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A Taste For Murder by Burl Barer


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Before You Leap


Keith Houghton - 2016
    But when Scarlett’s killer is released early from prison with a cast-iron alibi, Greg realizes that his past is about to explode into his present, with terrifying consequences.To expose the truth he must open up old wounds. As a talk therapist, Greg knows all about dark secrets, but when a childhood friendship comes to the fore and the police turn their spotlight on him, the thought of analyzing his own psyche is a disturbing prospect. How far can he trust his own memories?With his life coming apart at the seams, and his grip on reality beginning to unravel, Greg must face the ghosts of his past if he hopes to prove his innocence and live to see another day.

To the Bridge


Nancy Rommelmann - 2018
    Forty minutes later, rescuers found the body of four-year-old Eldon. Miraculously, his seven-year-old sister, Trinity, was saved. As the public cried out for blood, Amanda was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison.Embarking on a seven-year quest for the truth, Rommelmann traced the roots of Amanda’s fury and desperation through thousands of pages of records, withheld documents, meetings with lawyers and convicts, and interviews with friends and family who felt shocked, confused, and emotionally swindled by a woman whose entire life was now defined by an unspeakable crime. At the heart of that crime: a tempestuous marriage, a family on the fast track to self-destruction, and a myriad of secrets and lies as dark and turbulent as the Willamette River. “In To the Bridge, Nancy Rommelmann takes what many consider the most unforgivable of crimes—a mother set on murdering her own children—and delivers something thoughtful and provocative: a deeply reported, sensitively told, all-too-relevant tragedy of addiction and codependency, toxic masculinity, and capricious justice. You won’t be able to look away—nor should any of us.” —Robert Kolker, New York Times bestselling author of Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery “How do you understand the not understandable and forgive the unforgivable? So asks one of the characters in this clear-eyed investigation into something we all turn away from. To the Bridge is a tour de force of both journalism and compassion, in the lineage of such masterpieces as In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song. Word by word, sentence by sentence, Rommelmann’s writing is that good. And so is her heart.” —Nick Flynn, PEN/Martha Albrand Award–winning author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

Murder In Brentwood


Mark Fuhrman - 1997
    Simpson to get away with murder, an innocent cop - a brilliant detective - had to he destroyed. That was the cynical strategy of the Simpson "Dream Team, " and it worked. But as certainty about Simpson's guilt grows, so does outrage about the scapegoating of Mark Fuhrman. Now the former LAPD detective tells his side of the story in a damning expose. The veteran detective gives the inside story of why and how Simpson's interrogation was bungled; how police criminalists made previously unrevealed errors that torpedoed the prosecution's case; why Marcia Clark foolishly suppressed evidence of an affair between Ron and Nicole; and why Clark refused to call a key police witness who could have corroborated Fuhrman's testimony and blown away the defense team's claim of planted evidence. Fuhrman's own hand-drawn maps of the crime scene and his reconstruction of the murders leave no doubt about what really happened on June 12, 1994. New revelations about the incompetence and corruption that pervaded the "Trial of the Century" will exonerate this decent, loyal detective, the innocent cop who was sacrificed so a rich, guilty celebrity could go free.

Bloodline


Jess Lourey - 2021
    Perfect homes. Perfect families. It’s enough to drive some women mad…In a tale inspired by real events, pregnant journalist Joan Harken is cautiously excited to follow her fiancé back to his Minnesota hometown. After spending a childhood on the move and chasing the screams and swirls of news-rich city life, she’s eager to settle down. Lilydale’s motto, “Come Home Forever,” couldn’t be more inviting.And yet, something is off in the picture-perfect village.The friendliness borders on intrusive. Joan can’t shake the feeling that every move she makes is being tracked. An archaic organization still seems to hold the town in thrall. So does the sinister secret of a little boy who vanished decades ago. And unless Joan is imagining things, a frighteningly familiar figure from her past is on watch in the shadows.Her fiancé tells her she’s being paranoid. He might be right. Then again, she might have moved to the deadliest small town on earth.

The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson's Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin


Jan Stocklassa - 2018
    Now a journalist is following them.When Stieg Larsson died, the author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had been working on a true mystery that out-twisted his Millennium novels: the assassination on February 28, 1986, of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister. It was the first time in history that a head of state had been murdered without a clue who’d done it—and on a Stockholm street at point-blank range.Internationally known for his fictional far-right villains, Larsson was well acquainted with their real-life counterparts and documented extremist activities throughout the world. For years he’d been amassing evidence that linked their terrorist acts to what he called “one of the most astounding murder cases” he’d ever covered. Larsson’s archive was forgotten until journalist Jan Stocklassa was given exclusive access to the author’s secret project.In The Man Who Played with Fire, Stocklassa collects the pieces of Larsson’s true-crime puzzle to follow the trail of intrigue, espionage, and conspiracy begun by one of the world’s most famous thriller writers. Together they set out to solve a mystery that no one else could.

