story of unmitigated horror.” —Willie Morris
 
“A Chekovian family tragedy . . . Alexander’s compelling narrative builds in intensity around this uniquely twisted woman.” —The Washington Post Book World
 
“Chilling reading . . . leaves the reader stunned.” —The Kansas City Star
 
“No other book better depicts the making of a psychopath.” —Abraham L. Halpern, MD, former president of the American Board of Forensic Psychiatry
 
“A tale Edgar Allan Poe could have imagined, Alfred Hitchcock could have filmed, and fortunately Shana Alexander did write expertly.” —Maya Angelou
 
“[A] tale of murder and betrayal . . . Enough to keep a reader up half the night.” —San Francisco Chronicle
 

About the Author

Shana Alexander (1926–2005) was a writer and commentator for Life, Newsweek, and 60 Minutes, as well as the author of seven nonfiction books, including the New York Times bestsellers Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder: A Family Album, which was made into a television miniseries, and Very Much a Lady: The Untold Story of Jean Harris and Dr. Herman Tarnower, a winner of the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. The daughter of song composer Milton Ager and entertainment-industry journalist Cecelia Ager, Alexander chronicled her coming-of-age in a privileged, unconventional family in her acclaimed memoir Happy Days.
 
 

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00RWJPOIU
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media (February 17, 2015)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 17, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4872 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 581 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 358 ratings

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Shana Alexander

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Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
358 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Nancy Camus
5.0 out of 5 stars Book in good shape
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2024
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Glad to find a copy!
Good service
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katrig
4.0 out of 5 stars defective battered and broken
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2022
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This is an excellent read and s very well researched book and is the tale of murder and betrayal
The family in this story is one of the most dysfunctional families I have ever heard of. The whole family are defective battered and broken from the mother to her 3 children but especially her youngest daughter Francine who is a real piece of work. From her birth she is spoiled and had to have everything her way and desired the best of everything. Francine is accused of unlawfully causing the death of her father, Franklin Bradshaw, Francine involved The family in this murder and the story is all about money and how much money can corrupt and change the lives of so many people in one family. I highly recommend this book. I am part of the ARC group for Wildblue Press and BookSirens and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
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Douglas Terry
3.0 out of 5 stars A Detailed recounting of the story
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2015
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I debated a 3 or 4 on this book. It's an interesting style of presentation. There is a bit of an introduction and then the author tells us what happened and who did it. And I'm sort of now wondering why I should read the book. The family involved in this murder had to be the most neurotic in the state of Utah if not on the planet. It was all about money. Their story is told in painful detail. We get it. The central character of the story is crazy as a June bug. Enough already. Finally when we get to the trials the pace picks up and is fairly interesting but it took way too long to get there. Hence a 3 and not a 4.
7 people found this helpful
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michelle
5.0 out of 5 stars a crime story
Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2023
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A nonfiction crime story based on a woman who had her son kill her father. it is called the NUTCRACKER cause she was a contributor the ABA( American Ballet Association). her daughter was in the NUTCRACKER musical by the ABA in New York City. she lived in a penthouse in NYC. she lived a very pamper life style. She was afraid her father was going to cut her out of his will. so, she manuliaptded her youngest son to go to Utah and kill his grandfather. he was only a teenager. she tried to get her older son to do the killing. he refuse and was kicked out of her penthouse. he went and lives at the YMCA. it is hard to buy a gun in NY. she found a person to buy a gun in the state of texas. her youngest son shot his grandfather. he got convicted of the crime. the courts or police knew someone else was behind this crime. they figure that is was his mother. he refuse to say if his mother was on this killing. he finally relented and confused that she plan the crime. the court in Utah convicted her mother. i don't know if this woman is still alive. it was true and well written.
One person found this helpful
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Roy P.
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book
Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2023
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An interesting book I read about this case many years ago. Although interesting I think the author was a little bit long-winded in some parts, but overall did a good job.
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Not in WEP
2.0 out of 5 stars Boring
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2020
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Lost interest early on
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Rasheed
5.0 out of 5 stars "Makes Mommy Dearest Look Like Grimm's Tales"
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2016
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Tommy Thompson is extremely adroit at choosing great stories. You may be asking what Tommy Thompson has to do with this story and my answer would be: everything. The author, Shana Alexander, mentioned in her foreword that this entire story began with the research of the author of "Serpentine" and "Blood and Money", Tommy Thompson. Unfortunately, Tommy died before the conclusion of this saga and obviously before concluding his book that was to be titled "Mama's Boy." Tommy's sons handed his notes over to his good friend, Shana Alexander, and she took on the task with avarice. To be fair, though Tommy planted the seed, Shana Alexander made this work her own by doing the cultivating and harvesting--hence she chose her own title of "Nutcracker."

