When a Mafia princess is found dead in her dorm, her roommate Sabby, the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, is arrested for murder. Both girls were rivals for the love of the same handsome classmate. And why is Sabby so fascinated with poisons? As the action moves from Pakistan to Sicily to Hollywood, international vendettas, double-crosses, and surprises abound, involving everyone from academics to Mafia molls to the President of the United States.
The true story of a murder-suicide at Kalamazoo College and its rippling effects on the campus community. On a Sunday night during Homecoming weekend in 1999, Neenef Odah lured his ex-girlfriend, Maggie Wardle, to his dorm room at Kalamazoo College and killed her at close range with a shotgun before killing himself. In the wake of this tragedy, the community of the small, idyllic liberal arts college struggled to characterize the incident, which was even called "the events of October" in a campus memo. In this engaging and intimate examination of Maggie and Neenef’s deaths, author and Kalamazoo College professor Gail Griffin attempts to answer the lingering question of "how could this happen?" to two seemingly normal students on such a close-knit campus. Griffin introduces readers to Maggie and Neenef—a bright and athletic local girl and the quiet Iraqi-American computer student—and retraces their relationship from multiple perspectives, including those of their friends, teachers, and classmates. She examines the tension that built between Maggie and Neenef as his demands for more of her time and emotional support grew, eventually leading to their breakup. After the deaths take place, Griffin presents multiple reactions, including those of Maggie’s friends who were waiting for her to return from Neenef’s room, the students who heard the shotgun blasts in the hallway of Neenef’s dorm, the president who struggled to guide a grieving campus, and the facilities manager in charge of cleaning up the crime scene. Griffin also uses Maggie and Neenef’s story to explore larger issues of intimate partner violence, gun accessibility, and depression and suicide on campus as she attempts to understand the lasting importance of their tragic deaths. Griffin’s use of source material, including college documents, official police reports, Neenef’s suicide note, and an instant message record between perpetrator and victim, puts a very real face on issues of violence against women. Readers interested in true crime, gender studies, and the culture of colleges and universities will appreciate "The Events of October."
In May, 1995, a photograph and an anonymous note arrived at The Harvard Crimson: "Keep this picture. There will soon be a very juicy story involving this woman." Soon afterwards, Sinedu Tadesse stabbed her roommate, Trang Phuong Ho, to death, and then hanged herself. This riveting book recounts the stories of these women, whose admission to Harvard was "halfway heaven," a bridge to the American dream after lives of hardship. Sinedu grew up under communist tyranny in Ethiopia, while Trang was born in a Vietnamese forced labor camp, and fled the country with her father and sister to end up on welfare in Boston. Despite their similarities, the two were never friends; Trang was friendly and outgoing, while Sinedu, awkward and shy, had trouble adjusting to a culture vastly different from her own. Drawing upon her astonishing diaries, New York Times bestselling author Thernstrom, a Harvard graduate herself, reconstructs Sinedu's inner life to reveal a girl struggling against isolation and depression. The book reveals Harvard as an institution ill-equipped to deal with mental illness on campus that apparently cared more for its reputation than for its student body. A brilliant synthesis of cultural analysis, psychological study, and first-rate investigative journalism, Halfway Heaven is a haunting exploration of the power of profound loneliness and an expose of one of America's most distinguished universities.
The Bradmoor Murder is a wonderful collection of mysteries by a true American master of the detective short story. Melville Davisson Post tells tales of mysterious death, unexplainable murder, and complex crimes. From the sea washed cliffs of Bradmoor to the fairylands of Belgium, there is strangeness to be unpicked, women to be fallen in love with, and men with the genius to see what others cannot. In this collection of detective stories, first published in 1922, Melville Davisson Post creates some truly entertaining characters; among them there is distinguished Sir Henry Marquis, Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard, with his remarkable deductive skills, and Sir Godfrey Simon, the greatest alienist in England ... together, they can solve the hardest of mysteries.
On Nov. 28, 1969, Betsy Aardsma, a 22-year-old graduate student in English at Penn State, was stabbed to death in the stacks of Pattee Library at the university’s main campus in State College. For more than forty years, her murder went unsolved, though detectives with the Pennsylvania State Police and local citizens worked tirelessly to find her killer. The mystery was eventually solved—after the death of the murderer. This book will reveal the story behind what has been a scary mystery for generations of Penn State students and explain why the Pennsylvania State Police failed to bring her killer to justice. More than a simple true crime story, the book weaves together the events, culture, and attitudes of the late 1960s, memorializing Betsy Aardsma and her time and place in history.
