Book picks similar to
Daddy's Little Secret: A Daughter's Quest to Solve Her Father's Brutal Murder by Denise Wallace
true-crime
non-fiction
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biography
After the Eclipse: A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search
Sarah Perry - 2017
When Sarah Perry was twelve, she saw a partial eclipse of the sun, an event she took as a sign of good fortune for her and her mother, Crystal. But that brief moment of darkness ultimately foreshadowed a much larger one: two days later, Crystal was murdered in their home in rural Maine, just a few feet from Sarah’s bedroom. The killer escaped unseen; it would take the police twelve years to find him, time in which Sarah grew into adulthood, struggling with abandonment, police interrogations, and the effort of rebuilding her life when so much had been lost. Through it all she would dream of the eventual trial, a conviction—all her questions finally answered. But after the trial, Sarah’s questions only grew. She wanted to understand her mother’s life, not just her final hours, and so she began a personal investigation, one that drew her back to Maine, taking her deep into the abiding darkness of a small American town. Told in searing prose, After the Eclipse is a luminous memoir of uncomfortable truth and terrible beauty, an exquisite memorial for a mother stolen from her daughter, and a blazingly successful attempt to cast light on her life once more.
The Boy Between: A Mother and Son’s Journey From a World Gone Grey
Josiah Hartley - 2020
But then her son came to her with a real one…Josiah was nineteen with the world at his feet when things changed. Without warning, the new university student’s mental health deteriorated to the point that he planned his own death. His mother, bestselling author Amanda Prowse, found herself grappling for ways to help him, with no clear sense of where that could be found. This is the book they wish had been there for them during those dark times.Josiah’s situation is not unusual: the statistics on student mental health are terrifying. And he was not the only one suffering; his family was also hijacked by his illness, watching him struggle and fearing the day he might succeed in taking his life.In this book, Josiah and Amanda hope to give a voice to those who suffer, and to show them that help can be found. It is Josiah’s raw, at times bleak, sometimes humorous, but always honest account of what it is like to live with depression. It is Amanda’s heart-rending account of her pain at watching him suffer, speaking from the heart about a mother’s love for her child.For anyone with depression and anyone who loves someone with depression, Amanda and Josiah have a clear message—you are not alone, and there is hope.
A Mind for Murder: the Real-Life Files of a Psychic Investigator
Noreen Renier - 2005
From the discovery and development of her unique talents to becoming a respected figure in the police community, this is the true account of Noreen Renier's remarkable life and career.Included here are the stories of:Her prediction of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.The client who was a professional mercenary.The police officer suspected of being a rapist and murderer.Her involvement in the Laci Peterson murder (she told the police where to find the body)A Mind for Murder has all the elements of true crime, memoir, and psychic mystery.
His Garden: Conversations With A Serial Killer
Anne K. Howard - 2018
In just nine months, seven people went missing; all of their bodies eventually discovered in a wooded lot behind a suburban strip mall. But the investigation that led law enforcement to their suspect, William Devin Howell, is only part of the story behind HIS GARDEN: Conversations With A Serial Killer. A practicing attorney, author Anne K. Howard first contacted Howell while he was serving a fifteen-year sentence for the murder of one of his seven victims. He was about to be charged for the remaining six murders. A unique and disturbing friendship between the two began, comprised of written correspondence, face-to-face prison visits and recorded phone calls. Howell, who had been unwilling to speak to any members of the media, came to trust Howard. In the years that follow, the suspect shared his troubled history with Howard but refused to discuss the charges against him, promising only to tell her everything when the case was over. That time has come. HIS GARDEN probes the complicated and conflicted mind of William Devin Howell--Connecticut’s most prolific serial killer. Both sacred and profane in its narrative style, the story on these pages explores the eternal question of human evil and its impact on others, including the woman he chose to hear his horrific confession.
You Have A Very Soft Voice, Susan: A Shocking True Story of Internet Stalking
Susan Fensten - 2019
It is an unusual case of friendship and deception so pitiless and unyielding that it opened a door to Hell into the author’s life. This is an unforgettable story for today’s digital world driven by social media in all of its permutations and cruelest forms. The story begins with Susan Fensten’s online search for her father’s family, a search that soon turns into a two-year frightening odyssey of internet stalking and threats when a posting on a genealogy message board brings her into contact with what she thinks are distant cousins, but what turns out to be a sociopath. Through email correspondence with her new “family”, evidence of mental illness, dark family secrets, a struggle over wealth and bizarre criminal histories emerge. She quickly becomes the focus of sexual obsession and suspicion, and her life is completely turned upside down. She soon becomes the target of dozens of frightening characters including real verifiable convicted sex offenders in an elaborate cyber-hoax that includes threats of kidnapping, murder, rape, torture and cannibalism. Remarkable in its complexity, this story of Internet stalking is also a sinister and shocking journal of madness. Described by the FBI as a case “in a category by itself,” This book is a story about the Internet, the search for family, a friendship and a journey into the underbelly of American crime that raises questions about safety online and pushes the boundaries of our perceptions of what is real and what is not.
