I Am Not A Serial Killer

I Am Not A Serial Killer
Author: Dan Wells
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2011-08-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780765362360

John Wayne Cheever keeps his obsession with serial killers in check by a set of rigid rules that he lives by, hoping to the prevent himself from committing murder, but when a body turns up at a laundromat, must confront a danger outside himself.

True Story

True Story
Author: Michael Finkel
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2015-06-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0062436465

The improbable but true story of a man accused of murdering his entire family and the journalist he impersonated while on the run In 2001, Mike Finkel was on top of the world: young, talented, and recently promoted to a plum job at the New York Times Magazine. Then he made an irremediable slip: Under extraordinary pressure to keep producing blockbuster stories, he fabricated parts of an article. Caught and excommunicated from the Times, he retreated to his home in Montana, swearing off any contact with the media. When the phone rang, though, he couldn’t resist. At the other end was a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle, whom Finkel congratulated on being the first in what was sure to be a long and bloodthirsty line of media watchdogs. The reporter was puzzled. In Waldport, Oregon, Christian Longo had killed his young wife and three children and dumped their bodies into the bay. With a stolen credit card, he fled south, making his way to Cancun, where he lived for several weeks under an assumed identity: Michael Finkel, journalist for the New York Times. True Story is the tale of a bizarre and convoluted collision between fact and fiction, and a meditation on the slippery nature of truth. When Finkel contacts Longo in jail, the two men begin a close and complex relationship. Over the course of a year, they exchange long letters and weekly phone calls, playing out a cat-and-mouse game in which it’s never quite clear if the pursuer is Finkel or Longo—or both. Finkel’s dogged pursuit of the true story pays off only at the end, in the gripping trial scenes in which Longo, after a lifetime of deception, finally tells the whole truth. Or so he says.

Delivered from Evil

Delivered from Evil
Author: Ron Franscell
Publisher: Fair Winds Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2011-01-01
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1610594940

A 12-year-old boy cowers in his closet while a lunatic killer slaughters his family . . . a nursing student unwittingly opens her home to the serial killer on her front porch . . . an 11-year-old girl drifts alone at sea on a flimsy cork raft for almost four days after a mass murderer kills her vacationing family aboard a chartered yacht . . . a brave firefighter suddenly finds himself in the crosshairs of a racist sniper almost nine stories above the ground . . . And, astonishingly, they all survived. From Howard Unruh’s 1949 shooting rampage through a quiet New Jersey neighborhood to Louisiana serial killer Derrick Todd Lee’s reign of terror in 2002, the corpses piled up and few lived to tell the horror. Now, award-winning journalist Ron Franscell explores the wounded hearts and minds of the ordinary people these monsters couldn’t kill. His mesmerizing accounts crackle with gritty details that put the reader in the midst of the carnage—and offer a front-row seat on the complex, painful process of surviving the rest of their haunted lives. In intimate, gripping prose, Franscell takes the reader on a pulse-pounding dash through the murky intersection of pure evil and the potency of the human spirit. This journey into the darkest corners of the American crime-scape is a penetrating work of literary journalism by a writer hailed as one of the most powerful new voices in true crime.

The Man from the Train

The Man from the Train
Author: Bill James
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2017-09-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1476796270

An Edgar Award finalist for Best Fact Crime, this “impressive…open-eyed investigative inquiry wrapped within a cultural history of rural America” (The Wall Street Journal) shows legendary statistician and baseball writer Bill James applying his analytical acumen to crack an unsolved century-old mystery surrounding one of the deadliest serial killers in American history. Between 1898 and 1912, families across the country were bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. Jewelry and valuables were left in plain sight, bodies were piled together, faces covered with cloth. Some of these cases, like the infamous Villasca, Iowa, murders, received national attention. But few people believed the crimes were related. And fewer still would realize that all of these families lived within walking distance to a train station. When celebrated baseball statistician and true crime expert Bill James first learned about these horrors, he began to investigate others that might fit the same pattern. Applying the same know-how he brings to his legendary baseball analysis, he empirically determined which crimes were committed by the same person. Then after sifting through thousands of local newspapers, court transcripts, and public records, he and his daughter Rachel made an astonishing discovery: they learned the true identity of this monstrous criminal. In turn, they uncovered one of the deadliest serial killers in America. Riveting and immersive, with writing as sharp as the cold side of an axe, The Man from the Train paints a vivid, psychologically perceptive portrait of America at the dawn of the twentieth century, when crime was regarded as a local problem, and opportunistic private detectives exploited a dysfunctional judicial system. James shows how these cultural factors enabled such an unspeakable series of crimes to occur, and his groundbreaking approach to true crime will convince skeptics, amaze aficionados, and change the way we view criminal history.

