Book picks similar to
Death in the Family by John Chipman


non-fiction
true-crime
canadian
favorites

The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption


Bob Ingle - 2008
    From Jimmy Hoffa purportedly being buried somewhere beneath the end zone in Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands, through allegations of a thoroughly corrupt medical and dental university, through Mafia influence at all levels, to a governor who suddenly declares himself a "gay American" and resigns, the Garden State might indeed be better named after the HBO mobsters.Where else would:- A state attorney general show up after police pulled over her boyfriend who was driving without a valid license?- A state senator and mayor of Newark (the same guy) spend thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money on a junket to Rio days before leaving office?- A politically connected developer hire a prostitute to tape sex acts with his own brother-in-law and then send the tape to his sister?Only in the Soprano State.

The Garden State Parkway Murders


Christian Barth - 2020
    All of that was accomplished. It was remarkable.” - John Divel, Ocean City Police Department The Garden State Parkway Murders: A Cold Case Mystery is the first and only historical account of the unsolved murders of college friends Susan Davis and Elizabeth Perry, who were stabbed to death in the woods alongside the Garden State Parkway near Ocean City, New Jersey on Memorial Day 1969. The discovery of the wealthy coeds three days after their slayings, as reported by Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News, touches off one of the largest manhunts in New Jersey since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Over the next ten years the New Jersey State Police, Atlantic County (N.J.) Prosecutor’s Office, and FBI question thousands of people, tracking leads as far as San Francisco in search of the killer. Among the suspects are infamous serial killers Ted Bundy and Gerald Eugene Stano, who were living within an hour’s drive from the murders at the time they occurred, resided next to one another for a time on Florida’s Death Row, and indirectly confessed to the murders before being executed. The Garden State Parkway Murders tracks the author’s decade-long obsession with seeking justice for Davis and Perry. Presented with all the information surrounding these brutal murders, including a discussion of recent technological advancements in DNA and FBI serial killer profiling, the reader is asked to consider, why hasn’t this cold case been solved?

Cold Case Vancouver: The City’s Most Baffling Unsolved Murders


Eve Lazarus - 2016
    In 1953, two little boys were found murdered in the city's storied Stanley Park, and who remain unidentified to this day. In 1975, a country singer was murdered just as she was on the verge of an amazing career. And in 1994, Nick Masee, a retired banker with connections to the renegade Vancouver Stock Exchange, disappeared along with his wife Lisa, their bodies never found. Cold Case Vancouver is an intriguing whodunit for true-crime aficionados and armchair detectives.Eve Lazarus's previous books include Sensational Vancouver.

Runaway Devil: How Forbidden Love Drove a 12-Year-Old to Murder Her Family


Robert Remington - 2009
    After years of struggle to reach this point, they finally felt their future held promise. But on April 23, 2006, their bodies were discovered in their basement, covered in savage stab wounds. Upstairs, Jacob lay dead on his bed, his toys spattered with blood.Investigators worried for JR’s safety, but unknown to them, the pretty honour roll student had been developing a disturbing alter ego online. Runaway Devil professed a fondness for a darker world of death metal music, the goth subculture, and a love for Jeremy Steinke, a twenty-three-year-old high-school dropout who lived in a rundown trailer park. Soon, shocking evidence in JR’s school locker — printed here for the first time — led police to believe the girl was a suspect in her family’s murders.The case horrified parents everywhere. Journalists Robert Remington and Sherri Zickefoose have been covering it from the beginning, and in Runaway Devil, they reveal what really happened: the unlikely young love, the teenage rebellion, a troubling world of adolescent drifters, and a small community torn apart by an unthinkable crime.A modern cautionary tale, Runaway Devil is also a chilling portrait of an approval-seeking man smitten with a manipulative young girl — who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted.

