Murder in the Adirondacks: An American Tragedy Revisited


Craig Brandon - 1986
    The Gillette-Brown murder case from which Dreiser drew his An American Tragedy was a sensation in its day. Newsman Craig Brandon has done a remarkable job of researching the case and the family backgrounds of the two principals and, is probably more familiar with the complete story than Dreiser ever was. Yet with all this information, this new treatment reads like a novel. Accompanied with over 100 photos, Murder in the Adirondacks sheds new light on what was a yellow journalist's delight in 1906. A must read for all Dreiser students.

Whisper to the Black Candle: Voodoo, Murder, And the Case of Anjette Lyles


Jaclyn Weldon White - 1999
    Anjette Lyle's restaurant was a popular gathering place. It was the place to go for lunch to hear the latest news. Then, one day, Anjette Lyles was charged with the murders of two husbands, her mother-in-law, and her nine-year-old daughter, all committed over the course of seven years. The case was the most sensational Macon had ever seen. The newspaper accounts spiced up the allegations of murder with references to voodoo ceremonies and black magic. The trial attracted record crowds and received worldwide coverage. Anjette Lyles was a glamorous figure and spectators stood in line for hours, hoping for just a glimpse of the defendant. Both lucidly written and emotionally engaging, this is the story of a woman who was called both "cold-blooded" and the "sweetest woman I ever knew," and despite overwhelming evidence and her conviction, many still believe that she was innocent.

Forgotten News: The Crime of the Century and Other Lost Stories


Jack Finney - 1983
    The author magically transports his readers back into the strange and fascinating 19th-century world with this collection of mysterious and lurid stories that time forgot!

Family Secrets: The scandalous history of an extraordinary family


Derek Malcolm - 2017
    The secret, though, that surrounded my parents’ unhappy life together, was divulged to me by accident . . .’ Hidden under some papers in his father’s bureau, the sixteen-year-old Derek Malcolm finds a book by the famous criminologist Edgar Lustgarten called The Judges and the Damned. Browsing through the Contents pages Derek reads, ‘Mr Justice McCardie tries Lieutenant Malcolm – page 33.’ But there is no page 33. The whole chapter has been ripped out of the book. Slowly but surely, the shocking truth emerges: that Derek’s father, shot his wife’s lover and was acquitted at a famous trial at the Old Bailey. The trial was unique in British legal history as the first case of a crime passionel, where a guilty man is set free, on the grounds of self-defence. Husband and wife lived together unhappily ever after, raising Derek in their wake. Then, in a dramatic twist, following his father’s death, Derek receives an open postcard from his Aunt Phyllis, informing him that his real father is the Italian Ambassador to London . . . By turns laconic and affectionate, Derek Malcolm has written a richly evocative memoir of a family sinking into hopeless disrepair. Derek Malcolm was chief film critic of the Guardian for thirty years and still writes for the paper. Educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, he became first a steeplechase rider and then an actor after leaving university. He worked as a journalist in the sixties, first in Cheltenham and then with the Guardian where he was a features sub-editor and writer, racing correspondent and finally film critic. He directed the London Film Festival for a spell in the 80s and is now President of both the International Film Critics Association and the British Federation of Film Societies. He lives with his wife Sarah Gristwood in London and Kent and has published two books – one on Robert Mitchum and another on his favourite 100 films. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television and a veteran of film festival juries all over the world.

Double Life: The Shattering Affair between Chief Judge Sol Wachtler and Socialite Joy Silverman


Linda Wolfe - 1994
    He was the top justice of New York’s highest court. She was a stunning socialite and his wife’s step-cousin. In 1993 Sol Wachtler was convicted of blackmail and extortion against Joy Silverman, his former mistress. How did a respected jurist and one of the most prominent men in America end up serving time in prison? Linda Wolfe starts at the beginning—from Wachtler’s modest Brooklyn upbringing through his courtship and marriage to Joan Wolosoff, the only child of a wealthy real estate developer.   Joy Fererh was three and a half when her father walked out. When she and Sol met, he was fifty-five and nearing the pinnacle of his legal career. She was a thirtysomething stay-at-home mother who, with Sol’s help, made a career for herself as a Republican Party fundraiser. They kept their affair a secret—until an explosive mix of sex, power, betrayal, and prescription-drug abuse set the stage for the tabloid headlines of the decade.

Shallow Grave in Trinity County


Harry Farrell - 1997
    Explores the tragic story of a small California town rocked by the 1955 murder of fourteen-year-old Stephanie Bryan, whose killer turned out to be college student Burton Abbott, who lived nearby.

