He also got involved with two real-life criminal cases-and wrote about them. Now, "The Case of George Ernest Thompson Edalji" and "The Case of Oscar Slater" are presented in their entirety as originally written, and collected here for the first time in one volume, for true crime readers, legal-thriller fans, history buffs-and all the Sherlock Holmes fans who want to know more about the mind behind their favorite literary detective.

    Pam and Gregg Smart lived a seemingly storybook existence, the newlyweds very much in love.  All of this was shattered when Gregg was senselessly shot to death in 1990. In the trial that followed, staggering revelations came out as to the motive behind the killing: Pam Smart had seduced a fifteen-year-old boy into murdering her husband. Master of true crime Ken Englade paints a portrait of a trial that gripped the nation in its scintillating tale of sex and murder.  At its center is a woman who never quite grew up, and the reason why she had her husband murdered is the most stunning twist.

    In Dark Dreams he reveals the twisted motives and perverse thinking that go into the most reprehensible crimes. He also catalogs the innovative and remarkably effective techniques--techniques that he helped pioneer at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit--that allow Law Enforcement agents to construct psychological profiles of the offenders who comit them.Hazelwood has helped track down some of the most violent and well known criminals in modern history; in Dark Dreams he takes readers into his world--a sinister world inhabited by scores of dangerous offenders for every Roy Hazelwood who would put them behind bars. These are sexual sadists, serial rapists, child molesters, and serial killers. The cases he describes are as shocking as they are perplexing; their resolutions are as fascinating as they are innovative:* A young woman disappears from the convenience store where she works. Her body is later found in a field, strapped to a makeshift St. Andrew's Cross and mutilated beyond description. Who committed this heinous crime? And why?* A teenager's corpse is found hanging in a storm sewer. His clothes are neatly folded by the entrance and a stopwatch lies in the grime beneath him. Is he the victim of a bizarre, ritualistic murder . . . or an elaborate masturbatory fantasy gone awry?* A married couple, driving with their toddler in the back seat, pick up a female hitchhiker. They kidnap her and for seven years keep her in a box under their bed as a sexual slave. The wife had agreed to this inhuman arrangement in exchange for a second child. Who was to blame?But as gruesome as the crimes are and as unsettling as the odds seem, Hazelwood, writing with veteran journalsit Stephen Michaud, proves that the right amounts of determination and logic can bring even the most cunning and devious criminals to justice. Dark Dreams is a 2002 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime.

    He called it Ravensbrück, and during the years that followed thousands of people died there after enduring brutal forms of torture. All were women. There are a handful of studies and memoirs that reference Ravensbrück, but until now no one has written a full account of this atrocity, perhaps due to the mostly masculine narrative of war, or perhaps because it lacks the Jewish context of most mainstream Holocaust history. Ninety percent of Ravensbrück's prisoners were not Jewish. Rather, they were political prisoners, Resistance fighters, lesbians, prostitutes, even the sister of New York's Mayor LaGuardia. In a perverse twist, most of the guards were women themselves. Sarah Helm's groundbreaking work sheds much-needed light on an aspect of World War II that has remained in the shadows for decades. Using research into German and newly opened Russian archives, as well as interviews with survivors, Helm has produced a landmark achievement that weaves together various accounts, allowing us to follow characters on both sides of the prisoner/guard divide. Chilling, compelling, and deeply unsettling, Ravensbrück is essential reading for anyone concerned with Nazi history.

    Utilizing his background in medicine, he led the investigations of more than eight thousand individual deaths, becoming a key figure in some of New York’s most bizarre death cases and eventually taking charge of the largest forensic investigation ever attempted: identifying the dead in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedies.Now, in this mesmerizing book, Ribowsky pulls back the curtain on the New York City’s medical examiner’s office, giving an enthralling, never-before-seen glimpse into death and the city. Born and raised in New York City’s orthodox Jewish community, Ribowsky seems an unlikely candidate for this macabre profession. Nevertheless he has forsaken a promising career of medical work with the living, descending instead into the realm of the dead, enticed by the challenge of confronting death on a daily basis. Taking you through the vermin-infested Bowery flophouses and posh Upper East Side apartments of the city’s dead, Ribowsky explores in gruesome detail the skeletons that hang in the Big Apple’s closets. Combing through the autopsy room, he also exposes the grim secrets that only a scalpel and a dead body can tell and explains how forensic investigation does not merely solve crimes—it saves lives.But it is in the aftermath of September 11 that the ME’s office is handed its biggest challenge: to identify as many of the fallen as possible. With poignant descriptions, Ribowsky provides a dramatic account of the office’s diligent and unflappable work with the families of the victims, helping them emerge from the ashes of this tragedy while displaying the strength, grit, intelligence, and compassion that Americans expect from true New Yorkers.At once compelling and heartbreaking, Dead Center is a story of New York unlike any other, blending the haunting with the sublime, while painting a striking portrait of death (and life) in the city that never sleeps.

