Download or read book Poisonous Lies The Croydon Arsenic Mystery written by Diane Janes and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2010-01-12 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In suburban Croydon over a period of ten months during 1928-9, three members of the same family died suddenly. A complex police investigation followed, but no charges were ever brought and the mystery remains officially unsolved. In the eighty years which followed, the finger of suspicion has been pointed at one member of the family after another: now, using the original police files and other contemporary documents, Diane Janes meticulously reconstructs these astonishing events and offers a new solution to an old murder mystery.

Download or read book King of Poisons written by John Parascandola and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, arsenic's image as a poison has been inextricably tied to images of foul play. In King of Poisons, John Parascandola examines the surprising history of this deadly element. From Gustave Flaubert to Dorothy Sayers, arsenic has long held a place in the literary realm as an instrument of murder and suicide. It was delightfully used as a source of comedy in the famous play Arsenic and Old Lace. But as Parascandola shows, arsenic has had a number of surprising real-world applications. It was frequently found in such common items as wallpaper, paint, cosmetics, and even candy, and its use in medical treatments was widespread. American ambassador Clare Boothe Luce suffered from exposure to arsenical paint in her study, and Napoleon's death has long been speculated to be the result of accidental or intentional poisoning. But arsenic poisoning is still a public menace. In the neighborhood surrounding American University in Washington, D.C., the army has undertaken a massive cleanup of artillery shells and bottles containing chemical warfare agents such as arsenical lewisite after a number of workmen and residents became ill. Arsenic contamination of the water supply in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, India, is a major public health problem today as well. From murder to crime fiction, from industrial toxin to chemical warfare, arsenic remains a powerful force in modern life.

Download or read book The South Croydon Poisonings written by Jeannette Hensby and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-03-04 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How strange are the coincidences which have harmed my family. It has been said that we must have an enemy who has done all this". So said the beguiling Grace Duff as members of her family died one by one. Was she right, or was the truth closer to home? Read this intriguing true crime mystery and decide for yourself.

Download or read book Case of the Poisoned Partridge written by Diane Janes and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2013-09-02 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 22 June 1931, Lieutenant Hugh Chevis and Frances, his bride of six months, sat down to dinner as usual at their bungalow at Deepcut Barracks. Within an hour, Chevis was showing signs of strychnine poisoning and by the next morning he was dead. Thus began one of the most intriguing unsolved murder enquiries of the twentieth century — soon to become known as ‘The Case of the Poisoned Partridge’. When a mysterious telegram arrived from Dublin on the day of Hugh’s funeral, containing the words ‘HOORAY HOORAY HOORAY’, the Surrey Police found themselves at the centre of an international investigation, considering clues from Eire, India and the Far East. Suspicion also fell on those closer to home. Was it possible to break the alibi provided by Major Jackson, Frances Chevis’s former husband? And what of the enigmatic Frances herself? Featuring previously unpublished material, this book provides the definitive account of the Poisoned Partridge Case.

Download or read book Foul Deeds Suspicious Deaths in Croydon written by Caroline Maxton and published by Wharncliffe. This book was released on 2006-10-31 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are all drawn to understand the circumstances that lead others to commit unforgivable acts of violence - the moment that turns a caring human being into a killer, the series of events that drive ordinary people to murderous acts of inhumanity, or the slow, premeditated steps of the callous criminal. And the circumstances - and the twisted motivation - behind such violent acts are the subject of Caroline Maxton's fascinating investigation of individuals whose misdeeds have tarnished the history of the Croydon area. She investigates a wide range of murders and unexplained deaths, some of which are truly stranger than fiction. The events cover a span of several centuries, and the locations will be chillingly familiar to the inhabitants of Croydon. Local crimes that hit the national headlines, like the Bentley case of 1952, are covered in fresh detail, but the author concentrates on less well-known but equally intriguing, and shocking, episodes - the bizarre 'mustard and cress' murder of 1870, the brutal murder of Eliza Osborne in 1877, the Kenley Stud Farm mystery of 1921, the Birdhurst Rise poisoning of the late 1920s, the notorious unsolved murder of 11-year-old Miles Vallint of 1959.

Download or read book Hollywood Lesbians written by Boze Hadleigh and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dit boek is een vervolg op een eerdere gesprekkenreeks met homo's uit de wereld van film en theater. Enkele namen: Dorothy Arzner, Barbara Stanwyck en Marjorie Main. De gesprekken gaan natuurlijk vooral over film en de respectievelijke carrières van de geïnterviewden, maar er is ook plaats en tijd voor uitweidingen zoals bijvoorbeeld over vrouwen en politiek.