The Last Gangster: My Final Confession
Charlie Richardson - 2013
Boss of the Richardson Gang and rival of the Krays, to cross him would result in brutal repercussions. Famously arrested on the day England won the World Cup in 1966, his trial heard he allegedly used iron bars, bolt cutters and electric shocks on his enemies.The Last Gangster is Richardson’s frank account of his largely untold life story, finished just before his death in September 2012. He shares the truth behind the rumours and tells of his feuds with the Krays for supremacy, undercover missions involving politicians, many lost years banged up in prison and reveals shocking secrets about royalty, phone hacking, bent coppers and the infamous black box.Straight up, shocking and downright gripping, this is the ultimate exposé on this legendary gangster and his extraordinary life.
Vampire Killer: A Terrifying True Story of Psychosis, Mutilation and Murder (Ryan Green's True Crime)
Ryan Green - 2020
His pregnant wife, Teresa (22), was nowhere to be seen. The radio was still playing and there were some peculiar stains on the carpet. Wallin nervously followed the stains to his bedroom and encountered a scene so chilling that it would haunt him for the rest of his life. Teresa had been sexually assaulted and mutilated. She was also missing body parts and large volumes of blood. Four days later, the Sacramento Police Department were called to a home approximately a mile away from the Wallin residence. They were not prepared for the horror that awaited them. Daniel Meredith (56) and Jason Miroth (6) were shot multiple times. Evelyn Miroth (38) was disfigured, disembowelled and abused like Teresa. She was also missing body parts and large quantities of blood. David Ferreira (2), who Evelyn was babysitting, was nowhere to be seen and likely in the hands of the deranged mass murderer. It was official, Sacramento had a blood-thirsty serial killer in their midst. The FBI and local police were under no doubt that he would kill again and that his crimes would continue to escalate if not apprehended immediately. Vampire Killer is a gripping account of Richard Chase, and one of the most gruesome true crime stories in California’s history. Ryan Green’s riveting narrative draws the reader into the real-live horror experienced by the victims and has all the elements of a classic thriller. CAUTION: This book contains descriptive accounts of abuse and violence. If you are especially sensitive to this material, it might be advisable not to read any further.
Mafia Boss Sam Giancana: The Rise and Fall of a Chicago Mobster
Susan McNicoll - 2015
Born in 1908, in The Patch, Chicago, Giancana joined the Forty-Two gang of lawless juvenile punks in 1921 and quickly proved himself as a skilled 'wheel man' (or getaway driver), extortionist and vicious killer. Called up to the ranks of the Outfit, he reputedly held talks with the CIA about assassinating Fidel Castro, shared a girlfriend with John F. Kennedy and had friends in high places, including Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Marilyn Monroe and, some say, the Kennedys, although he fell out with them.The story of Sam Giancana will overturn many of your beliefs about America during the Kennedy era. If you want to know Giancana's role in the brother's deaths, and more of the intrigue surrounding that of Marilyn Monroe, this book will fill you in on the murky lives of many shady characters who really ruled the day, both in Chicago and elsewhere.
A Little Me
Amy Roloff - 2019
Finally allowing herself to be vulnerable enough to open up to others, she learned that it’s worth risking possible rejection for a chance at genuine relationships.Ultimately, it was Amy’s faith, as well as the support and encouragement of her community of loving family and good friends, that saw her through the dark times and allowed her to realize her greatest dreams and beyond. Amy’s memoir is an inspiring and at times heart-wrenching account of resilience and the strength of the human spirit to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Street Soldier: My Life as an Enforcer for Whitey Bulger and the Boston Irish Mob
Edward J. MacKenzie Jr. - 2001
MacKenzie, Jr., “Eddie Mac,” was a drug dealer and enforcer who would do just about anything for Bulger. In this compelling eyewitness account, the first from a Bulger insider, Eddie Mac delivers the goods on his one-time boss and on such former associates as Stephen ''The Rifleman'' Flemmi and turncoat FBI agent John Connolly. Eddie Mac provides a window onto a world rarely glimpsed by those on the outside.Street Soldier is also a story of the search for family, for acceptance, for respect, loyalty, and love. Abandoned by his parents at the age of four, MacKenzie became a ward of the state of Massachusetts, suffered physical and sexual abuse in the foster care system, and eventually drifted into a life of crime and Bulger's orbit. The Eddie Mac who emerges in these pages is complex: An enforcer who was also a kick-boxing and Golden Gloves champion; a womanizer who fought for custody of his daughters; a tenth-grade dropout living on the streets who went on, as an adult, to earn a college degree in three years; a man, who lived by the strict code of loyalty to the mob, but set up a sting operation that would net one of the largest hauls of cocaine ever seized. Eddie's is a harsh story, but it tells us something important about the darker corners of our world.Street Soldier is as disturbing and fascinating as a crime scene, as heart-stopping as a bar fight, and at times as darkly comic as Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction or Martin Scorsese’s Good Fellas.
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.
