Treasury. And Alva Vanderbilt squandered tens of thousands on one evening to crack the closed social circle of the Mrs. Astor. And when Jay Gould, of Black Friday fame, sent his card to one of the Rothschilds, it was returned with the comment, "Europe is not for sale." It was this climate of mid- and late-nineteenth-century excess that fostered the most rapid period of growth in the history of the United States, replacing the unyielding Puritanism of Cotton Mather with the flexible creed of Henry Ward Beecher. National Book Award nominee Milton Rugoff gives his uniquely revealing view of the Gilded Age in this collective biography of Americans from 1850 to 1890. Writing on the political spoilsmen, money kings, parvenus, forty-niners, lords of the press, sexual transgressors, and women's rights leaders, Rugoff focuses on thirty-six men and women from almost every walk of life. His exponents include U.S. Grant, John Charles Frémont, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jim Fisk, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Horatio Alger, free-love advocate Victoria Woodhull, first female surgeon Bethenia Owens-Adair, Brigham Young's rebellious nineteenth wife Anna Eliza Young, Boston Brahmin Charles Eliot Norton, Gold Rush pioneer Sarah Royce, black visionary Sojourner Truth, and to critique American society, Walt Whitman. In examining the Gilded Age, Milton Rugoff offers fresh glimpses into the lives of the celebrities of the era, as well as some lesser-known Americans, while at the same time revealing the roots of problems that still plague us today.

    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!

    Caligari" to Richard Shickel on the cult of Greta Garbo.

    He watched his victims and chose carefully. Then he struck—each attack more brutal than the last. By the time detectives arrived, all they found were gruesome crime scenes of bloodied, brutalized bodies.They Knew He Would Strike AgainFor more than ten years in south Louisiana the killings went on. Task forces were formed. The killer even spent time in jail. But that wouldn't stop the bloodshed. One victim was stabbed with a screwdriver 83 times.But They Couldn't Stop Him—Until Was Too LateHe was a father. A husband. A co-worker. And a killer. Derrick Todd Lee was ultimately convicted of two savage murders and tied to at least seven more. From the slender trace of DNA that finally nabbed him to the courageous prosecutors who took him down in court, this is the shocking story of a homicidal maniac hiding in plain sight—and an evil that could never be washed away.Includes 16 pages of shocking photographs. Previously published as I've Been Watching You.

    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.

    Readers will learn about Washington's phantom appearance at the Battle of Gettysburg, Dolley Madison's spirit in the White House rose garden, Andrew Jackson's encounter with the Bell Witch, Abraham Lincoln's prophetic dreams, the mischievous ghost of Franklin D. Roosevelt's dog Fala, Richard Nixon's spiritual conferences with dead presidents, and the odd demon cat that materializes prior to national disasters.

    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.

    A woman had wanted to leave him. You're not going anywhere, he told her. Later that day, a police officer reports to the house and finds some human tissue and organs in a bag left out for garbage. The person of interest in the case is a steelworker named Sam Pirrera, who lives in the house. But who is the victim? Sam's current estranged wife, Danielle? It is known that they had a stormy relationship; Sam had assaulted her as his coke addiction returned. Forensic detectives find traces of blood in the basement, and then the entire corpse, dismembered, the parts hidden behind a false wall and packed in boxes, each of the parts wrapped and doused in gasoline. The victim's identity is discovered through prints to be a prostitute named Maggie Karer. The dismemberment, defensive mutilation, is so calculated and deliberate, the detectives wonder, are there more victims? But Pirrera's first wife was named Beverly, and a woman named Lesa Davidson shows up at the police station to say she hasn't heard from her daughter-Beverly-in eight years. And Sam's estranged wife, Danielle, who is in fact alive, tells police that Sam had once told her he had killed his first wife and dumped her parts in a vat of molten steel at a steel plant. Detectives now pursue a double murder case, led by veteran homicide detective Peter Abi-Rashed, who had once chased a young Sam Pirrera on the streets of Hamilton's east end many years before. The outcome is shocking - and a mystery remains.

    This book seeks justice for Diana and presents extremely incriminating evidence that all democratic nations should embrace. It's proven the paparazzi were kept away from court through "political intervention"; the decision to embalm Diana was taken at a "diplomatic level"; MI6 previously attempted to "pervert the course of justice" and are forced into acknowledging they murder people; senior police officers compared evidence to "get their stories straight" during the inquest and repeatedly sidestepped crucial questions, plus much more. The authorities are examined both pre and post the Paris attack. Disturbing evidence is presented and questions are raised over Britain's "democracy" where the people are supposed to be the law. If you share this book's view that this heinous act was intolerable then consider; Diana's murder needed the nod from someone in a position of considerable power; so, who gave the order? Post attack, the authorities were shamefully coerced into cooperating with a subterfuge just because the people's justice endangered one family and, of course, MI6; clearly an abuse of the people's democracy. This book shows evidence of murder that any honest court would accept. Murderous monsters assassinated Diana to preserve the status quo; an act of which the Nazi SS or the KGB would have been proud. But instead of burning books, these people now intimidate writers who seek justice and they are, in my view, guilty of treason; please read and consider your verdict.

    They have pieced together, at last, the story of the conspiracy that nearly doomed the president and how a few good men—ordinary guys who were willing to risk their lives in the line of duty—stopped it. It begins on November 1, 1950, an unseasonably hot afternoon in the sleepy capital. At 2:00 P.M. in his temporary residence at Blair House, the president of the United States takes a nap. At 2:20 P.M., two men approach Blair House from different directions. Oscar Collazo, a respected metal polisher and family man, and Griselio Torresola, an unemployed salesman, don’t look dangerous, not in their new suits and hats, not in their calm, purposeful demeanor, not in their slow, unexcited approach. What the three White House policemen and one Secret Service agent cannot guess is that under each man's coat is a 9mm automatic pistol and in each head, a dream of assassin's glory. At point-blank range, Collazo and then Torresola draw and fire and move toward the president of the United States. Hunter and Bainbridge tell the story of that November day with narrative power and careful attention to detail. They are the first to report on the inner workings of this conspiracy; they examine the forces that led the perpetrators to conceive the plot. The authors also tell the story of the men themselves, from their youth and the worlds in which they grew up to the women they loved and who loved them to the moment the gunfire erupted. Their telling commemorates heroism—the quiet commitment to duty that in some moments of crisis sees some people through an ordeal, even at the expense of their lives.