    Starting at the age of five, he recalls being sexually curious and began placing items in his anus at the age of eight. He'd sexually assault hundreds of little girls before committing his first murder. Sadly, as law enforcement stumbled along with no leads or evidence, Robert Black would strike repeatedly destroying families and preying on innocent little girls in the United Kingdom.

    But Bravo proved to be a brutal and conniving man, and the marriage was far from happy. Then one night he suddenly collapsed, and three days later died an agonizing death. His doctors immediately determined that he had been poisoned. The graphic and sensational details of the case would capture the public imagination of Victorian England as the investigation dominated the press for weeks, and the list of suspects grew to include Florence, her secret lover the eminent doctor James Gully, her longtime companion the housekeeper Mrs. Cox, and the recently dismissed stableman George Griffiths. But ultimately no murderer could be determined, and despite the efforts of numerous historians, criminologists, and other writers since (including Agatha Christie), the case has never been definitively solved. Now James Ruddick retells this gripping story of love, greed, brutality, and betrayal among the elite -- offering an intimate portrait of Victorian culture and of one woman's struggle to live in this repressive society, while unmasking the true murderer for the first time. Simultaneously a murder mystery, colorful social history, and modern-day detective tale, Death at the Priory is a thrilling read and a window into a fascinating time. "An impressively researched retelling ... Death at the Priory reads as a historical intervention, crime novel, and sensational docudrama." -- Zarena Aslami, Chicago Tribune "A suspenseful and stimulating read." -- Merle Rubin, Los Angeles Times "Enjoyable; Ruddick has done much admirable sleuthing." -- Paul Collins, The New York Times Book Review

    And a very strange, very English obsession. But where did this fixation develop? And what does it tell us about ourselves?In The Art of the English Murder, Lucy Worsley explores this phenomenon in forensic detail, revisiting notorious crimes like the Ratcliff Highway Murders, which caused a nationwide panic in the early nineteenth century, and the case of Frederick and Maria Manning, the suburban couple who were hanged after killing Maria's lover and burying him under their kitchen floor. Our fascination with crimes like these became a form of national entertainment, inspiring novels and plays, prose and paintings, poetry and true-crime journalism. At a point during the birth of modern England, murder entered our national psyche, and it's been a part of us ever since.The Art of the English Murder is a unique exploration of the art of crime and a riveting investigation into the English criminal soul by one of our finest historians.

    But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process.The Icepick Surgeon masterfully guides the reader across two thousand years of history, beginning with Cleopatra’s dark deeds in ancient Egypt. The book reveals the origins of much of modern science in the transatlantic slave trade of the 1700s, as well as Thomas Edison’s mercenary support of the electric chair and the warped logic of the spies who infiltrated the Manhattan Project. But the sins of science aren’t all safely buried in the past. Many of them, Kean reminds us, still affect us today. We can draw direct lines from the medical abuses of Tuskegee and Nazi Germany to current vaccine hesitancy, and connect icepick lobotomies from the 1950s to the contemporary failings of mental-health care. Kean even takes us into the future, when advanced computers and genetic engineering could unleash whole new ways to do one another wrong.Unflinching, and exhilarating to the last page, The Icepick Surgeon fuses the drama of scientific discovery with the illicit thrill of a true-crime tale. With his trademark wit and precision, Kean shows that, while science has done more good than harm in the world, rogue scientists do exist, and when we sacrifice morals for progress, we often end up with neither.

    Lyle, M.D., takes each area of forensics--from fingerprint analysis to crime scene reconstruction--and discusses its development, how the science works, how it helps in crime solving, and how you as a writer might use this technique in crafting your plot. This comprehensive reference guide includes:Real-life case files and the role forensic evidence played in solving the crimesA breakdown of the forensics system from its history and organization to standard evidence classification and collection methodsDetailed information on what a dead body can reveal--including the cause, mechanism, and manner of deathThe actual steps taken to preserve a crime scene and the evidence that can be gathered there, such as bloodstains, documents, fingerprints, tire impressions, and moreForensics is the ultimate resource for learning how to accurately imbue your stories with authentic details of untimely demises.

