Then he discovered that the olive grove in front of their 14th century farmhouse had been the scene of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence. Preston, intrigued, meets Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to learn more.This is the true story of their search for—and identification of—the man they believe committed the crimes, and their chilling interview with him. And then, in a strange twist of fate, Preston and Spezi themselves become targets of the police investigation. Preston has his phone tapped, is interrogated, and told to leave the country. Spezi fares worse: he is thrown into Italy's grim Capanne prison, accused of being the Monster of Florence himself. Like one of Preston's thrillers, The Monster of Florence, tells a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide—and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi, caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.

    But he was also something more, something sinister. A master of deception, he was a rapist, arsonist, and bank robber, and a new breed of serial killer, one who studied other killers to perfect his craft. He methodically buried kill-kits containing his tools of murder years before returning to reclaim them. Viewing the entire country as his hunting grounds, he often flew across the country to distant locations where he would rent a car and drive hundreds or even thousands of miles before randomly selecting his victims. Such were the methods and madness of serial killer Israel Keyes. Such were the demands of the 'Devil in the Darkness'. INCLUDES PHOTOS J.T. Hunter is the bestselling author of "The Vampire Next Door" and "The Country Boy Killer"

    After twenty years, when the killer was finally captured with the help of DNA technology, Jensen and fellow detectives spent 188 days interviewing Gary Ridgway in an effort to learn his most closely held secrets--an epic confrontation with evil that proved as disturbing and surreal as can be imagined. Written by Jensen's own son, acclaimed entertainment journalist Jeff Jensen, Green River Killer: A True Detective Story is bound to become a well-recognized member of the crime-genre graphic novel family, including titles like Darwyn Cooke’s The Hunter and Alan Moore’s From Hell.

    Edgar Hoover’s FBI to tell the full story—for the first time—of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young Hoover and the assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers. In an epic feat of storytelling and drawing on a remarkable amount of newly available material on all the major figures involved, Burrough reveals a web of interconnections within the vast American underworld and demonstrates how Hoover’s G-men overcame their early fumbles to secure the FBI’s rise to power.

    Reissue.

    It contains accounts by Richard 'The Iceman' Kuklinski, the contract killer who claimed to have murdered over 200 people in a career lasting 43 years.

    

    Dulcie Bodsworth was the unlikeliest serial killer. She was loved everywhere she went, and the townsfolk of Wilcannia, which she called home in the late 1950s, thought of her as kind and caring. The officers at the local police station found Dulcie witty and charming, and looked forward to the scones and cakes she generously baked and delivered for their morning tea.That was one side of her. Only her daughter Hazel saw the real Dulcie. And what she saw terrified her.Dulcie was in fact a cold, calculating killer who, by 1958, had put three men in their graves - one of them the father of her four children, Ted Baron - in one of the most infamous periods of the state's history. She would have got away with it all had it not been for Hazel.Written by award-winning journalist Janet Fife-Yeomans together with Hazel Baron, My Mother, A Serial Killer is both an evocative insight into the harshness of life on the fringes of Australian society in the 1950s, and a chilling story of a murderous mother and the courageous daughter who testified against her and put her in jail.

    • The Knights Templar began as impoverished warrior monks then evolved into bankers. • Groom Lake, Dreamland, Homey Airport, Paradise Ranch, The Farm, Watertown Strip, Red Square, “The Box,” are all names for Area 51. An indispensable guide, Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies connects the dots and sets the record straight on a host of greedy gurus and murderous messiahs, crepuscular cabals and suspicious coincidences. Some topics are familiar—the Kennedy assassinations, the Bilderberg Group, the Illuminati, the People's Temple and Heaven's Gate—and some surprising, like Oulipo, a select group of intellectuals who created wild formulas for creating literary masterpieces, and the Chauffeurs, an eighteenth-century society of French home invaders, who set fire to their victims' feet.

    It’s not only inevitable and frightening, it’s intriguing and fascinating–especially today, when science continues to make ever more stunning advances in the investigation of the oldest and darkest of mysteries. To discover the how and why of death, unearth its roots, and expose the mechanics of its grim handiwork is, at least in some sense, to master it. And in the process, if a criminal can be caught or closure found, so much the better.Enter Robert Mann, forensic anthropologist, deputy scientific director of the U.S. government’s Central Identification Laboratory, and, some might say, the Sherlock Holmes of death detectives. When the dead reveal some of their most sensational, macabre, and poignant tales, more often than not it’s Mann who’s been listening. Now, in this remarkable casebook, he offers an in-depth behind-the-scenes portrait of his sometimes gruesome, frequently dangerous, and always compelling profession. In cases around the world, Mann has been called upon to unmask killers with nothing but the bones of their victims to guide him, draw out clues that restore identities to the nameless dead, recover remains thought to be hopelessly lost, and piece together the events that can unlock the truth behind the most baffling deaths.The infamous 9/11 terror attacks, which killed thousands; the unplanned killing that inaugurated serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer’s grisly spree; mysterious military fatalities from World War II to the Cold War to Vietnam, including the amazing case of the Vietnam War’s Unknown Soldier–all the fascinating stories are here, along with photos from the author’s personal files. Mystery hangings, mass graves, errant body parts, actual skeletons in closets, and a host of homicides steeped in bizarre clues and buried secrets–they’re all in a day’s work for one dedicated detective whose job begins when a life ends.From the Hardcover edition.