Who Killed My Daughter?: The True Story of a Mother's Search for Her Daughter's Murderer
Lois Duncan - 1992
School Library Journal "Best Book of the Year"--1992The Literary Guild, alternate selection--1992Time-Life Digest selection--1992ALA Best Book for Young Adults--1993Library of Congress Selection as a Talking Book for the Blind--1993N.Y. Public Library-- "Books for the Teenage" selection--1993Scholastic Book Club selection -- March, 1994, Feb., 1999 Pacific Northwest Young Readers Award--1994-95Nominated for Nevada Young Readers Award--1993-94Nominated for Tennessee Volunteer State Young Readers Award--94-95Nominated for Iowa Teen Award--1994-95Foreign editions: Germany, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Sweden,
A Killer by Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind
Ann Wolbert Burgess - 2021
With reported cases of sexual assault and homicide on the rise, the FBI created a specialized team—the “Mindhunters” better known as the Behavioral Science Unit—to track down the country's most dangerous criminals. And yet narrowing down a seemingly infinite list of potential suspects seemed daunting at best and impossible at worst—until Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess stepped on the scene.In A Killer By Design, Burgess reveals how her pioneering research on sexual assault and trauma caught the attention of the FBI, and steered her right into the middle of a chilling serial murder investigation in Nebraska. Over the course of the next two decades, she helped the budding unit identify, interview, and track down dozens of notoriously violent offenders, including Ed Kemper ("The Co-Ed Killer"), Dennis Rader ("("BTK"), Henry Wallace ("The Taco Bell Strangler"), Jon Barry Simonis ("The Ski-Mask Rapist"), and many others. As one of the first women trailblazers within the FBI’s hallowed halls, Burgess knew many were expecting her to crack under pressure and recoil in horror—but she was determined to protect future victims at any cost. This book pulls us directly into the investigations as she experienced them, interweaving never-before-seen interview transcripts and crime scene drawings alongside her own vivid recollections to provide unprecedented insight into the minds of deranged criminals and the victims they left behind. Along the way, Burgess also paints a revealing portrait of a formidable institution on the brink of a seismic scientific and cultural reckoning—and the men forced to reconsider everything they thought they knew about crime.Haunting, heartfelt, and deeply human, A Killer By Design forces us to confront the age-old question that has long plagued our criminal justice system: “What drives someone to kill, and how can we stop them?”
Who'd be a copper?: Thirty years a frontline British cop
Jonathan Nicholas - 2015
Who’d be a copper? follows Jonathan Nicholas in his transition from a long-haired world traveller to becoming one of ‘Thatcher’s army’ on the picket lines of the 1984 miner’s dispute and beyond. His first years in the police were often chaotic and difficult, and he was very nearly sacked for not prosecuting enough people. Working at the sharp end of inner-city policing for the entire thirty years, Jonathan saw how politics interfered with the job; from the massaging of crime figures to personal petty squabbles with senior officers. His last ten years were the oddest, from being the best cop in the force to repeatedly being told that he faced dismissal. This astonishing true story comes from deep in the heart of British inner-city policing and is a revealing insight into what life is really like for a police officer, amid increasing budget cuts, bizarre Home Office ideas and stifling political correctness. “I can write what I like, even if it brings the police service into disrepute, because I don’t work for them anymore!” says Jonathan Nicholas. Who’d be a copper? is a unique insight into modern policing that will appeal to fans of autobiographies, plus those interested in seeing what really happens behind the scenes of the UK police."I HAVE BOUGHT YOUR BOOK." TW, Sir Thomas Winsor, WS HMCIC"A WEALTH OF ANECDOTES. FASCINATING." John Donoghue, author of 'Police, Crime & 999'"AN ILLUMINATING ACCOUNT OF LIFE AS A FRONT LINE OFFICER IN BRITAIN'S POLICE, A SERVICE OFTEN STRETCHED FOR RESOURCES BUT MIRED IN RED TAPE AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS." Pat Condell, author of 'Freedom is My Religion'
Dead In The Water
Penny Farmer - 2018
Hooded, bound with ropes and weighted down with heavy engine parts, Chris Farmer and his girlfriend Peta Frampton were still clinging to life when they were thrown from a yacht on which they had been crewing. This is the gripping account of how Chris's family painstakingly gathered evidence against the boat’s Californian skipper, Silas Duane Boston, working alongside the FBI, Interpol, and police in the UK and the USA. Almost four decades later in 2015, there was a major breakthrough in the case when, using Facebook, Chris’s sister Penny tracked Boston down. Following the testimony of his two sons who, as young boys, had witnessed the horrific murder of Chris and Peta at the hands of their father, Boston was finally arrested and charged with two counts of maritime murder.Chillingly, Boston was later linked to several other killings on US soil―at one point he was even the FBI’s prime suspect in the notorious Golden State Killer case, until DNA ruled him out. The list of crimes for which he was suspected put him in the league of America’s most prolific and elusive serial killers.Not just a story of murder on the high seas, Dead in the Water is a tale that offers insights into the minds of the killer and his two sons. And it reveals a family’s fortitude and diligence in tracking down a monster of a man, a task which ultimately fell to the author to complete. It exemplifies that life can be senselessly snuffed out but love never dies.