Download or read book The Mysterious Midwest written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02-20 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Profiles some of the strange creatures, legends, and mysteries of the Midwest *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "I don't live in Hollywood. I don't have celebrities as friends. I like them, but I don't pal around with them. I just live in the Midwest, a real normal world." - Jerry Springer The U.S. Census Bureau defines the Midwest as consisting of a dozen states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Outsiders often deride the region, and for many who have never been there, America's heartland is just a bunch of "flyover states" with little influence, little history, and little interest. However, anyone familiar with the region this couldn't be further from the truth. The Midwest is rich in history and folklore, and it has more than its fair share of mysteries, too. Strange creatures, Native American legends, haunted houses, and unexplained phenomena are rife in these states, and this book will uncover just a sample of the countless strange tales of America's Heartland. The Mysterious Midwest: Mysteries, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena in America's Heartland is part of an ongoing series by Sean McLachlan and Charles River Editors that includes The Weird Wild West, Mysteries of the South, and Mysterious New England, and more regional titles will be coming soon. This book offers a sampling of strange, unexplained, and just plain odd stories of the Midwest that have fascinated people in and around the region for centuries. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the mysterious side of the Midwest like never before, in no time at all.

Download or read book Mysterious Midwest written by Adrian Lee and published by Wisdom Editions. This book was released on 2022-12-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adrian Lee is out to prove that ghosts and spirits are sharing our space all the time; we just can't usually see them. But they're there-everywhere-they're just not concerned about the same things we are. Find out about the haunted places of the Midwest.

Download or read book Universal Harvester written by John Darnielle and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller "A moving, beautifully etched picture of America’s lost and profoundly lonely." —Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of the Day and winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature “Brilliant . . . Darnielle is a master at building suspense, and his writing is propulsive and urgent; it’s nearly impossible to stop reading . . . [Universal Harvester is] beyond worthwhile; it’s a major work by an author who is quickly becoming one of the brightest stars in American fiction.” —Michael Schaub, Los Angeles Times “Grows in menace as the pages stack up . . . [But] more sensitive than one would expect from a more traditional tale of dread.” —Joe Hill, New York Times Book Review Life in a small town takes a dark turn when mysterious footage begins appearing on VHS cassettes at the local Video Hut. So begins Universal Harvester, the haunting and masterfully unsettling new novel from John Darnielle, author of the New York Times Bestseller and National Book Award Nominee Wolf in White Van Jeremy works at the Video Hut in Nevada, Iowa. It’s a small town in the center of the state—the first a in Nevada pronounced ay. This is the late 1990s, and even if the Hollywood Video in Ames poses an existential threat to Video Hut, there are still regular customers, a rush in the late afternoon. It’s good enough for Jeremy: it’s a job, quiet and predictable, and it gets him out of the house, where he lives with his dad and where they both try to avoid missing Mom, who died six years ago in a car wreck. But when a local schoolteacher comes in to return her copy of Targets—an old movie, starring Boris Karloff, one Jeremy himself had ordered for the store—she has an odd complaint: “There’s something on it,” she says, but doesn’t elaborate. Two days later, a different customer returns a different tape, a new release, and says it’s not defective, exactly, but altered: “There’s another movie on this tape.” Jeremy doesn’t want to be curious, but he brings the movies home to take a look. And, indeed, in the middle of each movie, the screen blinks dark for a moment and the movie is replaced by a few minutes of jagged, poorly lit home video. The scenes are odd and sometimes violent, dark, and deeply disquieting. There are no identifiable faces, no dialogue or explanation—the first video has just the faint sound of someone breathing— but there are some recognizable landmarks. These have been shot just outside of town. In Universal Harvester, the once placid Iowa fields and farmhouses now sinister and imbued with loss and instability and profound foreboding. The novel will take Jeremy and those around him deeper into this landscape than they have ever expected to go. They will become part of a story that unfolds years into the past and years into the future, part of an impossible search for something someone once lost that they would do anything to regain. “This chilling literary thriller follows a video store clerk as he deciphers a macabre mystery through clues scattered among the tapes his customers rent. A page-tuning homage to In Cold Blood and The Ring.” —O: The Oprah Magazine “[Universal Harvester is] so wonderfully strange, almost Lynchian in its juxtaposition of the banal and the creepy, that my urge to know what the hell was going on caused me to go full throttle . . . [But] Darnielle hides so much beautiful commentary in the book’s quieter moments that you would be remiss not to slow down.” —Abram Scharf, MTV News “Universal Harvester is a novel about noticing hidden things, particularly the hurt and desperation that people bear under their exterior of polite reserve . . . Mr. Darnielle possesses the clairvoyant’s gift for looking beneath the surface.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal “[Universal Harvester is] constantly unnerving, wrapped in a depressed dread that haunts every passage. But it all pays off with surprising emotionality.” —Kevin Nguyen, GQ.com

