Humphreys.. sees to it that no moss clings to the Charleston murder story. He reveals it to be a Shakespearean love story for the accused.. And through a fictitious New York City reporter who falls in with a beautiful woman and a little hustler from the Jenkins Orphanage, the tale strays well beyond court transcripts. It's not every book that includes a torrid cemetery scene, but somehow it fits the flirtatious grande dame we still know and love as Charleston. The scenarios are as true to the Lowcountry as alligators sunning on rice dikes and the clearly defined racial boundaries that survived the Civil War. more...

Sometimes, facts are the best source of fiction. Batt Humphreys' “Dead Weight,” a new novel set in 1910 Charleston, stems from a tragic true story... Humphreys, a former CBS News senior producer who now lives Charleston, used newspaper and trial accounts to research this story... But he also adds characters. To bring an outsider's perspective, Humphreys creates New York Tribune reporter Hal Hinson, who arrives in town to cover the trial. He also gives Hal a love interest – Randy Dumas, the smart, beautiful woman who also happens to own the city's brothels. more...

More than anything else, a city is an idea. An idea powerful enough to declare itself in iron, timber, and stone, and arrogant enough to push those declarations up against the sky so that the city may cast its own light and shadow among the souls it shelters. A city absorbs the lives of its inhabitants. It outlives them. And it never forgets what it has been. more...

On Sunday, Aug. 28, the "Great Storm of 1911" hit Charleston, S.C., the worst hurricane prior to Hugo in 1989.

Seventeen people were killed. Property losses exceeded $1 million. High tides and winds of 106 miles per hour drove salt water into the low country rice fields, destroying so many dykes that the rice industry never recovered. more...

In Charleston, an author is trying to get officials to say a black man convicted of killing a white clothing store owner in 1911 was railroaded by police desperate to solve the crime.

The Evening Post newspaper proclaimed it "the most dastardly and sensational crime that has happened in Charleston in several years." Investigators questioned a half-dozen blacks and offered a $750 reward but couldn't find a suspect until two weeks later, when the shopkeeper's widow was attacked in the same store. Two white men grabbed Daniel "Nealy" Duncan, who was walking near the store as the woman staggered out. more...

Basing his novel on a true story, author Batt Humphreys jumps into the racial divide that is Charleston, S.C., in 1910.

In "Dead Weight," Humphreys tells of Daniel "Nealy" Duncan, a hard-working, forward-looking young black man who's preparing for his wedding to sweet Ida.

In a perfect case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Nealy is accused of murdering a Jewish merchant. more...

In the summer of 1910 the Charleston police arrested Daniel Cornelius "Nealy" Duncan, a black man, for the murder of a Jewish merchant. In spite of his court-appointed attorney's Atticus Finch-like efforts, Duncan was found guilty by a kangaroo court and was hanged. By all accounts an upright citizen, Duncan was to be married five days after his alleged crime. He went to his grave calmly declaring his innocence. In Dead Weight, former CBS News producer Batt Humphreys fills the gaps in Duncan's story. By turns a romance, mystery, courtroom drama and history lesson, Dead Weight is a novel that makes the most of its exhaustive research and Humphreys' seemingly natural ability to spin a nail-biting yarn. more...

There once was a man named Daniel Cornelius Duncan. His employer, the baker Rudolph Geilfuss, called him Daniel. His father, friends, and Ida Lampkin, his bride-to-be, called him Nealy.

Police officer W.H. Stanley called him a prisoner. Prosecutor John Peurifoy called him a murderer. The city of Charleston called him condemned. Newspaper reporter Hal Hinson, of the New York Tribune, called him a black messiah. more...

Dead Weight, the true crime story by first-time novelist Batt Humphreys, made its network television debut on The Early Show on CBS the same week the author was honored at three national book awards ceremonies during Book Expo America (BEA) in New York. see video

In the past year, Humphreys is enjoying success with his novel “Dead Weight” and was recently invited to talk about the book on the CBS’s “Early Show..

“One of the anchors is a close friend, read the book and liked it,” Humphreys said. “She thought the story had merit and was worth putting on the air. Getting authors on shows doesn’t happen as much as it used to. There is a perception that people aren’t reading anymore. more...

Mary Ake Smoak on June 13, 2010 at 4:40 pm
"I am surprized that there has not been more attention given to this book. The injustice that happened to Daniel Duncan is haunting, especially when we now know that many people behind bars even today were innocent and not released until the science of DNA freed them. This injustice is easier to digest when placed in a time that seems far away and not applicable to us at this time. I picked this book up on a whim-and I am very glad I did.” more...

It’s interesting… the difference in the writing style of a novel by a long-time news-journalist and that of someone who’s always been a fiction writer. Or at least I think there is.

Both can tell a compelling story, but somehow, there’s an element of fact inherent from the beginning in the way a journalist presents his/her plot. Whether or not this would be recognizable without pre-knowing that the author is/was a news-journalist, of course, I can’t tell you. To me it was the manner, the air, if you will, in the introduction and recording of the data in Batt Humphreys’ award-winning ”Dead Weight” (2009, Joggling Board Press) that I found different and quite compelling. more...

I want to say from the start - I loved this book! The writing just grabs you and sucks you in immediately. The wording is smooth, catchy, witty, yet still with purpose in it's tone.

The story starts with elegant phrasing that could turn dull if continued for a long period of time but by the second page the dialogue starts and you realize what you are reading is a very witty reporter who thinks out loud, making the pretty phrasing of the first page. more...

No matter how serene a town can be, in the blink of an eye, it can turn hideous quick. “Dead Weight” tells the story of how turn-of-the-twentieth-century Charleston, South Carolina gets such a radical change. When murder strikes, racial prejudices flare, as the town is brought into a conflict between its black, white, and Jewish communities. Based on true events, Batt Humphreys crafts a riveting tale that is sure to intrigue and entertain, making “Dead Weight” a top pick.