Murder in Mind

Murder in Mind
Author: Mystery Writers of America
Publisher:
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1967
Genre: Detective and mystery stories
ISBN:

Murder of the Hula Dancers (Leila Kahana Mysteries, Book 3)

Murder of the Hula Dancers (Leila Kahana Mysteries, Book 3)
Author: R. Barri Flowers
Publisher: R. Barri Flowers
Total Pages: 205
Release:
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Murder of the Hula Dancers is the third book in the popular Leila Kahana series of Maui mystery and suspense novels, following Murder in Maui and Murder on Kaanapali Beach, by bestselling crime writer R. Barri Flowers. Maui County homicide detective and composite sketch artist Leila Kahana and her partner Detective Jonny Chung investigate the murders of beautiful hula dancers by a serial killer dubbed the "Hula Killer." Each victim was stabbed to death. As they chase leads and suspects, Leila starts to believe that Chung might be a dirty cop. But should she act on her suspicions and report it to her boss Lieutenant Blake Seymour? In the meantime, Leila is in the midst of a new relationship with handsome restaurateur Maxwell Kishimoto. When he asks her to marry him, she's conflicted due to her conservative upbringing, career, and independence. Also in the Homicide Unit, Detectives Trent Ferguson and Rachel Lancaster investigate the murder of a woman whose charred corpse was found in a vehicle along a deserted road. Could solving one case help solve the other? Or be an impediment? As the Hula Killer continues to evade capture with the body count rising, Leila volunteers to go undercover as a hula dancer to try and flush out the murderer. But is the cunning killer one step ahead of them? Is Leila putting her life at risk to become another one of his victims? Bonus material includes an excerpt from book four in the Leila Kahana Mysteries, Murder in Upcountry; as well as excerpts from other Hawaii series by R. Barri Flowers, Dead in Kihei (An Eddie Naku Maui Mystery) and Murder on the Big Island (A Hawaii FBI Thriller). The romantic suspense novelette, Kaanapali Beach Paradise-Part 2, and the complete suspense thriller short story, Kill and Say Goodbye, are also included. Fans of the first two books in the Leila Kahana series of mysteries will find Murder of the Hula Dancers the perfect follow up and prelude to future books in the series. Aloha!

The Fact of a Body

The Fact of a Body
Author: Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2017-05-16
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1250080568

"Complex and challenging... push[es] the boundaries of writing about trauma." —The New York Times “A True Crime Masterpiece” – Vogue Entertainment Weekly "Must" List and Best Books of the Year So Far Real Simple's Best New Books Guardian Best Book of the Year Lambda Literary Award Winner Chautauqua Prize Winner "The Fact of a Body is one of the best books I've read this year. It's just astounding." — Paula Hawkins, author of Into the Water and The Girl on the Train "This book is a marvel. The Fact of a Body is equal parts gripping and haunting and will leave you questioning whether any one story can hold the full truth." — Celeste Ng, author of the New York Times bestselling Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere Before Alex Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, they think their position is clear. The child of two lawyers, they are staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley’s face flashes on the screen as they review old tapes—the moment they hear him speak of his crimes -- they are overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by their reaction, they dig deeper and deeper into the case. Despite their vastly different circumstances, something in his story is unsettlingly, uncannily familiar. Crime, even the darkest and most unsayable acts, can happen to any one of us. As Alex pores over the facts of the murder, they find themself thrust into the complicated narrative of Ricky’s childhood. And by examining the details of Ricky’s case, they are forced to face their own story, to unearth long-buried family secrets, and reckon with a past that colors their view of Ricky's crime. But another surprise awaits: They weren’t the only one who saw their life in Ricky’s. An intellectual and emotional thriller that is also a different kind of murder mystery, THE FACT OF A BODY is a book not only about how the story of one crime was constructed -- but about how we grapple with our own personal histories. Along the way it tackles questions about the nature of forgiveness, and if a single narrative can ever really contain something as definitive as the truth. This groundbreaking, heart-stopping work, ten years in the making, shows how the law is more personal than we would like to believe -- and the truth more complicated, and powerful, than we could ever imagine.