Ice and Bone: Tracking an Alaskan Serial Killer


Monte Francis - 2016
    Through meticulous reporting, Francis uncovers the shocking truth about how the Alaskan justice system failed and allowed a warped predator to strike again."--Henry K. Lee, author of Presumed Dead: A True-Life Murder MysteryOn a clear, brisk night in September of 2000, 33-year-old Della Brown was found sexually assaulted and beaten to death inside a filthy, abandoned shed in seedy part of Anchorage, Alaska. She was one of six women, mostly Native Alaskan, slain that year, stoking fears a serial killer was on the loose. A tanned and thuggish 20-year-old would eventually implicate himself in three of the women’s deaths and confess, in detail, to Della’s murder. Yet, after a three-month trial, Joshua Wade would walk free. In 2007, when Wade kidnapped a well-loved nurse psychologist from her home and then executed her in the remote wilderness of Wasilla, two astute female detectives joined forces to finally bring him to justice. ICE AND BONE is the chilling true account of how a demented murderer initially evaded police and avoided conviction only to slip back into the shadows and kill again. Journalist and writer Monte Francis tells the harrowing story of what eventually led to Wade’s capture, and reveals why the true scope of his murderous rampage is only now, more than a decade later, coming into view.

Murder in the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8?


Ethan Brown - 2016
    The women came to be known as the Jeff Davis 8, and local law enforcement officials were quick to pursue a serial killer theory, opening a floodgate of media coverage and stirring a wave of panic across Jennings’ class-divided neighborhoods. The Jeff Davis 8 had been among society’s most vulnerable—impoverished, abused, and mired with mental illness. They engaged in sex work as a means of survival. And their underworld activity frequently occurred at a decrepit no-tell motel called the Boudreaux Inn. As the cases went unsolved, the community began to look inward. Rumors of police corruption and evidence tampering, of collusion between street and shield, cast the serial killer theory into doubt. But what was really going on in the humid rooms of the Boudreaux Inn? Why were crimes going unsolved and police officers being indicted? What had the eight women known? And could anything be done do stop the bloodshed? Mixing muckraking research and immersive journalism over the course of a five-year investigation, Ethan Brown reviewed thousands of pages of previously unseen homicide files to posit what happened during each victim’s final hours.

Banquet of Consequences: A Juror's Plight: The Carnation Murders Trial of Michele Anderson


Paul Sanders - 2017
     Unbeknownst to them, their daughter was armed with a loaded 9 mm pistol and McEnroe was carrying a .357 Magnum. Both parents were callously shot dead by the pair and their bodies hidden from view. Two and a half hours later, Michele’s brother Scott, his wife Erica and their two children, Olivia (5) and Nathan (3), arrived at the house. Within the hour, they too had been pitilessly slain, in an act of violence that was breath-taking in its scope and cruelty. With his highly-anticipated third book, Paul Sanders takes the reader inside every day of the trial of Michele Anderson with his customary attention to detail, from December 2015 until March 2016. And in a unique digression from his other works, Sanders includes something he has never done before. An interview with one of the killers, Joseph McEnroe, at Walla Walla Penitentiary. Banquet of Consequences is the first of two books on what came to be known as the Carnation murders. Were the killings a premeditated act, or had the defendants acted in self defense? And what of the deaths of Olivia and Nathan? Who shot them and why? It would not be an easy task for a jury to decide. Look for Book Two: The Carnation Murders, “Beyond The Pale: Rogue Juror – The Joseph McEnroe Death Penalty Trial.” Available Christmas Eve, 2017. Reader reviews for Paul Sanders: “Move over Ann Rule and Shanna Hogan and make way for America’s newest crime writer!” “Paul Sanders is now among my favorite authors. Both of his books had me right there!” “The reader is taken into a world few of us who have ever received a jury summons will ever experience.”

Stalemate: A Shocking True Story of Child Abduction and Murder


John Philpin - 1997
    For 10 years, Bindner has stayed one step ahead of the law; at every turn, he has challenged the police and FBI to make their case. Featuring the suspect's own words, "Stalemate" takes us into the complex realm of forensic investigation, bringing readers face-to-face with a man who may be playing a deadly game and winning.

