It was the safest state in America, where a single murder in a year was the usual. People there descended from hearty settlers who had withstood a challenging life by cooperating. When a growing young town with recently paved streets was struck by annual murders for three consecutive years, something had changed. Each crime was more violent and heinous than its predecessor, beginning when one of the towns favorites, a personable high school cheerleader, was murdered in her familys home in a sex-related attack. Within months came the bloody bludgeoning to death of a young mother in her own home. As one homicide was prosecuted and investigation moved forward on the second, a young mans body was found bisected, with the halves floating in bags in a river.
From an Edgar award-winning author comes the gripping and unexpected tale of a lost town and the dark secrets that lie beneath the glittering waters of an East Texas lake. Daniel Russell was only thirteen years old when his father tried to kill them both by driving their car into Moon Lake. Miraculously surviving the crash—and growing into adulthood—Daniel returns to the site of this traumatic incident in the hopes of recovering his father's car and bones. As he attempts to finally put to rest the memories that have plagued him for years, he discovers something even more shocking among the wreckage that has ties to a twisted web of dark deeds, old grudges, and strange murders. As Daniel diligently follows where the mysterious trail of vengeance leads, he unveils the heroic revelation at its core.
In the summer of 1937, with the Depression deep and World War II looming, a California triple murder stunned an already grim nation. After a frantic week-long manhunt for the killer, a suspect emerged, and his sensational trial captivated audiences from coast to coast. Justice was swift, and the condemned man was buried away with the horrifying story. But decades later, Pamela Everett, a lawyer and former journalist, starts digging, following up a cryptic comment her father once made about a tragedy in their past. Her journey is uniquely personal as she uncovers her family's secret history, but the investigation quickly takes unexpected turns into her professional wheelhouse. Everett unearths a truly historic legal case that included one of the earliest criminal profiles in the United States, the genesis of modern sex offender laws, and the last man sentenced to hang in California. Digging deeper and drawing on her experience with wrongful convictions, Everett then raises detailed and haunting questions about whether the authorities got the right man. Having revived the case to its rightful place in history, she leaves us with enduring concerns about the death penalty then and now. A journey chronicled through the mind of a lawyer and from the heart of a daughter, Little Shoes is both a captivating true crime story and a profoundly personal account of one family's struggle to cope with tragedy through the generations.
Jules Feiffer Full Length, Black Comedy Characters: 6 male, 2 female Interior Set Depressed New Yorker Alfred Chamberlain is engaged to perky, can-do Patsy Newquist. As their wedding day grows near, Alfred finds himself embroiled in an urban nightmare not the least of which is his fiance's family, the possiblity of marriage without Faith, muggings and a sniper's bullet. "Jules Feiffer, a satirical sharpshooter with a deadly aim, stares balefully at the meaningle
A real-life account of a miscarriage of justice details the conviction of Tommy Ziegler for the murders of his wife, in-laws, and a bystander and presents evidence that could reopen the case, clear Ziegler, and save him from death row. 25,000 first printing.
Poetry. SMALL MURDERS features poet Carrie McGath's strong and beautifully disturbing work. "McGath is, to borrow her own words, a 'happy woman of knots.' In her poems you will meet a windshield vandal whose weapon is lipstick in the shade of Fire Engine - a coveter of murdered dolls; a dashboard Mary who's been jilted; a doctor who holds up a newborn 'like a fresh catch off a pier'; Frida Kahlo folded up in somebody's sock drawer. You will encounter rape and ruination, sadness, dissection, miracles. These ruthlessly unsentimental, dark, angry-funny poems are spoken by the loneliest girl in the time-zone' and proffered-she pulls it off somehow-with an irrepressible good cheer"--Nancy Eimers.
"Petrie expertly puts details into historical context and annotates each chapter with newspaper and court documentation. Written in 2000 but even more intriguing as the 100th anniversary of the crime approaches, this thorough account will appeal to fans of true crime." --Publisher's Weekly (3-7-2016) "Petrie vividly re-creates the circumstances and aftermath of an early 20th-century murder in this true-crime book. Exhaustive detail and flawless re-creations make for real suspense in this nonfiction tale."--Kirkus Reviews (10-2-2015) This book is the non-fiction account of the events which encompassed a murder and trial at the turn of the century in Ossipee, New Hampshire. When Florence Small's smoldering body rose to the surface of the basement water, local folks immediately suspected her husband of the crime. Frederick Small was an outsider, a Boston man, who had moved to Ossipee Lake to semi-retire. There was a deep distrust of "city fellas up there behind the Ossipees," in 1916 and perhaps this suspicion was warranted. But how could Frederick have been responsible for a murder and a fire that happened 7 hours after he had left for Boston on a business trip? The sensational trial that followed was unlike any previously experienced in Carroll County. And although everybody from the Boston area to Portland, Maine, had an opinion, nobody anticipated the decision the jury would reach. The unrest on the ill-fated property remained even in 1956, when Anna Foley's unsuspecting son and daughter-in-law felt the effects of the events of 1916 one August night while vacationing on the property.
Don’t miss Magpie Murders on PBS's MASTERPIECE Mystery! "A double puzzle for puzzle fans, who don’t often get the classicism they want from contemporary thrillers." —Janet Maslin, The New York Times New York Times Bestseller | Winner of the Macavity Award for Best Novel | NPR Best Book of the Year | Washington Post Best Book of the Year | Esquire Best Book of the Year From the New York Times bestselling author of Moriarty and Trigger Mortis, this fiendishly brilliant, riveting thriller weaves a classic whodunit worthy of Agatha Christie into a chilling, ingeniously original modern-day mystery. When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job. Conway’s latest tale has Atticus Pünd investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition, and murder. Masterful, clever, and relentlessly suspenseful, Magpie Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction in which the reader becomes the detective.
A captivating blend of history, women in science, and true crime, 18 Tiny Deaths tells the story of how one woman changed the face of forensics forever. Frances Glessner Lee, born a socialite to a wealthy and influential Chicago family in the 1870s, was never meant to have a career, let alone one steeped in death and depravity. Yet she developed a fascination with the investigation of violent crimes, and made it her life's work. Best known for creating the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of dollhouses that appear charming—until you notice the macabre little details: an overturned chair, or a blood-spattered comforter. And then, of course, there are the bodies—splayed out on the floor, draped over chairs—clothed in garments that Lee lovingly knit with sewing pins. 18 Tiny Deaths, by official biographer Bruce Goldfarb, delves into Lee's journey from grandmother without a college degree to leading the scientific investigation of unexpected death out of the dark confines of centuries-old techniques and into the light of the modern day. Lee developed a system that used the Nutshells dioramas to train law enforcement officers to investigate violent crimes, and her methods are still used today. The story of a woman whose ambition and accomplishments far exceeded the expectations of her time, 18 Tiny Deaths follows the transformation of a young, wealthy socialite into the mother of modern forensics... "Eye-opening biography of Frances Glessner Lee, who brought American medical forensics into the scientific age...genuinely compelling."—Kirkus Reviews "A captivating portrait of a feminist hero and forensic pioneer." —Booklist