Download or read book The Midwest written by and published by RAYGUN. This book was released on 2012 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book No Place Like Murder written by Janis Thornton and published by Quarry Books. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A modern retelling of 20 sensational true crimes, No Place Like Murder reveals the inside details behind nefarious acts that shocked the Midwest between 1869 and 1950. The stories chronicle the misdeeds, examining the perpetrators' mindsets, motives, lives, apprehensions, and trials, as well as what became of them long after. True crime author Janis Thornton profiles notorious murderers such as Frankie Miller, who was fed up when her fiancé stood her up for another woman. As fans of the song "Frankie and Johnny" already know, Frankie met her former lover at the door with a shotgun. Thornton's tales reveal the darker side of life in the Midwest, including the account of Isabelle Messmer, a plucky young woman who dreamed of escaping her quiet farm-town life. After she nearly took down two tough Pittsburgh policemen in 1933, she was dubbed "Gun Girl" and went on to make headlines from coast to coast. In 1942, however, after a murder conviction in Texas, she vowed to do her time and go straight. Full of intrigue and revelations, No Place Like Murder also features such folks as Chirka and Rasico, the first two Hoosier men to die in the electric chair after they brutally murdered their wives in 1913. The two didn't meet until their fateful last night. An enthralling and chilling collection, No Place Like Murder is sure to thrill true crime lovers.

Download or read book Horror in the Heartland written by Keven McQueen and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-16 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spooky history of the American Midwest—from grave robbers to ghost sightings and more—by the author of Creepy California. Most people think of the American Midwest as a place of wheat fields and family farms; cozy small towns and wholesome communities. But there’s more to the story of America’s Heartland—a dark history of strange tales and unsettling facts hidden just beneath its quaint pastoral image. In Horror in the Heartland, historian Keven McQueen offers a guided tour of terrible crimes and eccentric characters; haunted houses and murder-suicides; mad doctors, body snatchers, and pranks gone comically—and tragically—wrong. From tales of the booming grave-robbing industry of late 19th-century Indiana to the story of a Michigan physician who left his estate to his pet monkeys, McQueen investigates a spooky and twisted side of Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Exploring burial customs, unexplained deaths, ghost stories, premature burials, bizarre murders, peculiar wills and much more, this creepy collection reveals the region’s untold stories and offers intriguing, if sometimes macabre, insights into human nature.

Download or read book The Midwest Survival Guide written by Charlie Berens and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller A hilarious full-color guide to Midwestern culture, from comedian and journalist Charlie Berens, creator of the viral comedic series "The Manitowoc Minute" Have you ever had a goodbye lasting more than four hours? Do you lack the emotional capacity to say “I love you” so you just tell your loved ones to “watch out for deer”? Have you apologized to a stranger because she stepped on your foot? If you answered yes to any of these questions, there’s a good chance you’re a Midwesterner—or a Midwesterner at heart. Even if you answered no, you probably know someone who held the door for you from two football fields away. He likely waved at you and said, “Hey there,” like you organized the church bar crawl together. That was a Midwesterner in the wild. We understand that your interaction was strange—but it’s likely to get stranger. Don’t wait until they stick their head in your second-floor window to invite you over for a perch fry because they climbed on your roof to clean your gutters. There’s no need to pull the pepper spray; this species is helpful by nature. And the relationship could be very symbiotic—but only if you let it happen. And that’s where this book comes into play. Inspired by my comedy tours across the Midwest and life growing up in Wisconsin, this book is an exploration into my favorite region on Earth. Some may think the Midwest is just a bunch of bland flyover states filled with less diversity than a Monsanto monoculture. But scratch that surface with your buck knife and you’ll find rich cultures and traditions proving we’re more than just fifty shades of milk. So whether you’re a born-and-bred Midwesterner looking to sharpen your skill at apologies or a costal elite visiting the in-laws for the holidays, this book will help you navigate the Midwest, with everything from the best flannel looks to dating and mating rituals (yes, casserole is involved) to climbing the corporate corn silo to how to handle a four-way stop—and every backyard brat fry in between. And for those of you who don’t like reading, don’t worry—we’ve got pictures! Toss in illustrations, sidebars, quizzes, and jokes worthy of a supper club stall and The Midwest Survival Guide is just the walleye-deep look into this distinctive, beautiful, and bizarre American culture you’ve been looking for.