Download or read book Surrey Murders written by John Kiste and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surrey Murders is an examination of some of the county's most notorious and shocking cases. They include the 'Wigwam Girl', Joan Wolfe, who lived in a tent built by a Cree Indian Soldier before being brutally slaughtered; the infamous stabbing of Frederick Gold by 'the Serpent', Percy Lefroy Mapleton; the poisoning of the entire Beck family with a bottle of oatmeal stout, laced with cyanide; and the sailor butchered at the Devil's Punch Bowl, later immortalised in Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. John Van der Kiste's carefully researched, well-illustrated and enthralling text will appeal to all those interested in the darker side of Surrey's history.

Download or read book Poisonous Lies written by Diane Janes and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2010-01-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In suburban Croydon over a period of ten months during 1928-9, three members of the same family died suddenly. A complex police investigation followed, but no charges were ever brought and the mystery remains officially unsolved. In the eighty years which followed, the finger of suspicion has been pointed at one member of the family after another: now, using the original police files and other contemporary documents, Diane Janes meticulously reconstructs these astonishing events and offers a new solution to an old murder mystery.

Download or read book The Ripper of Waterloo Road written by Jan Bondeson and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2017-01-13 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WHEN JACK THE RIPPER first prowled the streets of London, an evening newspaper commented that his crimes were as ghastly as those committed by Eliza Grimwood’s murderer fifty years earlier. Hers is arguably the most infamous and brutal of all nineteenth-century London killings. Eliza was a high-class prostitute, and on 26 May 1838, following an evening at the theatre, she brought a ‘client’ back to her home in Waterloo Road. The morning after, she was found with her throat cut and her abdomen viciously ‘ripped’. The client was nowhere to be seen.The ensuing murder investigation was convoluted, with suspects ranging from an alcoholic bricklayer to a royal duke. Londoners from all walks of life followed the story with a horror and fascination – among them Charles Dickens, who took inspiration from Eliza’s death when he wrote the murder of Nancy in Oliver Twist. Despite this feverish interest, the case was left unsolved, becoming the subject of ‘penny dreadfuls’ and urban legend.Unusually for a crime of this early period, the diary of the police officer leading the investigation has been preserved for posterity, and Jan Bondeson takes full advantage of this unique access to a Victorian murder inquiry. Skilfully dissecting what evidence remains, he links this murder with a series of other opportunist early Victorian slayings, and, in putting forward a credible new suspect, concludes that the Ripper of Waterloo Road was, in fact, a serial killer claiming as many as four victims.

Download or read book Murderers Row written by Robin Odell and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-30 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Criminoloogist Robin Odell has compiled this gruesome gallery of cases from all over the world, revealing the growth in serial slayings, contract killings and middle-class murders and investigating what motivates people to commit the ultimate crime. As well as gangsters and ordinary felons, the book includes doctors, millionaries, housewives, children, lawyers, accountants, officers and gentlemen who have succumbed to the killing instinct. Behind the sensational names concocted by the tabloid press - 'Boston Strangler', 'Dracula Killer', 'Night Stalker', 'Granny Killer' - lurk real murderers committing acts of violence in circumstances often more bizarre than fiction. Arranged in an easy-to-use A-Z format, the book contains over 500 cases from serial killers such as Dennis Nilsen and Ted Bundy, to those such as Jeremy Bamber and Steven Benson who dispatched their parents for money; from murderous New Zealand teenagers whose story made a successful film, to the many doctors and nurses who took life instead of saving it; from unsolved murders such as the murder of Little Gregory in France to the paid assignments of John Waynes Hearn, a Vietnam veteran who killed to order. The result is a classic of true crime, a definitive work on murder as a worldwide phenomenon.

Download or read book The Missing Diamond Murder written by Diane Janes and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2019-09-02 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1930. Frances Black is worried – divorce proceedings are under way and her solicitor has learnt of a spiteful letter sent to the court claiming that there is more to her friendship with her sleuthing partner, Tom Dod, than meets the eye. Fran takes Tom’s advice to get away, travelling down to Devon to help the Edgertons with their family mystery. After meeting the charismatic Eddie Edgerton and arriving at their residence, Sunnyside House, Fran soon learns that Eddie’s grandfather, Frederick Edgerton, died in mysterious circumstances when his wheelchair went off a cliff. Was it really an accident? And what happened to Frederick’s precious diamond which went missing at the time of his death? As Fran investigates, she uncovers family scandal, skulduggery and revenge, but can she solve the mystery of the missing diamond?

Download or read book The Poisoned Chalice Murder written by Diane Janes and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2018-11-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amateur sleuths Frances Black and Tom Dod return to investigate a trio of deaths in a sleepy English village in the second of an intriguing new historical mystery series. Tom Dod’s Aunt Hetty is worried – three sudden deaths have occurred in the sleepy village of Durley Dean. They might seem like tragic accidents, but Aunt Hetty isn’t so sure. After all, all three took a stand against Reverend Pinder, the new vicar of St Agnes Church, whose controversial changes have divided the congregation. But is there really a killer among the parishioners? And while Fran leaps at the chance to spend a weekend at Aunt Hetty’s sleuthing with Tom, could the trip prove to be a poisoned chalice in more ways than one?

