The Wrong Murder

The Wrong Murder
Author: Craig Rice
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2018-08-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1504051777

A cynical Chicago attorney butts heads with a beautiful killer socialite—from “the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction” (William Ruehlmann). Press agent Jake Justus doesn’t care if all of Chicago drops dead. He’s just tied the knot with debutante Helene Brand, and a Bermuda honeymoon is only three in-flight martinis away. But the shooting death of a man in broad daylight, on the busiest shopping day of the year, with plenty of witnesses, is particularly ill timed. Jake’s pal, attorney John J. Malone, agrees. Only a day before, wedding guest Mona McClane, notorious jetsetter and tipsy big-game hunter, bet the two men she could bag an innocent stranger and they’d never be able to prove a thing. Then Malone discovers that the victim wasn’t so innocent. Any number of people wanted him dead. And if Mona is only one of them, Malone’s wagering there’s much more to this murder than just the thrill of getting away with it. The first mystery writer to ever make the cover of Time magazine, Craig Rice was known for her fizzy cocktails of hard-boiled noir and screwball comedy, prompting the New York Times to ask: “Why can’t all murders be as funny as those concocted by Craig Rice?”

Greed, Rage, and Love Gone Wrong

Greed, Rage, and Love Gone Wrong
Author: Bruce Rubenstein
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2006-09-01
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 9780816643387

Writing about murder mysteries for over twenty-five years, Bruce Rubenstein gives us a collection of Minnesota crimes in Greed, Rage, and Love Gone Wrong. Whether the killer is greedy and devoid of human compassion, desperate about money or love, or simply filled with bottled-up rage, this book puts the reader at the scene of the most notorious murders in the state. Bruce Rubenstein is a writer who specializes in true crime and legal stories. His work has appeared in many publications, including City Pages, Mpls/St. Paul Magazine, and Chicago Magazine. He is the recipient of the Chicago Bar Association’s Herman Kogan Media Award.

The Wrong Side of Murder Creek

The Wrong Side of Murder Creek
Author: Bob Zellner
Publisher: NewSouth Books
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2008-09-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1603061045

Even forty years after the civil rights movement, the transition from son and grandson of Klansmen to field secretary of SNCC seems quite a journey. In the early 1960s, when Bob Zellner’s professors and classmates at a small church school in Alabama thought he was crazy for even wanting to do research on civil rights, it was nothing short of remarkable. Now, in his long-awaited memoir, Zellner tells how one white Alabamian joined ranks with the black students who were sitting-in, marching, fighting, and sometimes dying to challenge the Southern “way of life” he had been raised on but rejected. Decades later, he is still protesting on behalf of social change and equal rights. Fortunately, he took the time, with co-author Constance Curry, to write down his memories and reflections. He was in all the campaigns and was close to all the major figures. He was beaten, arrested, and reviled by some but admired and revered by others. The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, winner of the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award, is Bob Zellner’s larger-than-life story, and it was worth waiting for.

Anatomy of Injustice

Anatomy of Injustice
Author: Raymond Bonner
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2013-01-08
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0307948544

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.

The Wrong Carlos

The Wrong Carlos
Author: James S. Liebman
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2014-07-08
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0231167237

In 1989, Texas executed Carlos DeLuna, a poor Hispanic man with childlike intelligence, for the murder of Wanda Lopez, a convenience store clerk. His execution passed unnoticed for years until a team of Columbia Law School faculty and students almost accidentally chose to investigate his case and found that DeLuna almost certainly was innocent. They discovered that no one had cared enough about either the defendant or the victim to make sure the real perpetrator was found. Everything that could go wrong in a criminal case did. This book documents DeLunaÕs conviction, which was based on a single, nighttime, cross-ethnic eyewitness identification with no corroborating forensic evidence. At his trial, DeLunaÕs defense, that another man named Carlos had committed the crime, was not taken seriously. The lead prosecutor told the jury that the other Carlos, Carlos Hernandez, was a ÒphantomÓ of DeLunaÕs imagination. In upholding the death penalty on appeal, both the state and federal courts concluded the same thing: Carlos Hernandez did not exist. The evidence the Columbia team uncovered reveals that Hernandez not only existed but was well known to the police and prosecutors. He had a long history of violent crimes similar to the one for which DeLuna was executed. Families of both Carloses mistook photos of each for the other, and HernandezÕs violence continued after DeLuna was put to death. This book and its website (thewrongcarlos.net) reproduce law-enforcement, crime lab, lawyer, court, social service, media, and witness records, as well as court transcripts, photographs, radio traffic, and audio and videotaped interviews, documenting one of the most comprehensive investigations into a criminal case in U.S. history. The result is eye-opening yet may not be unusual. Faulty eyewitness testimony, shoddy legal representation, and prosecutorial misfeasance continue to put innocent people at risk of execution. The principal investigators conclude with novel suggestions for improving accuracy among the police, prosecutors, forensic scientists, and judges.

