Pretty Boy


Roy Shaw - 1999
    He has cult status and commands a respect that few, even in the violent world he moves in, can equal. To him, violence is simply an accepted part of his profession. He doesn't exaggerate it, he can't excuse it and he refuses to apologize for it. His name may mean nothing to you—he's no actor, no showman, no wannabe celebrity. He does, however, live by a merciless code, and though he may not have cloven hooves and a tail, if he goes after someone, all hell comes with him.

People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo--and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up


Richard Lloyd Parry - 2010
    The following winter, her dismembered remains were found buried in a seaside cave. The seven months in between had seen a massive search for the missing girl, involving Japanese policemen; British private detectives; Australian dowsers; and Lucie's desperate, but bitterly divided, parents. As the case unfolded, it drew the attention of prime ministers and sado-masochists, ambassadors and con-men, and reporters from across the world. Had Lucie been abducted by a religious cult, or snatched by human traffickers? Who was the mysterious man she had gone to meet? And what did her work, as a "hostess" in the notorious Roppongi district of Tokyo, really involve?Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, followed the case since Lucie's disappearance. Over the course of a decade, he traveled to four continents to interview those caught up in the story, fought off a legal attack in the Japanese courts, and worked undercover as a bartender in a Roppongi strip club. He talked exhaustively with Lucie's friends and family and won unique access to the Japanese detectives who investigated the case. And he delved into the mind and background of the man accused of the crime--Joji Obara, described by the judge as "unprecedented and extremely evil." With the finesse of a novelist, he reveals the astonishing truth about Lucie and her fate. People Who Eat Darkness is, by turns, a non-fiction thriller, a courtroom drama, and the biography of both a victim and a killer. It is the story of a young woman who fell prey to unspeakable evil, and of a loving family torn apart by grief. And it is a fascinating insight into one of the world's most baffling and mysterious societies, a light shone into dark corners of Japan that the rest of the world has never glimpsed before.

Race Riot, A Shocking, Inside Look at Prison Life (Prison Killers- Book 1)


Glenn Langohr - 2011
    He paints the culture into words and takes you on a journey into the belly of the beast with an authentic look at gang warfare behind bars.Only for adults...Inside this story you will find a horrific description of the deadly, 28 minute long blood bath, race war riot at Pelican Bay on a cold Febuary day in 2000...A penetrating look inside of one of California's most dangerous prisons.B.J, a drug dealer serving time, struggling to hold on to truth and his faith in God, takes the reader on a never before seen, inside look at a California level 4 prison. The inner dynamics between prison guards, gang investigators and the Warden are on display along with the political climate between races with a war brewing between the Mexicans and Blacks. A piercing account of the process for gang validation into solitary confinement at Pelican Bay's SHU through the eyes of inmates struggling to survive gang wars, in prison drug debts, prison politics, rules and regulations, and ultimately power and control, while desperately trying to find a path for redemption along the way.

Beyond All Evil: Two Monsters, Two Mothers, A Love That Will Last Forever


June Thomson - 2011
    On the same day, a few miles apart, their estranged husbands slaughtered their children. The murders were not driven by rage, or committed in moments of madness. They were planned, and carried out with chilling precision, to inflict the worst pain imaginable.June and Giselle did not know each other. Tragedy is all that binds them; they were destined to come together as ‘sisters’, united by pain, grief and a sense of loss so immense that it would drive both to the brink of madness.June’s life with Rab Thomson had been a dark and turbulent existence, characterised by mental torture, physical violence and rape. Giselle’s relationship with Ashok Kalyanjee had been a strange and distant affair, of lives spent apart before, during and after marriage.But both relationships had produced two beautiful children, and the women believed that their misery was in the past. Both mothers believed it was important to allow the fathers’ access to their children. On that fateful Saturday in May 2008, neither could have conceived that the men they had once loved would do anything to harm their children. But they were wrong, so terribly wrong.Nothing can bring their children back. But June and Giselle have one solitary comfort: they are no longer alone. Their lives may have been torn apart, but they have each other. Together, they are stronger.This is the story of their parallel journeys: of the dreadful days before, during, and after the murders of their children. Told in their own words, with searing honesty of their pain, and guilt, it is a story of endurance, friendship, and survival against the odds. It is not a story for the faint hearted, but it is a story that must be told, for in the end, it is a testament to the human spirit.

