Book picks similar to
The Unicorn's Secret by Steven Levy


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The Baby Farmers


Annie Cossins - 2013
    Annie Cossins pieces together the fascinating story of the most infamous legal trial in Australia to reveal an underworld of struggling mothers, unwanted babies, and a society that preferred to turn a blind eye.In October 1892, a one-month-old baby boy was found buried in the backyard of Sarah and John Makin, two wretchedly poor baby farmers in inner Sydney. In the weeks that followed, 12 more babies were found buried in the backyards of other houses in which the Makins had lived. This resulted in the most infamous trial in Australian legal history, and exposed a shocking underworld of desperate mothers, drugged and starving babies, and a black market in the sale and murder of children.Annie Cossins pieces together a dramatic and tragic tale with larger than life characters: theatrical Sarah Makin; her smooth-talking husband, John; her disloyal daughter, Clarice; diligent Constable James Joyce, with curious domestic arrangements of his own; and a network of baby farmers stretching across the city. It's a glimpse into a society that preferred to turn a blind eye to the fate of its most vulnerable members, only a century ago.

I Have Lived in the Monster: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Serial Killers


Robert K. Ressler - 1997
    Ressler shows you serial killers as you've never seen them before.In his phenomenally successful Whoever Fights Monsters, Robert K. Ressler examined his brilliant twenty-year career hunting down killers for the FBI. Now, delving deeper than ever before into the criminal mind, Ressler recounts his years since leaving the FBI, working as an independent criminal profiler on some of the most famous serial murder cases of our day.Ingeniously piecing together clues from crime scenes, along with killing patterns and methods, Ressler explains his role in assisting the investigations of such perplexing international cases as England's Wimbledon Common killing, the ABC Murders in South Africa, and the deadly gassing of Japan's subway. We're also witness to Ressler's fascinating, in-depth interviews with John Wayne Gacy, the first and last one America's most prolific serial killer would ever grant, plus a shockingly candid discussion with "cannibal killer" Jeffrey Dahmer.Daring to understand the depraved minds of serial killers, Robert K. Ressler returns from the deepest abyss with an unforgettable account that is as riveting as it is shocking.

The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer


Skip Hollandsworth - 2016
    But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class. At the time the concept of a serial killer was unthinkable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen, and the citizens' panic reached a fever pitch.Before it was all over, at least a dozen men would be arrested in connection with the murders, and the crimes would expose what a newspaper described as "the most extensive and profound scandal ever known in Austin." And yes, when Jack the Ripper began his attacks in 1888, London police investigators did wonder if the killer from Austin had crossed the ocean to terrorize their own city.With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair, Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth brings this terrifying saga to life.

Dixie's Last Stand: Was It Murder or Self-Defense?


John Ferak - 2015
    Then one summer day in 2002, Dixie’s mean and wicked husband was gone. Some of the local residents presumed that Scott packed his bags and left town. But others were skeptical. After all, Scott’s brown Ford pick-up truck was still parked in his driveway. The disappearance mystified Defiance for more than a year. Then in late October, 2003, the truth emerged … or did it?

No Way Home: A Memoir of Life on the Run


Tyler Wetherall - 2018
    She didn't think this was strange until Scotland Yard showed up in her bucolic English village, and she discovered her family had been living a lie. Her father was a fugitive and their family name was an alias.They had been living in California back in 1983 when the Feds originally caught up with her dad; it was the same year Tyler was born. Her parents decided to go on the run with the three young children, and they spent the next few years traveling across Europe, assuming different identities, living in a series of beautiful places, from Portugal to Tuscany, paid for with drug money. Now her dad had fled once more, except this time he didn't take her with him.Despite the danger involved, for the following two years he flew Tyler and her siblings out to see him in secret wherever he was in hiding, until on her 12th birthday Scotland Yard followed Tyler to the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, where her father was eventually captured. It was over the summers spent visiting her dad in prison in California, as she grew into an increasingly self-destructive teenager, that he told her the truth about his criminal life. He had been a pot smuggler in the seventies, and his organization had bought in marijuana worth nearly a half billion dollars from Thailand.In this emotionally detailed and carefully wrought memoir about growing up as a fugitive's daughter, Tyler Wetherall pieces together the story of her parents' past, which ultimately helps her understand her own.