The Wrong Man

The Wrong Man
Author: James Neff
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 650
Release: 2001-11-06
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1588361314

The real-life murder that became known as “The Fugitive” case began before dawn on July 4, 1954, in a Cleveland suburb, when Marilyn Sheppard was viciously beaten to death in her bed. After an inadequate investigation, her husband, Dr. Sam Sheppard, was charged with the crime, and a chain of events was set in motion that has caused more speculation, more publicity, and more cultural myth than any other American murder. James Neff is an award-winning investigative journalist who, over the past ten years, has assembled the most compete set of Sheppard records in existence, including DNA analyses and interviews with every living person central to the case. He has also gained unprecedented access to crime-scene evidence that shows conclusively that Sham Sheppard did not murder his wife–and points to the man who did. Peeling away the layers of fiction surrounding the case, Neff uncovers the factual events and the key players in a story that until now has been shrouded in mystery. The Wrong Man is a landmark work, a gripping narrative, and indeed the final verdict on America’s most famous unsolved murder From the Hardcover edition.

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
Author: Holly Jackson
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2020-02-04
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1984896385

THE MUST-READ MULTIMILLION BESTSELLING MYSTERY SERIES—COMING SOON TO NETFLIX! • This is the story about an investigation turned obsession, full of twists and turns and with an ending you'll never expect. Everyone in Fairview knows the story. Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town. But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer? Now a senior herself, Pip decides to reexamine the closed case for her final project, at first just to cast doubt on the original investigation. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets that might actually prove Sal innocent . . . and the line between past and present begins to blur. Someone in Fairview doesn't want Pip digging around for answers, and now her own life might be in danger. And don't miss the sequel, Good Girl, Bad Blood! "The perfect nail-biting mystery." —Natasha Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Dead Wrong

Dead Wrong
Author: Randall Sullivan
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2019-06-18
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0802147003

The author of LAbyrinth exposes the cover-up surrounding Biggie Smalls’ murder with exclusive material from the FBI and his estate’s wrongful death suit. In his 2002 book LAbyrinth, acclaimed music journalist Randall Sullivan revealed the story of “gangsta cops” tied to Marion “Suge” Knight’s rap label, Death Row Records—and allegedly to the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. Now in Dead Wrong, Sullivan chronicles more than a decade in the B.I.G. investigations, and uncovers the conspiracy of silence blocking the wrongful death suit against the City. In 2001, an eyewitness identified the man who shot Biggie as Amir Muhammad, a former college roommate of LAPD officer, Death Row associate, and convicted bank robber David Mack. Yet LAPD Detective Russell Poole found his investigation repeatedly directed away from Mack and Muhammad. Biggie’s estate then sued the city to find out why. But instead, investigators encountered a disturbing pattern of selective investigation, hidden evidence, and possible witness tampering. Exclusive interviews with the FBI’s lead investigator of the Biggie murder demonstrate a conspiracy that went to the top, and which implicates some of the most powerful men in law enforcement nationally. Dead Wrong is a gripping investigation into murder, police corruption, and the corridors of power in Los Angeles.

Do Not Disturb

Do Not Disturb
Author: Michela Wrong
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Total Pages: 528
Release: 2021-03-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1610398432

A powerful investigation into a grisly political murder and the authoritarian regime behind it: Do Not Disturb upends the narrative that Rwanda sold the world after one of the deadliest genocides of the twentieth century. We think we know the story of Africa’s Great Lakes region. Following the Rwandan genocide, an idealistic group of young rebels overthrew the brutal regime in Kigali, ushering in an era of peace and stability that made Rwanda the donor darling of the West, winning comparisons with Switzerland and Singapore. But the truth was considerably more sinister. Vividly sourcing her story with direct testimony from key participants, Wrong uses the story of the murder of Patrick Karegeya, once Rwanda’s head of external intelligence and a quicksilver operator of supple charm, to paint the portrait of a modern African dictatorship created in the chilling likeness of Paul Kagame, the president who sanctioned his former friend’s assassination.

Murder at the Bad Girl's Bar and Grill

Murder at the Bad Girl's Bar and Grill
Author: N. M. Kelby
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2008-06-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 030744953X

Take a slasher-movie actress, a Scottish circus clown, an FBI school dropout, a blind heiress, a junk-food-loving millionaire developer, and a Buddha-quoting bluesman, add a couple of murders in a normally sedate retirement community in south Florida, and you get an irresistible tale that’s part Carl Hiaasen and part Gabriel García Márquez. It all goes down as easy as a Key lime pie martini, the signature drink of the Bad Girl’s Bar & Grill. N. M. Kelby’s last three novels have received glowing reviews in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, People, and the Atlantic Monthly. Carl Hiaasen has called her “a natural-born writer,” and Kirkus praised her “black humor that sizzles.” Sit back, put up your feet, and get ready to lose yourself in a rollicking good story.