Book picks similar to
Perfect Victim by Elizabeth Southall
true-crime
non-fiction
nonfiction
crime
We, the Jury: Deciding the Scott Peterson Case
Frank SwertlowJohn Guinasso - 2007
In "We, the Jury," the jurors in the Scott Peterson case tell, for the first time, what life was like at the center of this sensational murder trial.
Talking with Serial Killers: The Most Evil People in the World Tell Their Own Stories
Christopher Berry-Dee - 2001
In this book, their pursuit of horror and violence is described in their own words, transcribed from audio and videotape interviews conducted deep inside some of the toughest prisons in the world. Berry-Dee describes the circumstances of his meetings with some of the world's most evil men, and reproduces their very words as they describe their crimes and discuss their remorse—or lack of it. This work offers a penetrating insight into the workings of the criminal mind.
Call Me Tuesday
Leigh Byrne - 2012
For no apparent reason, she's singled out from her siblings, blamed for her family's problems and targeted for unspeakable abuse. The loving environment she's come to know becomes an endless nightmare of twisted punishments as she's forced to confront the dark cruelty lurking inside the mother she idolizes. Based on a true story, Call Me Tuesday recounts, with raw emotion, a young girl's physical and mental torment at the mercy of the monster in her mother's clothes--a monster she doesn't know how to stop loving. Tuesday's painful journey through the hidden horrors of child abuse will open your eyes, and her unshakable love for her parents will tug at your heartstrings.
The Convent
Marie Hargreaves - 2020
But little does she know she will not see her home again for four long years. Her family cannot afford to keep her at home.Marie tells the story of how she was taken away from a poor, but happy and loving home life, to live in a convent - away from everyone and everything she holds dear. Her hair is bluntly chopped, her clothes are taken away, and her name is changed. Then a horrific ritual of physical, sexual and mental abuse begins.Even after the convent closes, Marie is unable to share details of her suffering with anyone. But when a police investigation is launched, Marie realises that the time has come to tell the truth...
The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert - 2010
In Rome, she indulges herself and gains nearly two stone. In India, she finds enlightenment through scrubbing temple floors. Finally, in Bali a toothless medicine man reveals a new path to peace, leaving her ready to find love again. Despite vowing in EAT PRAY LOVE never to go near marriage again, in COMMITTED we find Gilbert about to wed the man she fell in love with at the end of EAT, PRAY, LOVE. Once again approaching with this most ancient of institutions, with wit and intelligence Gilbert explores marriage on a personal & global level to discover what it really means. In THE LAST AMERICAN MAN, Gilbert presents a fascinating, intimate portrait of the American naturalist and brilliant modern hero Eustace Conway, who at the age of seventeen ditched the comforts of his suburban existence to escape into the wild. Attempting to instil in people a deeper appreciation of nature, Conway stops at nothing in pursuit of bigger, bolder adventures. In Gilbert's first novel STERN MEN, the eighteen-year-old irredeemably unromantic Ruth Thomas returns home from boarding school determined to join the 'stern-men'. Throwing her education overboard, this feisty and unforgettable American heroine helps work the lobster boats and brushes up on her profanity, eventually falling for a handsome young lobsterman. In PILGRIMS, Gilbert's sharply drawn and tenderly observed collection of twelve short stories, tough heroes and heroines, hardened by their experiences, struggle for their epiphanies and seek companionship as fiercely as they can.
Shooting Stars: My Unexpected Life Photographing Hollywood's Most Famous
Jennifer Buhl - 2014
Shooting Stars is the hilarious, whip-smart chronicle of her wild ride through this testosterone-driven business and shows how achieving glamour is not always so glamorous.Balancing juicy celebrity anecdotes with a poignant story of heartache, love, and the ticktock of a biological clock, this irresistible book will leave you with an entirely new perspective on what life is like among the stars and on the men-and women-behind the money shots.
The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder
Charles Graeber - 2013
But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, journalist Charles Graeber presents the whole story for the first time. Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, interviews, wire-tap recordings and videotapes, as well as exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself and the confidential informant who helped bring him down, THE GOOD NURSE weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, and betrayal.Graeber's portrait of Cullen depicts a surprisingly intelligent and complicated young man whose promising career was overwhelmed by his compulsion to kill, and whose shy demeanor masked a twisted interior life hidden even to his family and friends. Were it not for the hardboiled, unrelenting work of two former Newark homicide detectives racing to put together the pieces of Cullen's professional past, and a fellow nurse willing to put everything at risk, including her job and the safety of her children, there's no telling how many more lives could have been lost.In the tradition of In Cold Blood, THE GOOD NURSE does more than chronicle Cullen's deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him; it paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers a penetrating look inside America's medical system. Harrowing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at medicine, hospitals, and the people who work in them, in an entirely different way.
