Simon Baatz

Simon Baatz was born in London and studied at the University of York and Imperial College London. He first came to the United States for graduate work in the history of science at the University of Pennsylvania and he subsequently taught United States history at George Mason University in northern Virginia. His most recent book, THE GIRL ON THE VELVET SWING, was published on January 16, 2018 by Mulholland Books, an imprint of Little, Brown & Co. Harbor Lights Productions, a film and television production company based in Malibu, has signed an agreement to develop a motion picture based on his history of the Leopold-Loeb case, FOR THE THRILL OF IT (HarperCollins, 2008). FOR THE THRILL OF IT, a New York Times bestseller, was a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award. Simon has lived in Tokyo, Frankfurt, and Washington DC and he now teaches American legal history at John Jay College, City University of New York.