Waste Land: The Savage Odyssey of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate


Michael Newton - 1998
    More than a decade before Charles Manson warned parents to beware their homicidal children, nineteen-year-old Charles Starkweather and fourteen-year-old Caril Ann Fugate embarked on a shocking, eight-day rampage across America’s heartland that left eleven bloody bodies in its wake—including Caril Ann’s parents. In an Ozzie and Harriet era of drive-ins, malts, and tail-finned cars, Starkweather and Fugate embraced the “live fast, die young” credo of The Wild One and James Dean, and touched off the Midwest’s greatest manhunt since John Dillinger.Now, utilizing firsthand interviews, court transcripts, death-row confessions, and never-before-revealed case details, Waste Land shines new light on the dark saga of Starkweather and Fugate—from their first kisses and kills to their capture and convictions. Complete with an update on Fugate’s life today, Waste Land compellingly probes not only the mind-set of history’s deadliest juvenile delinquents—but also the tragic end of America’s innocence.

A Conspiracy of Crowns: The True Story of the Duke of Windsor and the Murder of Sir Harry Oakes


Alfred de Marigny - 1990
    Its portrayal of the Duke of Windsor as a Nazi sympathizer--who would stop at nothing to hide it--is sure to make headlines. Black-and-white photographs.

The North Country Murder of Irene Izak: Stained by Her Blood (True Crime)


Dave Shampine - 2010
    Irene Izak, a young French teacher from Scranton, Pennsylvania, was headed toward a new job and the promise of a new life in Quebec. She never reached the border that early June morning. Savagely bludgeoned—her face and head pummeled with rocks—Irene’s body was discovered in a ravine by a state trooper patrolling Route 81 in Jefferson County, New York. Blending suspense with true-crime reporting, author Dave Shampine investigates the brutal murder that shook the communities of northeast Pennsylvania and New York’s North Country. Join Shampine as he tells the story of this vicious and confounding killing that has remained unsolved for four decades.

Forty Whacks: New Evidence in the Life and Legend of Lizzie Borden


David Kent - 1992
    Combining newly released evidence and extensive court transcripts, the author shows why there was insufficient evidence to prove Lizzie's involvement -- and why her jurors had no choice but to free her.

Blind Love: The True Story Of The Texas Cadet Murder


Peter Meyer - 1998
    She had been driven to an isolated spot outside of Mansfield, Texas by star student David Graham while David's girlfriend, Diane Zamora, hid in the trunk. First David tried unsuccessfully to break Adrianne's neck, then Diane came out of the trunk to attack her with a set of weights. To finish off the job, David shot her between the eyes. For months, there were no leads on the killing until Diane confessed to her military school roommates about the secret she and her boyfriend would take to their graves...Tainted LoveThe brutal killing shocked the entire town of Mansfield. Even more shocking were the killers, David and Diane, model teenagers, devoted high school sweethearts, military academy-bound honors students-- and desperate lovers who feared that Adrianne's sexual encounter with David had come between them. Killing Adrianne was "the only thing that could satisfy [Diane's] vengeance," said David in his confession to police-- the only way, she told David, to restore the 'purity' of their love...Pure VengeanceHere is the unbelievable true story of a macabre love triangle-- and the startling lengths one couple went to in the name of... Blind Love

The I-5 Killer


Ann Rule - 1984
    He was an award-winning student and star athlete. He was drafted by the Green Bay Packers to play in the NFL, and chosen by Playgirl as a centerfold candidate. Working in the swinging West Coast bar scene, he had his pick of willing sexual prospects.But Randall Woodfield wanted more than just sex. An appetite for unspeakable violent acts led him to cruise the I-5 highway through California, Oregon, and Washington, leaving a trail of victims along the way. As the list of his victims grew to a total of at least 44, the police faced the awesome challenge of catching and convicting a suspect who seemed too handsome and appealing to have committed such ugly crimes--crimes that filled every woman within his striking range with feat and horror....

Villisca


Roy Marshall - 2003
    Law enforcement officers encountered a scene of unimagined violence: eight victims, six of them children, bludgeoned to death with an ax while they slept. Everywhere there were clues. But inexperienced investigators failed, and private detectives took over. When Detective James Newton Wilkerson charged that a respected state senator had been motivated to the unthinkable by the promiscuity of his daughter-in-law, the community was drawn into a bitter and accelerating struggle between powerful men. And then a deranged and perverted minister confessed. . . .

The Meaning of Our Tears: The True Story of the Lawson Family Murders of Christmas Day 1929


Trudy J. Smith - 2006
    It became one of the most mysterious stories of the century with the gruesome murder scene left intact for Depression Era tourists to visit and walk through. Sixty years later, more than could ever be imagined surfaced from interviews with the elderly friends and family of the murderer and the Lawson family tragedy was documented in this compelling 376 page collectible hard cover edition. For the first time, the author is allowing this book to be offered in ebook form. It is an unforgettable telling of a tragic crimed with the "voices" of those interviewed woven into the fabric of the book which reads like a novel. Don't miss this poignant true story of a father's twisted love.

The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder


Daniel Stashower - 2006
    One year later, a struggling writer named Edgar Allan Poe decided to take on the case-and sent his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, to solve the baffling murder of Mary Rogers in "The Mystery of Marie Rog�t."