Prescription: Murder! Volume 1: Authentic Cases From The Files of Alan Hynd


Alan Hynd - 2014
    These stories, the first of three short collections, are unified by a single theme: they all involve physicians. And not for the autopsy, but as perpetrators or accused perpetrators. You may never see your family care giver again in the same light. Told in the characteristic wry, anecdotal reportorial style that made Alan Hynd famous in his day (two wartime best sellers in 1943, contributions to The Reader's Digest, Colliers, Coronet, The Saturday Evening Post, True, Liberty, The American Mercury and almost every true detective magazine in print) these tales will have you cringing one minute, laughing the next, and gasping in shock a moment later. Truly, no one could make up classics like these. Take for example, the murder ring of South Philadelphia in which a faith healer and two Lotharios helped restless wives rid themselves of abusive unwanted husbands...or the respected French war hero who was a pillar of the community by day but prowled brothels and music halls by night and was caught with a cadaver sealed within the walls of his home....or the traveling physician who married a farmer's ex-wife and had four step-sons, then three, then two, then...... And finally, as a bonus track, relax and savor the wickedly evil doings of "Sister Amy Archer" at the Archer convalescent home in Connecticut, where old folks checked out just a little too quickly for comfort. The events eventually became the basis of "Arsenic and Old Lace," the hit play and iconic movie. As the old adages go, you couldn't make this stuff up... and true crime is always farther out there than fiction. (With illustrations)

Heart of the Raincoast: A Life Story


Alexandra Morton - 1998
    Proctor has always done the time-honoured work of generations of upcoast men—hand-logging, fishing, clam digging, repairing boats, beachcombing.But Billy eventually began to notice that the thriving runs of Pacific salmon, oolichans, and herring that he remembers from his early years were vanishing—some to near extinction—and he understood that it was time to take action.Heart of the Raincoast is the fascinating story of Billy Proctor’s life, and the wealth of knowledge and understanding that can only be gained from living in such close proximity to nature. The writing is funny, touching and honest—and offers an engaging insider’s view not only of the salmon, whales, eagles and independent people who populate Canada’s wild and lovely coastal rainforest, but on what we need to do to keep it as nature intended.

Jack the Ripper: First American Serial Killer


Stewart P. Evans - 1996
    Spurred by the startling discovery of a letter written by a Scotland Yard inspector, two veteran police investigators have traced the shadowy movements of a self-styled "doctor" from St. Louis who had a criminal record spanning both sides of the Atlantic. Two decades after the Ripper's murderous spree, Inspector John George Littlechild, then retired, laments in his fateful letter: "to my mind a very likely [suspect] . . . was an American quack named Francis Tumblety. . . his feelings toward women were remarkable and bitter in the extreme." Littlechild expresses dismay that Tumblety, who was in custody only briefly, was ever granted bail, enabling him to flee London-just as the murders ended. The Littlechild letter, printed in this book, provides crucial details either overlooked by police officials at the time of the investigation or later suppressed because they would reveal the same officials had allowed their prime suspect to slip through their fingers.Sifting through the entire historical record and their own surprising discoveries, Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey have created a true-life detective story that will fascinate all readers of Arthur Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, and Charles Dickens. Vividly evoking the mean streets of Victorian London and the wave of terror that swept the city with the Ripper's grisly crimes, they convincingly paint a portrait of history's most infamous serial killer.

Cold Heart


Kimberly Tilley - 2020
    Ed Burdick, a wealthy manufacturer known for his kindness and generosity, and his wife Alice had a life few could imagine. The couple had three lovely daughters, a beautiful home, and they were fixtures in the elite Elmwood Avenue set. Despite rumors of trouble in the Burdick marriage, few believed it until Ed ordered his wife out of their home and filed for divorce. The whispers about their separation abruptly ended when Ed Burdick was found murdered in his den while his family slept upstairs. The police found a mosaic of conflicting clues at the crime scene. The investigation uncovered shocking information about the Buffalo tycoon’s life, and no shortage of suspects with a motive for murder.The murder of Ed Burdick is the true story of the great unsolved mystery of turn of the century Buffalo and a terrible wrong that was never put right.

Finding Suzy: The Hunt for Missing Estate Agent Suzy Lamplugh and 'Mr Kipper'


David Videcette - 2021
    However, the Crown Prosecution Service refused to charge him, citing a lack of evidence.High-profile searches were conducted, yet Suzy’s body was never found; the trail that might lead investigators to her, long since lost.Haunted by another missing person case, investigator and former Scotland Yard detective, David Videcette, has spent five years painstakingly reinvestigating Suzy’s cold case disappearance.Through a series of incredible new witness interviews and fresh groundbreaking analysis, he uncovers piece by piece what happened to Suzy and why the case was never solved.People don't just disappear...

Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales


William M. Bass - 2003
    Bill Bass, one of the world's leading forensic anthropologists, gained international attention when he built a forensic lab like no other: The Body Farm. Now, this master scientist unlocks the gates of his lab to reveal his most intriguing cases-and to revisit the Lindbergh kidnapping and murder, fifty years after the fact.

