I wish I had better things to say about this book.  I’m glad I read it because I really do enjoy true crime and historical true crime can be great. Richard White really did his homework, the book bristles with research.  And it is interesting but it’s also so detailed it gets a bit tedious.  

Who Killed Jane Stanford? 
By Richard White 
2022 / 
Read by Christopher P. Brown 11h 28m
Rating: 7.5  / historical true crime 

In 1905 Jane Stanford lived with a couple of her household servants in a San Francisco mansion and a Palo Alto estate. Since 1893 she had been the widow of Leland Stanford a millionaire industrialist and California politician and she was also the grieving mother of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr. who died of typhoid fever at the age of 15.

Where Jane and Leland had spent their lives mourning and immortalizing to Leland Jr. She was now left alone to take care of things and Stanford University came first. She had her own way of doing things which included a lot of religion and other high minded activities of which spiritualism was one. She was devoted to the continued existence (to her anyway) of both husband and son.  She rule Stanford in all matters and her affairs were kept in order by lawyers.

Then she was poisoned. It failed. She was poisoned again, this time while she and her company were in Hawaii. This time it worked. But who did it? Because it was hushed up so well the truth has never been certain but White takes us through the possibilities, their opportunities and motives which lead us right to the killer.