The Texas 7

The Texas 7
Author: Gary C. King
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2001-04-16
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1429926082

A true crime story of a 2000 Texas prisonbreak and the deadly manhunt that followed in its wake. “You haven't heard the last of us yet ...” These were chilling words on a note left behind by seven armed and dangerous inmates who escaped from the John Connally prison in South Texas on December 13, 2000. Their promise has apparently been fulfilled. The inmates, now known as the Connally Seven, are suspected of having first robbed a Radio Shack in Houston, and then, days later, on Christmas Eve, of having fatally shot and runover a young police officer during an assault on a Dallas sporting-goods store. For six frantic weeks, a massive manhunt with a significant reward had only turned up dead ends...until a tip came in from someone who had seen the gang on Fox-TV’s America’s Most Wanted. Authorities arrested four of the seven prisoners, including suspected ringleader George Rivas, in Woodland Park, Colorado, and a fifth inmate shot himself during police negotiations. Immediately intensifying the search for the last two heavily armed and dangerous prisoners, police and FBI closed in on them at a Holiday Inn in Colorado Springs just two days following the previous arrest. After five hours and a telephone interview with a TV news station in which they expressed their feeling that the breakout was a statement against Texas’s judicial system, the two inmates surrendered themselves, putting an end to a long and frightening episode. The Texas 7 goes behind the scenes to give you a detailed, fascinating account of the events leading up to and after their brazen prison escape—and the exciting chase that ultimately led to their capture.

All That Is Wicked

All That Is Wicked
Author: Kate Winkler Dawson
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2022-10-04
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0593420071

Acclaimed crime historian, podcaster, and author of American Sherlock Kate Winkler Dawson tells the thrilling story of Edward Rulloff—a serial murderer who was called “too intelligent to be killed”—and the array of 19th century investigators who were convinced his brain held the key to finally understanding the criminal mind. Edward Rulloff was a brilliant yet utterly amoral murderer—some have called him a “Victorian-era Hannibal Lecter”—whose crimes spanned decades and whose victims were chosen out of revenge, out of envy, and sometimes out of necessity. From his humble beginnings in upstate New York to the dazzling salons and social life he established in New York City, at every turn Rulloff used his intelligence and regal bearing to evade detection and avoid punishment. He could talk his way out of any crime...until one day, Rulloff's luck ran out. By 1871 Rulloff sat chained in his cell—a psychopath holding court while curious 19th-century "mindhunters" tried to understand what made him tick. From alienists (early psychiatrists who tried to analyze the source of his madness) to neurologists (who wanted to dissect his brain) to phrenologists (who analyzed the bumps on his head to determine his character), each one thought he held the key to understanding the essential question: is evil born or made? Eventually, Rulloff’s brain would be placed in a jar at Cornell University as the prize specimen of their anatomy collection...where it still sits today, slowly moldering in a dusty jar. But his story—and its implications for the emerging field of criminal psychology—were just beginning. Expanded from season one of her hit podcast on the Exactly Right network (7 million downloads and growing), in All That Is Wicked Kate Winkler Dawson draws on hundreds of source materials and never-before-shared historical documents to present one of the first glimpses into the mind of a serial killer—a century before the term was coined—through the scientists whose work would come to influence criminal justice for decades to come.

Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy
Author: Ryan Becker
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2018-03-22
Genre:
ISBN: 9781986609586

The most fearsome Serial Killer in U.S. history. A murderer's tale is not always shrouded in darkness, trauma, and failure to perform as a normal person. Some killers are just as successful in life as those around them or even more so. They are able to function as any regular human being and charm their communities and victims into believing that they are of a good, pure nature. Ted Bundy was a handsome, charming and ambitious man who carried his hatred deeper and more hidden than any other murderers do. He was able to lead a life that included normal friendships and relationships, and he even got far as both a student and a politician. But the hatred was there...it was always there... Bundy ended the lives of over thirty young women, ensuring that their final moments were ugly and violent. His torture methods were cruel, and there was no mercy shown to each female as he bludgeoned, strangled or cut them. Ted Bundy - The Campus Killer - a name of nightmares. This is his story.