Love, Lies, And Murder: They Were the Perfect Couple... Then He Killed Her


Gary C. King - 2007
    Through his wife Janet, Perry won a position in his father-in-law's firm and joined the city's social elite. The couple raised two children in a mansion that Janet, a talented artist, designed. They seemed to have the good life and more...A Husband's Betrayal...But in 1996, when Janet vanished, police dug into Perry's past, turning up strange stories of sexual obsession, unfaithfulness, and vicious arguments with Janet. When they suspected that one of those fights ended in murder, Perry skipped town with his children. A Father's Vow For Justice  Janet's father would not let Perry escape so easily. He and his agents pursued the murder suspect to Chicago, and then to Mexico, where Perry opened a new practice and remarried. Still, ten years would pass before the desperate fugitive became trapped in his own web of deceit and betrayal. Includes 16 Pages Of Revealing Photos!

And the Sea Will Tell


Vincent Bugliosi - 1991
    The investigation that follows uncovers an extraordinarily complex and puzzling true-crime story. Only Vincent Bugliosi, who recounted his successful prosecution of mass murderer Charles Manson in the bestseller Helter Skelter, was able to draw together the hundreds of conflicting details of the mystery and reconstruct what really happened when four people found hell in a tropical paradise. And the Sea Will Tell reconstructs the events and subsequent trial of a riveting true murder mystery, and probes into the dark heart of a serpentine scenario of death.

Guilt by Matrimony: A Memoir of Love, Madness, and the Murder of Nancy Pfister


Nancy Styler - 2015
    The question was: Who did it? Fewer than twelve hours after her body was found and without any evidence, police decided a married couple from Denver had killed her. Within a few days, they arrested and charged Nancy Styler, a friend of Pfister’s who’d had a falling out with her after a business deal went sour, and Dr. Trey Styler, Nancy’s disabled husband, who recently lost the family home, his medical practice, and any hope of a peaceful retirement for himself and his wife. Eleven days later, police also arrested and charged Kathy Carpenter, Pfister’s underpaid and overworked personal assistant and closest friend.Months later, Trey Styler, who was slowly losing his grip on reality as he battled with mental illness, confessed to the crime. Rampant speculation spread about whether he was involved at all—or if his confession was that of a man on his deathbed—because a medical condition appeared to have left him barely able to walk, much less carry out such a heinous crime.In Guilt by Matrimony, Styler’s widow, Nancy, reveals the answers to the biggest mysteries of this case and recounts the trauma of being falsely accused and imprisoned for a first-degree murder she had no knowledge of. And, in the only interview before his death, Trey gives his account of that fateful day.New York Times bestselling author Daleen Berry covers this compelling story from the inside, following the Stylers from their fairy-tale life in Denver to the morning of their simultaneous arrest to Nancy’s release from jail and her attempts to rebuild her shattered life. Filled with details from exclusive interviews, a close look at the botched small-town police work, and first-person accounts of what really happened, Guilt by Matrimony is the definitive look at a shocking murder that rocked Aspen.

Lobster Boy: The Bizarre Life and Brutal Death of Grady Stiles Jr.


Fred Rosen - 1995
    traded on the deformity that gave his hands and feet the look of lobster claws, to achieve fame as the "Lobster Boy". In November 1992, neighbor Christopher Wyant, in a conspiracy with Stiles's wife and stepson, shot Stiles in the head, leading to one of the most bizarre trials in criminal history.

The Trial of Lizzie Borden


Cara Robertson - 2019
    Reporters flocked to the scene. Well-known columnists took up conspicuous seats in the courtroom. The defendant was relentlessly scrutinized for signs of guilt or innocence. Everyone—rich and poor, suffragists and social conservatives, legal scholars and laypeople—had an opinion about Lizzie Borden’s guilt or innocence.The popular fascination with the Borden murders and its central, enigmatic character has endured for more than a hundred years, but the legend often outstrips the story. Based on transcripts of the Borden legal proceedings, contemporary newspaper articles, previously withheld lawyer's journals, unpublished local reports, and recently unearthed letters from Lizzie herself, The Trial of Lizzie Borden is a definitive account of the Borden murder case and offers a window into America in the Gilded Age, showcasing its most deeply held convictions and its most troubling social anxieties.

The Missing Sister


Elle Marr - 2020
    The body of her estranged twin sister, Angela—the possible victim of a serial killer—has been pulled from the Seine. Putting what’s left of her life on hold, Shayna heads to Paris. But while cleaning out Angela’s apartment, Shayna makes a startling discovery: a coded message meant for her alone… Alive. Trust no one. Taking the warning to heart, Shayna maintains the lie. She makes a positive ID on the remains and works to find out where—and why—her missing sister is hiding. Shayna retraces her sister’s footsteps, and they lead her down into Paris’s underbelly.As she gets closer to the truth—and to the killer—Shayna’s own life may now be in the balance…