The Unfit Heiress: The Tragic Life and Scandalous Sterilization of Ann Cooper Hewitt


Audrey Clare Farley - 2021
    This alarmed authorities, who feared certain "over-sexed" women could destroy civilization if allowed to reproduce and pass on their defects. Set against this backdrop, The Unfit Heiress chronicles the fight for inheritance, both genetic and monetary, between Ann Cooper Hewitt and her mother Maryon.In 1934, aided by a California eugenics law, the socialite Maryon Cooper Hewitt had her "promiscuous" daughter declared feebleminded and sterilized without her knowledge. She did this to deprive Ann of millions of dollars from her father's estate, which contained a child-bearing stipulation. When a sensational court case ensued, the American public was captivated. So were eugenicists, who saw an opportunity to restrict reproductive rights in America for decades to come.

Perfect Victim


Elizabeth Southall - 2002
    No one could have guessed that she had become another girl's 'perfect' victim. Happy. Beautiful. Talented. She had everything her killer could want.Perceived by crime experts everywhere as one of the most bizarre homicides they had encountered, Perfect Victim recounts two stories: Rachel's mother Elizabeth Southall tells of her family's heart-rending experience - how they lived through unimaginable tragedy, going to extraordinary lengths to prove their daughter wasn't a runaway. Criminal court reporter Megan Norris provides another side of the picture; the analysis, the astonishment of professionals when faced with the killer's weird and unsettling letters, and the police proceedings that led, eventually, to the Rachel Barber case being solved.Confronting and compelling, this is an incredible story about a callous and calculated crime.

The Prison Doctor


Amanda Brown - 2019
    From miraculous pregnancies to dirty protests, and from violent attacks on prisoners to heartbreaking acts of self-harm, she has witnessed it all. In this memoir, Amanda reveals the stories, the patients and the cases that have shaped a career helping those most of us would rather forget.

Inside the Mind of a Teen Killer


Phil Chalmers - 2009
    Why? In Inside the Mind of a Teen Killer, Chalmers, who has been interviewing teen murderers and serial killers for over a decade, recounts Woodham's gripping and horrifying story, plumbing his motives, and peering into the killer's mind. Chalmers also weaves into the narrative his reasearch about teen culture, including comparisons with other teen killers, to analyze the disturbing ascent of teen violence and offer ways that we, as individuals, leaders, and communities, can help defuse this alarming trend. Inside the Mind of a Teen Killer is a culmination of Phil Chalmers' fifteen-year study on teen murder and school violence.? This is an anti-violence project aimed at teens, parents, youth workers, teachers, and law enforcement. The most unique part of the book is the words of the killers themselves, explaining why they committed the crimes, what led them to murder, and how we could have helped them. The goal of this book is to educate America and the world on the growing problem of teen murder and school violence, and hopefully stop teen murder and save innocent lives. Phil interviewed nearly 200 teen killers and school shooters for this book, and it's sure to change the way America and the world thinks about the growing trend of juvenile homicide. Book release date to coincide with the 10-year anniversary of Columbine, April 20, 2009."Phil Chalmers has interviewed the killers. He has corresponded with them extensively. He has exhaustively researched their crimes

Crimson Stain


Jim Fisher - 2000
    It was an act of madness that would shock his small Amish community...and the nation.

Notes on a Killing: Love, Lies, and Murder in a Small New Hampshire Town


Kevin Flynn - 2013
    She had even urged Sandy to take out a restraining order against Kenneth Carpenter. Which was why her call to Sandy on February 23, 2005, seemed to come from out of the blue. During it, she told Sandy to drop the restraining order and get back together with Ken. Pen was never seen again. One man stood to gain from Pen’s disappearance: Ken Carpenter. But evidence was bleak: no blood, no DNA, no body. Until detectives found notes hidden beneath a leather chair that turned out to be a playbook for murder…INCLUDES PHOTOS

