Best of
Crime

1983

The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex Killer Ted Bundy


Stephen G. Michaud - 1983
    Handsome, boyish and well-spoken, a law student with bright political prospects, Bundy was also a predator and sexual deviant who murdered and mutilated at least thirty young women and girls, many of them college coeds but at least two as young as twelve.

Fatal Vision


Joe McGinniss - 1983
    Jeffrey MacDonald, the handsome, Princeton-educated physician convicted of savagely slaying his young pregnant wife and two small children, murders he vehemently denies committing. Bestselling author Joe McGinnis chronicles every aspect of this horrifying and intricate crime, and probes the life and psyche of the magnetic, all-American Jeffrey MacDonald, a golden boy who seemed destined to have it all. The result is a penetration to the heart of darkness that enshrouded one of the most complex criminal cases ever to capture the attention of the American public. It is haunting, stunningly suspenseful—a work that no reader will be able to forget.With 8 pages of dramatic photos and a special epilogue by the author

Lust Killer


Ann Rule - 1983
    To his employers, Jerry was an expert electrician, the kind of skilled worker you just don't find anymore. To his wife, Darcie, Jerry was a good husband, and a loving father to their children, despite his increasingly sexual demands on her, and his violent insistence that she never venture into his garage workroom and the giant food freezer there.To the Oregon police, Jerry Brudos was the most hideously twisted killer they had ever unmasked. And they brought to light what he had done to four young women—and perhaps many more—in the nightmare darkness of his sexual hunger and rage. First, Jerry Brudos was brought to trial...and then, in a shattering aftermath, his wife was accused as well...

The Danger


Dick Francis - 1983
    But it isn't so simple when Alessia Cenci, golden-girl jockey, disappears, followed by the young child of a derby winner and the senior steward of the Jockey Club. From Italy to England to Washington, D.C., Andrew's caseload is suddenly, violently overflowing. And he must fight triply hard to keep his own name off the growing list of victims. . . .

Missionary Stew


Ross Thomas - 1983
    Haere seeks the information in order to get dirt on his boss's opponent in the 1984 US Presidential election. Haere's pursuit of the truth repeatedly puts Haere's life in danger, as the powers-that-be stop at nothing to keep the episode buried. Along the way, Haere carries on an affair with the wife of his candidate and enlists the aid of Morgan Citron, an almost-Pullitzer winning journalist who has recently been released from an African prison where the prisoners where fed human flesh--the titular missionary stew. Together Citron and Haere face up against cocaine traffickers, Latin American generals, corrupt US officials, and Citron's estranged, tabloid-publisher mother.

Brothers in Blood: The True Account of the Georgia Massacre


Clark Howard - 1983
    When Betty Isaacs walked out on her twelve kids, the youngest were packed off to foster-homes--divided up, Carl Isaacs recalls, ""like sticks of firewood."" He was ten then and from the time when, a few years ... More later, his mother told him he couldn't come back and live with her (""Don't let's rock the boat""), he didn't care about anything. Foster-homes, reform schools, escapes--it all led at 19 to a Maryland prison where, lo and behold, there was his half-brother Wayne Coleman, 26, a shiftless and somewhat dim character with a violent streak. Wayne's prison sidekick was a surprise: a black convict named George Dungee, Wayne's homosexual lover (to Carl, the ""nigger fuck-boy""), doing time for non-support(!). The trio escaped, picked up 15-year-old Billy isaacs (himself a reform school runaway, but trying to go straight), and headed south. Aimless travel eventually brought them to a rural road near Donalsonville, Ga., where they tried to burglarize a house trailer belonging to Jerry and Mary Alday. Various Alday family members showed up unexpectedly, but Wayne had a solution--""Let's blow 'em away."" It was a challenge and, insane as it seems, Carl couldn't back down:he was the leader, and his status with his brothers was all he had. Five male Aldays murdered; Mary Alday gang-raped and murdered. Once it started, Carl made certain the woman was his ticket to the electric chair--he wanted it, anything but being raped again himself by the black studs in the general prison population. Carl, Wayne, and George all drew death sentences but, ten years later, still languish on Death Row amid legal appeals, while at least one Alday relative regrets not having accepted an offer of a lynching. Howard (American Saturday, Zebra) tries hard to elevate this senseless tragedy into something more than a simple horror story--where-did-they-go-wrong flashbacks to Carl's and Billy's childhoods, interspersed with scenes of the hard-working, God-fearing Aldays--but everything other than the gore here seems manufactured. - Kirkus