    The criminals covered here all perpetrated crimes with a peculiar twist, among them Enriqueta Marti, who kidnapped children then boiled away their flesh and crushed their bones to make ingredients for her lucrative “magic potions;” and Randy Kraft—better known as the Scorecard Killer—who was a computer genius by day and a deranged psychopath by night with more than 150 victims to his name. From high-profile murders to long-forgotten slayings, these are the world’s most peculiar crimes.

    Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners, scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed, and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, “the kindest of men,” nearly commits the perfect crime. With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate. Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the twentieth century. Gripping from the first page, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.

    Examining heroic myths in the light of modern psychology, it considers not only the patterns and stages of mythology but also its relevance to our lives today--and to the life of any person seeking a fully realized existence.Myth, according to Campbell, is the projection of a culture's dreams onto a large screen; Campbell's book, like Star Wars, the film it helped inspire, is an exploration of the big-picture moments from the stage that is our world. It is a must-have resource for both experienced students of mythology and the explorer just beginning to approach myth as a source of knowledge.

    With humor and insight, Melissa Mohr takes readers on a journey to discover how "swearing" has come to include both testifying with your hand on the Bible and calling someone a *#$&!* when they cut you off on the highway. She explores obscenities in ancient Rome and unearths the history of religious oaths in the Middle Ages, when swearing (or not swearing) an oath was often a matter of life and death. Holy Sh*t also explains the advancement of civility and corresponding censorship of language in the 18th century, considers the rise of racial slurs after World War II, examines the physiological effects of swearing and answers a question that preoccupies the FCC, the US Senate, and anyone who has recently overheard little kids at a playground: are we swearing more now than people did in the past?A gem of lexicography and cultural history, Holy Sh*t is a serious exploration of obscenity.

    He was a man with no conscience. He killed sixteen people, three of them children. Hatcher was also responsible for a different kind of tragedy--the conviction and imprisonment of an innocent man who was mercilessly hounded by the police, the prosecutor and the community for a brutal murder that Hatcher himself committed. A nomadic Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde who manipulated the legal system with gruesome skill, Charles Hatcher was the embodiment of evil, the devil's emissary on Earth. His nemesis was the lone FBI-man in St. Joseph, Missouri who risked his career to end Hatcher's reign of terror. "Innocent Blood" is the true story of Charles Hatcher and his life of crime--a powerful, and blood-chilling glimpse into the darkness between sanity and madness. It also chronicles a justice system gone wrong. Throughout his criminal career Hatcher was able to fool dozens of psychiatrists, who repeatedly failed to identify him as a multiple murderer. Hatcher's astonishing skill was not just in his ability to murder and escape imprisonment. He became an expert at manipulating the criminal justice system; overall, he outwitted police, prosecutors, psychiatrists and judges in twelve cities and eight states. Terry Ganey first covered this story as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Later, he spent four years researching the material for this book, interviewing over seventy-five people and reviewing thousands of documents, court transcripts, prison files, police reports and mental health records. What emerges is a fascinating and horrifying portrait of a mass murderer at large in America--a murderer who could have stalked his victims in any of our towns and cities, whether urban or rural, large or small. This is an updated edition of the New York Times bestseller that was originally published in hardback under the title "St. Joseph's Children." The New York Times called the book, "a powerfully affecting story...every parent's nightmare." Kirkus Reviews said it was "an effective cautionary tale of crime and too-late punishment." The Library Journal described the book as "a gripping tale of murder, pursuit, and justice." And Publishers Weekly's conclusion was: "Disturbing...Justice is shown to triumph--ultimately--in this engaging, instructive true crime study." Customer reviews of the hardback edition "St. Joseph's Children" had this to say about it on the Amazon book website: --"My favorite book of ALL TIME!" --"I can hardly put this book down..." --"I highly recommend this book to all." --"What a wonderful book on a horrible miscarriage of justice." --"Book was very well written." This "Innocent Blood" eBook edition contains additional material that editors had discarded for the first print edition. Some events and background relating to Charles Hatcher's early life have been added, as well as context, description and background. The epilogue has also been updated. The revised eBook recounts the original, shocking narrative, which one reviewer wrote "penetrates the murky darkness of a soul in torment and of a town caught in despair, a town that witnessed both the unremarkable beginning and savage end of Charles Hatcher's criminal career."