A monster preyed upon the children of nineteenth-century Boston. His crimes were appalling--and yet he was little more than a child himself. When fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874, a nightmarish reign of terror over an unsuspecting city came to an end. The Boston Boy Fiend was imprisoned at last. But the complex questions sparked by his ghastly crime spree--the hows and whys of vicious juvenile crime--were as relevant in the so-called Age of Innocence as they are today. Jesse Pomeroy was outwardly repellent in appearance, with a gruesome dead eye; inside, he was deformed beyond imagining. A sexual sadist of disturbing precocity, he satisfied his atrocious appetites by abducting and torturing his child victims. But soon, the teenager's bloodlust gave way to another obsession: murder. Harold Schechter, whose true-crime masterpieces are well-documented nightmares for anyone who dares to look (Peoria Journal Star), brings his acclaimed mix of compelling storytelling, brilliant insight, and fascinating historical documentation to Fiend--an unforgettable account from the annals of American crime.