The Truth About Self Protection


Massad Ayoob - 1983
    

The Devil's Butcher Shop: The New Mexico Prison Uprising


Roger Morris - 1983
    Morris's meticulous documentation traces prison corruption . . . proving the tragedy could have been avoided. I recommend this book without reservation.--Jack Anderson

Son


Jack Olsen - 1983
    In March 1981, luck and inspired police work at last produced an arrest, and Spokane shuddered. The suspect was clean cut and conservative…and Gordon Coe’s son.For eighteen months, Jack Olsen researched the cases of Fred and Ruth Coe to try to learn not only what happened within that family, but how and why. He interviewed more than 150 people and built up a portrait not only of that extraordinary family, but of the mind of a psychopath. And searching the memories of the women in Fred Coe’s life, he unearthed a most horrifying question: What is it like to love and live with a man for years—and then discover he is a psychopathic criminal?

Hardy Boys 3 in 1: The Mystery of the Disappearing Floor / The Wailing Siren Mystery / The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior


Franklin W. Dixon - 1983
    

The Margery Allingham Omnibus


Margery Allingham - 1983
    This volume includes the detective novels Mystery Mile, the Crime at Black Dudley and Look to the Lady. Allingham's nerdy detective, Albert Campion, has few social skills but a razor sharp mind. "His friends invariably underestimated Campion-so did his victims."

Hooligan


Geoffrey Pearson - 1983
    It fills the blank spaces left when newspaper stories and TV news shows present crime as a "crisis," a "wave" or an "issue."

Boys From The Blackstuff


Alan Bleasdale - 1983
    This book contains the complete scripts of all five plays from the original TV drama series, clearly organised for reading or studying in class, with an introduction and suggestions for related work.

Nightfall; Down There; Dark Passage; The Moon In The Gutter (Omnibus)


David Goodis - 1983
    

Four Novels: They Shoot Horses, Don't They? / Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye / No Pockets in a Shroud / I Should Have Stayed Home


Horace McCoy - 1983
    Includes four unabridged novels by Horace McCoy: "They Shoot Horses Don't They," Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye," "No Pockets in a Shroud," and "I Should Have Stayed Home."

Power, Crime and Mystification


Steven Box - 1983
    Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Poetics of Murder: Detective Fiction and Literary Theory


Glenn W. Most - 1983
    

Pictorial History of The Wild West: A True Account of the Bad Men, Desperados, Rustlers, and Outlaws of the Old West- and the Men Who Fought Them to Establish Law and Order


James D. Horan - 1983
    A true account of the bad men, desperadoes, rustlers and outlaws of the Old West-and the men who fought them to establish law and order.

Our Gang: Jewish Crime and the New York Jewish Community, 1900-1940


Jenna Weissman Joselit - 1983
    Jenna Weissman Joselit traces the origins, nature, patterns, location, and impact of Jewish crime from the early years, when it was inextricably bound up with the East Side community as a whole, with criminals living among the more or less law-abiding citizens they preyed upon, to the post-World War I period and the gradual assimilation and absorption of Jewish crime into the mainstream of the American underworld.Parallel with this theme is a broader one: the New York Jewish community's reaction to Jewish crime, evolving from disbelief to denial to concern and the establishment of a network of correctional and preventive agencies, and finally--as the nature of Jewish crime changed, and as the community itself felt a growing sense of security--a sort of acceptance.

The Corsican


William Heffernan - 1983
    From Saigon's voyeuristic 'Hall of a Thousand Mirrors' to the sinister plains of Jars, a brutal private war is being fought...

The Arbor House Treasury of Detective and Mystery Stories from the Great Pulps


Bill PronziniHorace McCoy - 1983
    ChampionFatal Accident - John D. MacDonaldSee no evil - William Campbell GaultCrime of Omission - John D. MacDonaldThe Girl in the Golden Cage - John Jakes

HOUSE OF HORRORS


John Lisners - 1983
    OR SO IT SEEMED UNTIL THE BLOCKED DRAINS OF HIS NORTH LONDON HOME REVEALED HIS GRUESOME SECRET...Dennis Andrew Nilsen was a monster who preyed on lonely young men, perfect victims for his murderous rage since nobody was waiting at home for their return. Nilsen invited them back to his flat, plied them with drink and then embarked on an unbelievable orgy of savage killing. During five years of ruthless butchery, Nilsen killed fifteen young men. Never, at any time, did he show any remorse.John Lisners is a top Fleet Street investigative reporter, and has been researching this book from the day Nilsen was arrested. HOUSE OF HORRORS takes the reader on a chilling, compelling journey through the mind of a terrifying psychopath, and reveals all the horrific details of Nilsen's secret double life.

Billy the Kid: A Handbook


Jon Tuska - 1983