A Love To Die For


Patricia Springer - 2000
    Suddenly, Christa turned on Colleen, accusing her of flirting with her boyfriend. Then, the words turned to shocking blows. An enraged Christa used a box knife to cut her rival's throat and a mini meat cleaver to inflict more havoc. Half-naked, Colleen crawled through her own blood begging for her life. In the middle of the hour-long assault, a satanic symbol was carved in the dying girl's chest. And when Christa was finally done, she took a piece of Colleen's skull as a macabre souvenir. What were the dark forces that drove angelic faced Christa to commit such a savage murder and become the youngest woman ever to be put on Death Row? In this shocking expose of a case that stunned the nation, Patricia Springer takes us through a horrifying crime scene and into the heart and mind of a murderess who killed for love-and would die for it, too.

Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson


Jeff Guinn - 2013
    The most authoritative account ever written of how an ordinary juvenile delinquent named Charles Manson became the notorious murderer whose crimes still shock and horrify us today. More than forty years ago Charles Manson and his mostly female commune killed nine people, among them the pregnant actress Sharon Tate. It was the culmination of a criminal career that author Jeff Guinn traces back to Manson’s childhood. Guinn interviewed Manson’s sister and cousin, neither of whom had ever previously cooperated with an author. Childhood friends, cellmates, and even some members of the Manson Family have provided new information about Manson’s life. Guinn has made discoveries about the night of the Tate murders, answering unresolved questions, such as why one person on the property where the murders occurred was spared. Manson puts the killer in the context of his times, the turbulent late sixties, an era of race riots and street protests when authority in all its forms was under siege. Guinn shows us how Manson created and refined his message to fit the times, persuading confused young women (and a few men) that he had the solutions to their problems. At the same time he used them to pursue his long-standing musical ambitions, relocating to Los Angeles in search of a recording contract. His frustrated ambitions, combined with his bizarre race-war obsession, would have lethal consequences as he convinced his followers to commit heinous murders on successive nights. In addition to stunning revelations about Charles Manson, the book contains family photographs never before published.

Spilled Milk


K.L. Randis - 2013
    When social services jeopardize her safety condemning her to keep her father’s secret, it’s a glass of spilled milk at the dinner table that forces her to speak about the cruelty she’s been hiding. In her pursuit for safety and justice Brooke battles a broken system that pushes to keep her father in the home. When jury members and a love interest congregate to inspire her to fight, she risks losing the support of family and comes to the realization that some people simply do not want to be saved. Spilled Milk is a novel of shocking narrative, triumph and resiliency.

Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original "Psycho"


Harold Schechter - 1989
    Photographs would show him across the country: a slight, Midwestern man with a twisted little smile, a man who had lived for ten years in his own world of murder and depravity.Here is the grisly true story of Ed Gein, the killer whose fiendish fantasies inspired Alfred Hitchcock's “Psycho”—the mild-mannered farmhand bound to his domineering mother, driven into a series of gruesome and bizarre acts beyond all imagining. In chilling detail, Deviant explores the incredible career of one of the most twisted madmen in the annals of American crime—and how he turned a small Wisconsin farmhouse into his own private playground of ghoulishness and blood.From the Heartland of America comes a true story more horrifying than any movie or novel…Harold Schechter's acclaimed true-crime chronicle…DEVIANT

Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties


Dianne Lake - 2017
    Over the course of two years, the impressionable teenager endured manipulation, psychological control, and physical abuse as the harsh realities and looming darkness of Charles Manson’s true nature revealed itself. From Spahn ranch and the group acid trips, to the Beatles’ White Album and Manson’s dangerous messiah-complex, Dianne tells the riveting story of the group’s descent into madness as she lived it.Though she never participated in any of the group’s gruesome crimes and was purposely insulated from them, Dianne was arrested with the rest of the Manson Family, and eventually learned enough to join the prosecution’s case against them. With the help of good Samaritans, including the cop who first arrested her and later adopted her, the courageous young woman eventually found redemption and grew up to lead an ordinary life.While much has been written about Charles Manson, this riveting account from an actual Family member is a chilling portrait that recreates in vivid detail one of the most horrifying and fascinating chapters in modern American history.Member of the Family includes 16 pages of photographs.