This is a true crime novel in which a man was murdered, another was bashed in the skull, three people went to prison and another went to a psychiatric hospital. There was a lot going on and even though most of the events centered around the murder of Franklin Bradshaw, the patriarch of the Bradshaw clan and a frugal millionaire, the severest of crimes was not his killing.

Yes, murder is a serious crime and we hold it as such but murders happen all the time. Franklin was 75 years old and although he didn't deserve to be killed he had lived a full life. That may sound cruel--it's not meant to be--I'm only illustrating how his simple death would not have been made into a book.

The essence of the book lie in the family and the various characters, most notably Frances Schreuder (pronounced shroy-der), Franklin's youngest daughter. Her wrath, especially towards her helpless and vulnerable children, was limitless. Whenever you mix money into an already caustic solution of sibling discord and parental favoritism you are bound to get some type of explosive reaction.

I couldn't read this book fast enough. Every page seemed to be another tragic occurrence, another bitter feud, another broken soul, another inequity. Then, there were the hows. How was the murder done? How did the murderer get caught? How did it get to that point? For dozens of pages a picture was painted of the family as a whole though some faces were of a sharper focus than others. And it was those sharper faces that were the main players and made this saga a story. All told this was a breathtaking affair that elicited strong feelings (usually of either hatred or compassion) and that's what you want from a novel.
6 people found this helpful
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Bre C.
4.0 out of 5 stars Great Read
Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2020
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This is an excellent read. It is very intriguing and captivating. The author goes in overkill mode when describing certain things (spoiler alert: NYCB). The book could have been just as good, if not better and shorter, if she had not spent so much time on what I refer to as the background stories; meaning everything that didn't have to do with the family directly. Reading this was like when in school and you have to write an essay with a certain word count. The over saturation of the excess sometimes made it a little difficult to follow because I would forget who was who and things of that nature but also on that same note it would also help me to remember because eventually she would get around to the inundation of details. It took a while for me to finish this book due to the wordiness but everytime I picked it up it was hard to put down because that family is the definition of dysfunction. It was like reading a rich version of the TV show 'Shameless'. If you can get past the redundancy I highly recommend this book.
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Naomi Cox
5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 29, 2020
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I got this book as a kindle offer. I love true crime, but I didn't have any expectations of the book. Well I was massively, pleasantly, surprised. This is a brilliant book. So well written, it drew me in and I didn't want to put it down. She writes about those involved with honesty and realism. And honestly it went places (NYC Ballet anyone?) I wasn't expecting it to.
I would definitely recommend this book
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CB
5.0 out of 5 stars Truth is stranger than fiction
Reviewed in Canada on May 11, 2015
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Superb read. This head of this family is the most dysfunctional, inappropriate, cruel and insane person I have ever read about. I actually felt sorry for the perpetrators of the crime as they had a very slight chance of being upstanding citizens when their family life was so bizarre. It was the most interesting read and thoroughly enjoyable
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Marilyn Oakley
4.0 out of 5 stars ... finished reading the book so I find it very good with some twists I think they are a very ...
Reviewed in Australia on September 28, 2015
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Not quite finished reading the book so I find it very good with some twists I think they are a very mixed up family.
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kennyweir
3.0 out of 5 stars good read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2020
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takes a long time to come to the point seems to go over the same things but the story is quite strange and you do want to find out the outcome
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Linda Pfeiffer
2.0 out of 5 stars Not enthralled
Reviewed in Canada on May 9, 2015
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Sorry to say I didn't like the way the author told this true crime story. I found it long and plodding and boring. I would have loved to hear about the murder in the first chapter and then after hearing who gets murdered, relate the story of the Bradshaw familty back through the generations. All that family history early in the book just complicated a simple story. By the time the reader hears the circumstances of the murder it is very anti-climatic. That's a strange statement for relating a murder .

When I read true crime I want to be enthralled just like a fictional crime.novel. This was not that.
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