Sam Jordan never lets emotion interfere with his work. He is a precise and ruthless killing machine, dealing out death for hire. But his last job had ended wrong for Jordan, and now Sandy is sending him out again - without a break, yet - to take care of someone named Kemp. Hell, he even has to case the job himself. The whole thing feels jinxed. That’s when Jordan meets Betty, who works at the diner. To her he is Mr. Smith, a button salesman. But to Jordan, Betty is a sweet moment in his life, a safe haven. And that’s where he makes his first mistake - he allows himself to feel human.
Inspired by three true-life SoCal homicide cases, "Anatomy of a Killer" becomes a labyrinth of shocking crime stories beginning with the disappearance of an Afghanistan Army veteran and the murder of his fiance. This is followed by the cold-case tale of an LAPD lady-cop who brutally murders her lover's wife. The trilogy is completed when a leading movie actor is bludgeoned to death by a pair of hustler-brothers in his Hollywood Hills mansion. Compelling...intriguing...a rich police procedural where no one of left unscathed in these sinister tales of greed and corruption...
Drew Hunt a suspected international serial killer, wakes up to find he has been abducted for reasons unbeknownst to him. He vainly attempts to escape his captors, waking once again to the reality of being methodically tortured. Dr. Thomas “Max” Maxwell, a forensic psychologist, wounded in the line of Duty. He is tormented with the idea of his wife having been a victim of a predatory killer. Prominent surgeon Dr. Phyllis Leigh watched her life crumble when her daughter disappeared. They both believe Hunt is responsible for the deaths of their loved ones and will not stop until they can discover the truth—and quickly, before the FBI discovers what they’ve done. Together Max and Leigh attempt to delve into the psyche of Drew Hunt and his bizarre world. Only to learn bit-by-bit exactly what makes up the Anatomy of a Serial Killer.
A professional behavioral witness to more than a hundred capital trials explores the making of a murderer. CSI shows us where a crime is committed. Forensic detectives show us how. But what really goes on in the mind of killer? What is it in each potential victim that sparks in them the urge to take a life? What are the reasons behind a quick thrill kill, or slow torture? Between choosing someone they know, or a stranger? As they stand before a jury, after reams of graphic evidence, the question is no longer whether or not they committed the unthinkable. The question posed to Wanda Draper, expert in behavioral science and child development, and key witness in more than a hundred high-profile trials, is why? The answer is all that stands between a sentence of life in prison or death row. In this unique true-crime investigation, Draper shares some of the darkest cases of her career. She sheds light on the personal circumstances and critical life events that perverted childhoods and brought convicted murderers to trial. She reveals how the past casts a grave shadow over one’s future. And in doing so, explores one irrefutable fact: killers aren’t born, they’re made.
Provocative and timely: a pioneering neurocriminologist introduces the latest biological research into the causes of--and potential cures for--criminal behavior. With an 8-page full-color insert, and black-and-white illustrations throughout.
Mystery fiction takes place in a centered world, one whose most distinctive characteristic is motivation (of behavior and signs). Built on a faith in foundations, it insists upon the solidity of social life, the validity of social conventions, and the sanctity of signs. Mystery assures us that motives exist for both words and deeds.".
From Pulitzer Prize winner Raymond Bonner, the gripping story of a grievously mishandled murder case that put a twenty-three-year-old man on death row. In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case. With the exemplary moral commitment and tenacious investigation that have distinguished his reporting career, Bonner follows Holt's battle to save Elmore's life and shows us how his case is a textbook example of what can go wrong in the American justice system. Moving, enraging, suspenseful, and enlightening, Anatomy of Injustice is a vital contribution to our nation's ongoing, increasingly important debate about inequality and the death penalty.
“A concise and gripping history of the Troubles, revealing the people behind the pain and violence” from the award-winning investigative journalist (Vice). On the morning of Saturday 22nd April 1978, members of an Active Service Unit of the IRA hijacked a car and crossed the countryside to the town of Lisburn. Within an hour, they had killed an off-duty policeman in front of his young son. In Anatomy of a Killing, award-winning journalist Ian Cobain documents the hours leading up to the killing, and the months and years of violence, attrition and rebellion surrounding it. Drawing on interviews with those most closely involved, as well as court files, police notes, military intelligence reports, IRA strategy papers, memoirs and government records, this is a unique perspective on the Troubles, and a revelatory work of investigative journalism. “As gripping as a thriller, except that this isn’t fiction but cold, spine-tingling reality.” —Daily Mail “A remarkable piece of forensic journalism.” —Ed Moloney, author of Voices from the Grave “Reads like a work of fiction . . . True and harrowing.” —Irish Sunday Independent (Books of the Year)
In the tradition of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist and Matthew Pearl’s The Dante Club, this mesmerizing forensic thriller thrusts the reader into the operating rooms, drawing rooms, and back alleys of 1889 Philadelphia, as a doctor grapples with the principles of scientific process to track a daring killer. In the morgue of a Philadelphia hospital, physicians uncover the corpse of a beautiful young woman. What they see takes their breath away. Within days, one doctor, Ephraim Carroll, strongly suspects that he knows the woman’s identity. . .and the horrifying events that led to her death. But in this richly atmospheric debut novel – an ingenious blend of history, suspense, and early forensic science – the most compelling chapter is yet to come, as the young doctor is plunged into a maze of murder, secrets, and unimaginable crimes. Peopled with vibrant real-life characters such as Canadian William Osler, hailed as the Father of Modern Medicine; famed surgeon William Stewart Halsted, who performed the first emergency blood transfusion and invented surgical gloves; and the controversial painter Thomas Eakins, The Anatomy of Deception brings to life a little-known and exciting turning-point in American medical history, when ignorant butchery gave way to intelligent surgery–and a young doctor is forced to confront an agonizing moral choice between exposing a killer, undoing a wrong, and, quite possibly, protecting the future of medicine itself.