The Edge of Malice: The Marie Grossman Story


David P. Miraldi - 2020
    But all of that changes when she drives her car into the darkened parking lot of a fast food restaurant. After she lowers her car window to place an order at the drive-thru, a man suddenly appears and places a gun at her temple. What follows is every woman's worst nightmare. The Edge of Malice is a true story about struggle, determination, and a quest for justice. The author, an attorney, places the reader into the swirling currents of the courtroom where no outcome is ever certain. But the story does not conclude when the legal battle is over. The reader follows Marie as she struggles to resolve the unrelenting anger that the legal system has been unable to extinguish. In the end, Marie's journey to find inner peace is as improbable as it is transformative.

Profiling Violent Crimes: An Investigative Tool


Ronald M. Holmes - 1989
    New chapters cover criminal behavior theories and psychological profiling; autoerotic deaths, and occult crimes, plus two new chapters detailing infamous unsolved crimes/criminals: Jack the Ripper and the Jon Benet Ramsey case. The authors′ continuing research and activities in the field result in a multitude of new case studies for this book, often included as boxed inserts.

In the Name of the Children: An FBI Agent's Relentless Pursuit of the Nation's Worst Predators


Jeffrey L. Rinek - 2018
    Agent's Relentless Pursuit of the Nation's Worst Predators, which Rinek wrote with the journalist Marilee Strong, sounds warm and humane, qualities missing from much crime writing. Their book is a professional job, filled with illuminating details about the day-to-day operations of the bureau.--New York Times Book Review FBI Special Agent Jeff Rinek had a gift for getting child predators to confess. All he had to do was share a piece of his soul . . .In the Name of the Children gives an unflinching look at what it's like to fight a never-ending battle against an enemy far more insidious than terrorists: the predators, lurking amongst us, who seek to harm our children.During his 30-year career with the FBI, Jeff Rinek worked hundreds of investigations involving crimes against children: from stranger abduction to serial homicide to ritualized sexual abuse. Those who do this kind of work are required to plumb the depths of human depravity, to see things no one should ever have to see--and once seen can never forget. There is no more important--or more brutal--job in law enforcement, and few have been more successful than Rinek at solving these sort of cases.Most famously, Rinek got Cary Stayner to confess to all four of the killings known as the Yosemite Park Murders, an accomplishment made more extraordinary by the fact that the FBI nearly pinned the crimes on the wrong suspects. Rinek's recounting of the confession and what he learned about Stayner provides perhaps the most revelatory look ever inside the psyche of a serial killer and a privileged glimpse into the art of interrogation.In the Name of the Children takes readers into the trenches of real-time investigations where every second counts and any wrong decision or overlooked fact can have tragic repercussions. Rinek offers an insider's perspective of the actual case agents and street detectives who are the boots on the ground in this war at home. By placing us inside the heart and mind of a rigorously honest and remarkably self-reflective investigator, we will see with our own eyes what it takes--and what it costs--to try to keep our children safe and to bring to justice those who prey on society's most vulnerable victims.With each chapter dedicated to a real case he worked, In the Name of the Children also explores the evolution of Rinek as a Special Agent--whose unorthodox, empathy-based approach to interviewing suspects made him extraordinarily successful in obtaining confessions--and the toll it took to have such intimate contact with child molesters and murderers. Beyond exploring the devastating impact of these unthinkable crimes on the victims and their families, this book offers an unprecedented look at how investigators and their loved ones cope while living in the specter of so much suffering.

Traces: The Memoir of a Forensic Scientist and Criminal Investigator


Patricia Wiltshire - 2019
    She'll take you searching for bodies of loved ones - through woodlands, along hedgerows, field-edges, and through plantations - solving time since death, and disposal of remains, from ditches to living rooms. She will give you glimpses of her own history: her loves, her losses, and the narrow little valley in Wales where she first woke up to the wonders of the natural world. Pat will show you how her work with a microscope reveals tell-tale traces of the world around us, and how these have taken suspects of the darkest criminal activities to court.From flowers, fungi, tree trunks to car pedals, walking boots, carpets, and corpses' hair, Traces is a unique book on life, death, and one's indelible link with nature.