    He made pills, powders, and potions that could kill or maim without a trace--including some intended for Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders. He paid prostitutes to lure clients to CIA-run bordellos, where they were secretly dosed with mind-altering drugs. His experiments spread LSD across the United States, making him a hidden godfather of the 1960s counterculture. For years he was the chief supplier of spy tools used by CIA officers around the world.Stephen Kinzer, author of groundbreaking books about U.S. clandestine operations, draws on new documentary research and original interviews to bring to life one of the most powerful unknown Americans of the twentieth century. Gottlieb's reckless experiments on "expendable" human subjects destroyed many lives, yet he considered himself deeply spiritual. He lived in a remote cabin without running water, meditated, and rose before dawn to milk his goats.During his twenty-two years at the CIA, Gottlieb worked in the deepest secrecy. Only since his death has it become possible to piece together his astonishing career at the intersection of extreme science and covert action. Poisoner in Chief reveals him as a clandestine conjurer on an epic scale.

    She conjures up early operating theaters--no place for the squeamish--and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. These medical pioneers knew that the aftermath of surgery was often more dangerous than their patients' afflictions, and they were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn't have been more hazardous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister, who would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.Fitzharris dramatically recounts Lister's discoveries in gripping detail, culminating in his audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection--and could be countered by antiseptics. Focusing on the tumultuous period from 1850 to 1875, she introduces us to Lister and his contemporaries--some of them brilliant, some outright criminal--and takes us through the grimy medical schools and dreary hospitals where they learned their art, the deadhouses where they studied anatomy, and the graveyards they occasionally ransacked for cadavers.Eerie and illuminating, The Butchering Art celebrates the triumph of a visionary surgeon whose quest to unite science and medicine delivered us into the modern world.

    These are the true crime shockers that have grabbed headlines and aroused public passions. David Owen explains the scientific procedures that helped crack every one of these cases -- from the gathering of elusive physical clues to the examination of weapons and bodies, to the use of sophisticated scientific analysis. Threaded throughout the book is the history of forensic science and the technologies that support it, including: fingerprinting, autopsies, handwriting analysis, ballistics, hair sampling, blood typing, DNA testing, dental records, gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, compound and electron microscopes, and toxicology. The high-profile cases David Owen used to illustrate forensic developments are from as early as 1775, when Paul Revere used dentures to identify a slain soldier, to the latest developments in the Oklahoma bombing. Most will be familiar to readers, such as: The Lindbergh Kidnapping, Pan Am Flight 103, The Kennedy Investigation, The Hitler Diaries, Wayne Williams, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey MacDonald, Dr. Josef Mengele, Robert Maxwell's suicide, Tsar Nicholas II, and The World Trade Center bombing. David Owen presents the facts, steering clear of speculation. Comprehensive in scope, thoroughly researched and expertly compiled, Hidden Evidence is, in the words of former Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas T. Noguchi, "a fascinating book ... [and] an excellent mini-encyclopedia of widely discussed, high-profile cases."

    prison system, tracking down a chameleon con artist in Europe, or riding in a cyclone-tossed skiff with a scientist hunting the elusive giant squid, David Grann revels in telling stories that explore the nature of obsession and that piece together true and unforgettable mysteries.Each of the dozen stories in this collection reveals a hidden and often dangerous world and, like Into Thin Air and The Orchid Thief, pivots around the gravitational pull of obsession and the captivating personalities of those caught in its grip. There is the world's foremost expert on Sherlock Holmes who is found dead in mysterious circumstances; an arson sleuth trying to prove that a man about to be executed is innocent, and sandhogs racing to complete the brutally dangerous job of building New York City's water tunnels before the old system collapses. Throughout, Grann's hypnotic accounts display the power-and often the willful perversity-of the human spirit.Compulsively readable, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant mosaic of ambition, madness, passion, and folly.

    In each were body parts of a man. In a forensics room, the truth was discovered: William McGuire had been horribly murdered and dismembered.William and his loving wife, a registered nurse named Melanie, had just closed on their New Jersey dream home. Little did William know about the nightmare that was in store... For Melanie had been involved in a long-term affair with a married doctor at the fertility clinic where she worked--and she had plans for the future that didn't include William.Investigators believe that on April 29, 2004, Melanie first drugged her husband, then murdered him in cold blood. Three years after America witnessed the details of the suitcase incident unfold--on "48 Hours, Dateline NBC, "and" ABC Primetime," and in "People "magazine, among other news outlets--Melanie was convicted of first-degree murder and desecrating human remains. This is the true story of a marriage that turned deadly...