The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer


Jason M. Moss - 1999
    Manson...It started with a college course assignment, then escalated into a dangerous obsession. Eighteen-year-old honor student Jason Moss wrote to men whose body counts had made criminal history: men named Dahmer, Manson, Ramirez, and Gacy.Dear Mr. Dahmer...Posing as their ideal victim, Jason seduced them with his words. One by one they wrote him back, showering him with their madness and violent fantasies. Then the game spun out of control. John Wayne Gacy revealed all to Jason -- and invited his pen pal to visit him in prison...Dear Mr. Gacy...It was an offer Jason couldn't turn down. Even if it made him...The book that has riveted the attention of the national media, this may be the most revealing look at serial killers ever recorded and the most illuminating study of the dark places of the human mind ever attempted.

I Will Find You: Solving Killer Cases from My Life Fighting Crime


Joe Kenda - 2017
    Joe Kenda, star of Homicide Hunter, shares his deepest, darkest, and never before revealed case files from his 19 years as a homicide detective.Are you horrified yet fascinated by abhorrent murders? Do you crave to know the gory details of these crimes, and do you seek comfort in the solving of the most gruesome? In I WILL FIND YOU, the star of Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda shares his deepest, darkest, and never-before-revealed case files from his two decades as a homicide detective and reminds us that crimes like these are very real and can happen even in our own backyards. Gruesome, macabre, and complex cases. Joe Kenda investigated 387 murder cases during his 23 years with the Colorado Springs Police Department and solved almost all of them. And he is ready to detail the cases that are too gruesome to air on television, cases that still haunt him, and the few cases where the killer got away. These cases are horrifyingly real, and the detail is so mesmerizing you won't be able to look away. The tales in I WILL FIND YOU will shock you like the best horror stories-divulging insights into the actions, motivations, and proclivities of nature's most dangerous species. Don't mind the blood.

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.

Shattered


Kathryn Casey - 2010
    In Shattered, she explores in riveting detail an infamous Houston area crime: the brutal slaying of a young mother and her unborn child by the person closest to them.  Bestselling author Carlton Stowers numbers Kathryn Casey “among the elite of true crime writers,” and Shattered—a shocking true story of blood, rage, and betrayal—will only enhance her reputation as one of the best of the best.

The Night the Defeos Died: Reinvestigating the Amityville Murders


Ric Osuna - 2002
    Once there, the police discovered six members of the DeFeo family -- father, mother and four of their five children -- shot and killed execution style. The surviving son, Ronald "Butch" DeFeo Jr., was eventually charged and tried for the murder of his family and now is serving six concurrent life sentences. Some said a strong supernatural force in the DeFeo home drove Butch DeFeo to kill his family, while others claimed Butch DeFeo killed to receive an inheritance. The Night the DeFeos Died offers the true story behind this tragedy and exposes Butch DeFeo did not act alone in the commission of this crime. It also shows that the supernatural stories created about the famed Amityville house were nothing, but a ruse concocted for Butch DeFeo's defense that later grew into a cottage industry. The whole truth regarding the story has never been revealed, until the publication of Ric Osuna's book. From mob involvement to a corrupt judicial system, The Night the DeFeos Died reveals the full details of the DeFeo murders, including how they were a culmination of substance abuse and domestic violence.

Too Close to Home: The Samantha Zaldivar Case


Laurinda Wallace - 2017
    This is one of them. Seven-year-old Samantha Zaldivar is reported missing in February 1997. Despite the best efforts of the community and law enforcement to find her, it seems the first grader has disappeared without a trace until the forensic evidence leads a multi-agency task force to an ugly possibility. Months later, an unlikely turn of events reveals the young girl’s fate, which rocks the rural county in Western New York. Dedicated and meticulous police work brings a murderer to justice, but not without a cost to those involved. Stephen C. Tarbell, a retired Wyoming County Sheriff’s investigator shares his personal account of the investigation into the disappearance and murder of Samantha Zaldivar.