Murder by Family: The Incredible True Story of a Son's Treachery and a Father's Forgiveness
Kent Whitaker - 2008
Kent Whitaker's story of how an unknown assailant opened fire on his entire family, killing his wife and teenaged son, and how his heart-wrenching decision to forgive begins a journey toward redemption and faith when he discovers that the one responsible for the attack is his other son.
Madeleine: Our Daughter's Disappearance and the Continuing Search for Her
Kate McCann - 2011
My reason for writing it is simple: to give an account of the truth ... Writing this memoir has entailed recording some very personal, intimate and emotional aspects of our lives. Sharing these with strangers does not come easily to me, but if I hadn't done so I would not have felt the book gave as full a picture as it is possible for me to give. As with every action we have taken over the last four years, it ultimately boils down to whether what we are doing could help us to find Madeleine. When the answer to that question is yes, or even possibly, our family can cope with anything ... "What follows is an intensely personal account, and I make no apology for that ... "Nothing is more important to us than finding our little girl." — Kate McCann, May 2011 "It is a sad fact that not a single police force anywhere is proactively looking for Madeleine (as is the case for many other missing children). I am sure this book will re-energise the search for our daughter and the public will get behind the Find Madeleine campaign once again. It is simply not acceptable that the authorities have given up on Madeleine — especially when no comprehensive review of the case has been undertaken. Our daughter, and whoever took her, are out there. We need your help to find them." — Gerry McCann, May 2011
The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins
John George Pearson - 1972
This book has been expanded to include further material on such matters as Lord Boothby's close relationship with the killer twins.
The Suitcase Baby
Tanya Bretherton - 2018
What it contained - and why - would prove to be explosive.The murdered baby in the suitcase was one of many dead infants who were turning up in the harbour, on trains and elsewhere. These innocent victims were a devastating symptom of the clash between public morality, private passion and unrelenting poverty in a fast-growing metropolis.Police tracked down Sarah Boyd, the mother of the suitcase baby, and the complex story and subsequent murder trial of Sarah and her friend Jean Olliver became a media sensation. Sociologist Tanya Bretherton masterfully tells the engrossing and moving story of the crime that put Sarah and her baby at the centre of a social tragedy that still resonates through the decades.
I Know My First Name is Steven: The True Story of the Steven Stayner Abduction Case
Mike Echols - 1991
Now, the next terrible chapter unfolds as his brother Cary admits he's the Yosemite Killer.Bright and likeable, seven-year-old Steven Stayner always listened to his mother. Especially about talking to strangers. But when soft spoken "Reverend" Parnell asked to speak with his mother about church, Steven guessed it would be okay. Until he got into the man's car. By then, it was too late.Held captive by convicted child molester Kenneth Eugene Parnell for seven years as his "son Dennis," Steven was forced to endure abuse so terrible that he forgot his own name. Parnell evaded a statewide search for Steven, keeping his young prisoner moving from one cheap motel to the next. Finally, Steven made a desperate escape with five-year-old Timmy White, another kidnapped boy, return home to their parents, then courageously testifying to convict Parnell for his inhuman crimes.The basis for the blockbuster TV movie, I Know My First Name Is Steven is the compelling true account of Steven Stayner's seven years of horror and of his parents who never gave up hope for his safe return. It is also the complete, updated story of how Cary Stayner made headlines of his own—as the cold-blooded killer who terrorised Yosemite.
Just A Child
Sammy Woodhouse - 2018
Ten years older, he promised to take care of her. Sammy thought she was in love, but in reality she was being groomed by a ringleader of Britain's most notorious child sex ring.Just A Child tells the heartbreaking story of how a young girl from Rotherham was abused by her drug-dealing 'boyfriend', eventually giving birth to his baby, right under the nose of the very authorities who were meant to protect her. When reality dawned and Sammy realised she was one of countless vulnerable child victims - many of whom were trafficked around the north of England - she took it upon herself to blow the whistle and save others from a similar fate.Thanks to Sammy's bravery, the gang was fully exposed, as well as the authorities that did little to help her. Her shocking account of how these events came to pass will enrage and sadden but, above all, it will offer hope and show why this must never happen again.
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.
The BTK Murders: Inside the "Bind Torture Kill" Case that Terrified America's Heartland
Carlton Smith - 2006
But when he began sending letters again, investigators would not miss their chance...Stunningly, police arrested Dennis Rader, the president of his church board and the father of two. As a shocked community watched, evidence began to pile up. Then Rader coldly described how he went about "his projects" as the families of his victims relived the horrific scenes this supposed pillar of the community had unleashed on their loved ones.From the tricks he used to enter his victims' homes to the puzzles he sent the media and the key role his own daughter may have played in his arrest, this is the definitive story of the BTK killer. He was, as one victim's family member called him, "a black hole inside the shell of a human being"--and the worst American monster since Ted Bundy.