The Book
About the Book
A novel with a docket number.
A true story, told as a scrapbook
Hundred Cents on the Dollar is a historical novel drawn from the public record. It follows William H. Malone from a Chicago boarding house to the builder’s box at the Pickwick Theatre, through a federal courtroom, and into a Presidential pardon.
It is narrated by his sister, Ethel Blanche Malone, in the scrapbook she kept from 1938 until her death in 1949. Her granddaughter annotates the margins decades later. Her grandson, an attorney, assembles the file and hands it to you.
Built from the file, not around it
Every date, dollar, and line of testimony comes from the record: the trial docket and Bill of Exceptions, the appellate and tax court opinions, and the clemency file held at the National Archives. Around that spine runs fifty years of family genealogy. Where the sources disagree, the book says so. Where the truth is unknown, it does not pretend to know.
The court record can be read. It cannot be rewritten. The verdict is the one thing the book leaves open.