Download or read book The Magic Chair Murder written by Diane Janes and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introducing amateur sleuths Frances Black and Tom Dod in the first of an intriguing new historical mystery series set in the north of England. 1929. The night before she’s due to make a speech to the Robert Barnaby Society on the subject of the famous writer’s ‘magic chair’, committee member Linda Dexter disappears. When her body is discovered two days later, fellow members Frances Black and Tom Dod determine to find out the truth about her death. Could Linda have discovered something about Robert Barnaby that got her killed? Or does the answer lie in the dead woman’s past? As they pursue their investigations, Fran and Tom find the Barnaby Society to be a hotbed of clashing egos, seething resentments and ill-advised love affairs – but does a killer lurk among them?

Download or read book The Skeleton Tree written by Diane Janes and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2021-05-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is Wendy's dream house about to turn into her worst nightmare? From the moment Wendy Thornton first laid eyes on number 37, The Ashes, she knew she had to have it. It may seem neglected on the outside, but Wendy is convinced it's her perfect family home. It just needs to be loved. It needs her. When Wendy receives an unexpected sum of money from her aunt's will, her dream of buying The Ashes becomes a reality. But as Wendy moves in with her young family and starts uncovering its past, she soon learns that The Ashes is hiding a number of dark secrets. Is Wendy's dream house about to become her worst nightmare? As she is drawn further into The Ashes' dark history, Wendy's own life starts to unravel in the most spectacular and devastating way . . .

Download or read book Unsolved London Murders written by Jonathan Oates and published by Grub Street Publishers. This book was released on 2009-03-19 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The real-life murder mysteries that rocked London between two world wars—from the author of Unsolved Murders of Victorian and Edwardian London. Unsolved crimes have a special fascination, none more so than unsolved murders. The shock of the crime itself and the mystery surrounding it, the fear generated by the awareness a killer on the loose, the insight the cases give into outdated police methods, and the chance to speculate about the identity of the killer after so many years have passed—all these aspects of unsolved murder cases make them compelling reading. In this companion volume to his bestselling Unsolved Murders of Victorian and Edwardian London, Jonathan Oates has selected over twenty haunting, sometimes shocking, cases from the period between the two world wars. Included are the shooting of PC James Kelly in Gunnersbury, violent deaths associated with Irish Republican Army conspiracies, the stabbing of the French acrobat Martial Lechevalier in Piccadilly, the strychnine poisoning of egg-seller Kusel Behr, the killing by arsenic of three members of a Croydon family, and, perhaps most gruesome of all, the case of the unidentified body parts found at Waterloo Station. Jonathan Oates describes each of these crimes in precise, forensic detail. His case studies shed light on the lives of the victims and summon up the ruthless, sometimes lethal character of London itself.

Download or read book A Stroke of Bad Luck written by Diane Janes and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a bitter day in January 1934 a young woman pays an unexpected visit to the occupant of the condemned cell in Armley Jail in Leeds. The man is Ernest Brown, who stands convicted of the murder of his employer, Frederick Morton, and is soon to be hanged. The woman is Florence Morton, the victim’s sister. Florence knows that Ernest is a bad lot. He deserted from the army, acquired a criminal record for theft and drunken driving, and has admitted to having had an affair with the victim’s wife. But did he kill her brother, Freddy Morton? Based on a true story, the mystery surrounding Freddy Morton’s death unfolds page by page, drawing the reader into a fascinating web of conflicting statements, competing loyalties, and a seemingly impossible murder scenario. As the clock ticks and the day of Ernest’s execution approaches, will Florence manage to discover the truth about the brutal murder of her brother?

Download or read book Swimming in the Shadows written by Diane Janes and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2014-12-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young woman’s past is about to catch up with her in this gripping tale of romantic suspense with “a chilling yet satisfying ending” (Publishers Weekly). Susan McCarthy is a health center manager in the Yorkshire Dales, engaged to be married to geography teacher Rob Dugdale. Her life couldn’t be happier. Except Susan McCarthy isn’t Susan McCarthy at all, but Jennifer Reynolds, a young woman who has succeeded in escaping a deeply unhappy past. Then a TV program is broadcast examining the mystery of three women who disappeared without trace, one of them being Jennifer Reynolds. The following day, a local teenage girl is found dead, and the town becomes the center of a major murder enquiry. With her fiancé Rob under suspicion, and her fears that she’ll be recognized from the increasing national press coverage, Jennifer is terrified that the idyllic new life she has worked so hard to achieve is about to be destroyed. When more bodies are unearthed, Jennifer realizes that in order to discover the truth she will have to revisit her troubled past—and put herself in grave danger in the process. “Spooky, twisting, and strange, this suspenseful mystery is guaranteed to keep readers glued to their seats.” —Booklist “Intricately plotted romantic suspense novel.” —Publishers Weekly