Some said that the killer couldn't be a local. Others claimed that he was the wealthy son of a prominent Morgantown family. Whispers spread that Mared and Karen were sacrificed by a satanic cult or had been victims of a madman poised to strike again. Then the handwritten letters began to arrive: "You will locate the bodies of the girls covered over with brush--look carefully. The animals are now on the move." Investigators didn't find too few suspects--they had far too many. There was the campus janitor with a fur fetish, the "harmless" deliveryman who beat a woman nearly to death, the nursing home orderly with the bloody broomstick and the bouncer with the "girlish" laugh who threatened to cut off people's heads. Local authors Geoffrey C. Fuller and S. James McLaughlin tell the complete story of the murders for the first time.
Was the Mafia involved in the 1972 disappearance of the plane carrying Congressmen Hale Boggs and Nick Begich, or was it just a simple case of bad weather? Who murdered the postmistress in Ruby? How did the Alaska State Troopers use cutting-edge science to find Sophie Sergie's killer? How does crime differ from one part of Alaska to another? Alaska has always had a high rate of violent crime. From the gold rush to the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline to the heyday of king crab fishing, the state's rich resources have attracted eager workers and criminals alike. Travel through time and space with true-crime writer Robin Barefield as she tells you about murder and mystery in Alaska from the early 1900s to the present day and from Juneau to Kiana, Nome, Anchorage, Kodiak, and places in between. Learn about serial killers Ed Krause, Richard Bunday, Gary Zieger, Robert Hansen, and Israel Keyes. Why did Michael Silka suddenly start killing the residents of remote Manley Hot Springs, and what reason did Louis Hastings have for murdering his neighbors in McCarthy? Why was no one ever caught and convicted for the gruesome massacre on the fishing boat Investor? Alaska is vast and breathtaking, but it can also be deadly. Take a road trip and learn about Alaska's past and present through its violent crime. Get a glimpse of murder and mystery in the Last Frontier.
A shocking investigation into a true crime that tore a town apart—the violent murder of a young coed in Kentucky, the innocent boy who was jailed for the crime, and a small Southern community filled with haunting, unforgettable characters. Katie Autry was a foster child from a tiny village in Kentucky; a little awkward, but always with the biggest smile on her high school cheerleading squad. In September 2002, she matriculated as a freshman at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, majoring in the dental program. She worked days at the smoothie shop, nights at the local strip club, and fell in love with a football player who wouldn’t date her. On the morning of May 4, 2003, Katie Autry was raped, stabbed, sprayed with hairspray, and set on fire in her own dormitory room. In telling the true story of this shocking crime, William Van Meter describes the devastation of not one but three families. Two young men are jailed for the crime: DNA evidence places Stephen Soules, an unemployed, mixed-race high school dropout, at the scene; and Lucas Goodrum, a twenty-one-year-old pot dealer with an ex-wife, a girlfriend still in high school, and a history of domestic abuse, is held by an ever-changing confession. The friends of the suspects and the foster and birth families of the victim form complex and warring social nets that are cast across town. And a small southern community, populated by eccentrics of every socioeconomic class, from dirt-poor to millionaire, responds to the horror. With the keen eye of a talented young journalist returning to his southern roots, Van Meter paints a vivid portrait of the town, the characters who fill it, and the simmering class conflicts that made an injustice like this not only possible, but inevitable. Like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Bluegrass is redolent with atmosphere, dark tension, and lush landscapes.
"A chilling, unflinching exploration of American crimes of the twentieth century and how one serial killer managed to slip through the cracks--until now."--
At 10 AM, Tom Coleman saw a man he knew was dead. By 10 PM, he was dead and the man walked free. When Mike Airlie, former colonel in the army and Vietnam vet, arrived at the dorm, Tom's body was hanging cold from the rafters. He wouldn't be the first or last soldier to take his own life after the horrors of 'Nam, but something didn't add up. As Mike picks apart the clues, he realizes that the death is not at all as it seems. To complicate matters, he also has to fight a pervasive stigma against suicide in the veteran community. Racing against the clock before the killer strikes again, he draws on all of his law enforcement connections, but the deeper he digs, the more dangerous it becomes. Dead Men Can't Murder is the gripping second story in the life of Mike Airlie and the sequel to Murder in Old Main.