Notes from a Doctor's Pocket: Heartwarming Stories of Hope and Healing


Robert D. Lesslie - 2013
    Robert Lesslie, whose routine faced him with times of grief or pain, relief or delight, life or death. Such everyday happenings and encounters gave rise to these vignettes—in which readers will meet up with the characters, coincidences, and complications common to the emergency room:characters like Freddy, who literally shoots himself in the footcoincidences like finally having the chance to hear what patients say to each other when doctors and nurses aren’t in the roomcomplications such as dealing with parents who buy lottery tickets and alcohol instead of medicine for their little boyThese heart-tugging, heart-lifting slices of life will prompt readers to search for opportunities to give the comfort of a touch, the grace of a kind word, or a prayer that brings hope and healing.

Teasing Secrets from the Dead: My Investigations at America's Most Infamous Crime Scenes


Emily Craig - 2004
    In this absorbing, surprising, and undeniably compelling book, forensics expert Emily Craig tells her own story of a life spent teasing secrets from the dead.Emily Craig has been a witness to history, helping to seek justice for thousands of murder victims, both famous and unknown. It's a personal story that you won't soon forget.Emily first became intrigued by forensics work when, as a respected medical illustrator, she was called in by the local police to create a model of a murder victim's face. Her fascination with that case led to a dramatic midlife career change: She would go back to school to become a forensic anthropologist——and one of the most respected and best-known "bone hunters" in the nation.As a student working with the FBI in Waco, Emily helped uncover definitive proof that many of the Branch Davidians had been shot to death before the fire, including their leader, David Koresh, whose bullet-pierced skull she reconstructed with her own hands. Upon graduation, Emily landed a prestigious full-time job as forensic anthropologist for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, a state with an alarmingly high murder rate and thousands of square miles of rural backcountry, where bodies are dumped and discovered on a regular basis. But even with her work there, Emily has been regularly called to investigations across the country, including the site of terrorist attack on the the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, where a mysterious body part——a dismembered leg——was found at the scene and did not match any of the known victims. Through careful scientific analysis, Emily was able to help identify the leg's owner, a pivotal piece of evidence that helped convict Timothy McVeigh.In September 2001, Emily recieved a phone call summoning her to New York City, where she directed the night-shift triage at the World Trade Centre's body identification site, collaborating with forensics experts from all over the country to collect and identify the remains of September 11 victims.From the biggest new stories of our time to stranger-than-true local mysteries, these are unforgettable stories from the case files of Emily Craig's remarkable career.

Against Her Will: The Senseless Murder of Kelly Ann Tinyes


Ronald J. Watkins - 1995
    But the nightmare to come was worse than they could ever imagine. Only five doors away, in the home of John and Elizabeth Golub, police found Kelly Ann's body stuffed in a plastic garbage bag. She'd been brutally beaten, stabbed, strangled, and mutilated. After weeks of intense investigation, police arrested the Golubs twenty-one-year-old son, Robert - a reclusive young man obsessed with bodybuilding and given to fits of rage. The sensational trial and subsequent conviction of Robert Golub shocked the nation and tore the once peaceful community apart. Neighbors took sides. So did the media. And no one who lived on Horton Road would ever be the same.NOTE: This book was re-edited in May, 2013 to correct OCR conversion errors.

Heist: The True Story Of The World's Biggest Cash Robbery


Howard Sounes - 2008
    From the author of the bestselling true-crime classic 'Fred & Rose', comes the astonishing inside story of the world's biggest cash robbery: the Tonbridge Securitas heist.

The Awesome Guide to Life: Get Fit, Get Laid, Get Your Sh*t Together


Jason Ellis - 2014
    Whatever the case may be, Jason believes it's all about getting off your ass and maximizing the opportunities that life has to offer. It's about remembering that you are alive, right now, and that won't always be the case. So do something. Anything. Enjoy the ride. go outside and get naked.Jason can tell you how to handle every situation life throws at you and play it like a champ: how to look, how to act, how to pick up a stripper--you name it.But that's just for starters. Jason believes that to get what you really want out of life, you have to have confidence. And true confidence is something you have to earn, by deciding what you want from life and then pursuing you passion until you make your dreams a reality.This book will show you how to develop the positive attitude that will allow you to truly make things happen.