Download or read book Death in the Blood Moon written by Jenifer LeClair and published by . This book was released on 2019-02-20 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After six months on leave in Maine, Homicide Detective Brie Beaumont returns home to Minnesota to make decisions about her life and career with the Minneapolis Police Department. But her partner's death still haunts her, and she soon realizes that, to be whole again, she must solve the case of Detective Phil Thatcher's murder-a case that went cold eighteen months ago. But threatening letters, a shadowy character, and a shooting on the North Shore where she is vacationing make Brie question her decision. When a tip from a confidential informant reveals surprising and disturbing new information about the case, Brie decides to undergo hypnosis in an attempt to recover the missing pieces from that terrible night in North Minneapolis. With locales on the north shore of Lake Superior, Minneapolis, and the coast of Maine, Death in the Blood Moon provides a canvas rich in both characters and settings as this page-turning double mystery unfolds.

Download or read book The Most Gruesome Hauntings of the Midwest written by Chad Lewis and published by On the Road Publications. This book was released on 2012-05-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Haunted cases featuring murder, suicide, untimely deaths, accidents, mob hits, and serial killers.

Download or read book Mysterious Midwest written by World Watch Media and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-09-29 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mysterious Midwest: Illinois Ghost Stories Featured Stories: The Flying Flowers The Haunted Cornfield The Night Bells Haunting at Old Chicago Book Preview: The Haunted Antique Store Skepticism is common. Most people need to have personal experience to be truly convinced of paranormal activity. Jane was certainly no exception. As a child in the oldest neighborhood farmhouse, creaking floors and stairs were common. Doors sometimes closed on their own, and occasionally lights flickered. All these things were attributed to the older construction. Her childhood sweetheart would tell stories of ghostly experiences. Jane felt as though she couldn't fully believe without her own experience. Some tales seemed so incredibly unlikely that belief seemed impossible. Jane married her childhood sweetheart, and began working in an antique store. The building was an ancient, extravagant mansion, with 5 large bedrooms, and even a foyer and a parlor. The front door opened to a wide, beautiful staircase, and bells rang to signal customers entering and leaving. Upstairs was a hallway, complete with a bannister that traced an arc across the length of the house down the back stairway, and ending in the kitchen. Download Your Copy Today!!!!

Download or read book Small Town Murder Midwest Cozy Mystery Series written by Dianne Harman and published by Midwest Cozy Mystery. This book was released on 2019-02-20 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The latest in the popular Midwest Cozy Mystery Series by a two-time USA Today Bestselling Author.Kat only wanted to be part of the convention on how to write successful books, not solve a murder that took place there - the murder of a beloved "tell-all" author. Was that the motive?Greed, revenge, and hatred are also reasons to murder, at least to people who live on the slippery edge of sanity. Parsons who gamble, women who blackmail, and a number of people with outsized egos make for most interesting characters.And yet, even with the worst of human nature, miracles can happen.If you like to feel good at the end of a book, with maybe a tear or two and a smile, don't miss this inspirational story with plenty of dogs, food, and recipes.

Download or read book Murderous Acts written by Keven McQueen and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the Midwest may be known for salt-of-the-earth folks, it's also home to murder and mayhem. In Murderous Acts: 100 Years of Crime in the Midwest, Keven McQueen explores a century of true crimes committed in 10 Midwestern states, from the 1840s to the 1940s. With a touch of gallows humor, McQueen relies on original research to recount infamous transgressions—including Michigan's Robert Irving Latimer case, the serial murders of Nebraskan Jake Bird, and the bloody deeds of Kansas's Bender family—as well as gruesome tales that are less well known, such as the Wisconsin man with a penchant for swinging an axe at the necks of men he didn't care for, the Hoosier who killed his sweetheart in the midst of a Halloween ball, and the French nobleman who wreaked havoc in a St. Louis hotel. Murderous Acts will intrigue and delight fans of true crime and will send a shiver down the spine of any reader fascinated by the dark history of America's Heartland.

Download or read book Midwestern Strange written by B.J. Hollars and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2019-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Midwestern Strange chronicles B.J. Hollars’s exploration of the mythic, lesser-known oddities of flyover country. The mysteries, ranging from bipedal wolf sightings to run-ins with pancake-flipping space aliens to a lumberjack-inspired “Hodag hoax,” make this book a little bit X-Files, a little bit Ghostbusters, and a whole lot of Sherlock Holmes. Hollars’s quest is not to confirm or debunk these mysteries but rather to seek out these unexplained phenomena to understand how they complicate our worldview and to discover what truths might be gleaned by reexamining the facts in our “post-truth” era. Part memoir and part journalism, Midwestern Strange offers a fascinating, funny, and quirky account of flyover folklore that also contends with the ways such oddities retain cultural footholds. Hollars shows how grappling with such subjects might fortify us against the glut of misinformation now inundating our lives. By confronting monsters, Martians, and a cabinet of curiosities, we challenge ourselves to look beyond our presumptions and acknowledge that just because something is weird, doesn’t mean it is wrong.

Download or read book Campfire Tales Midwest written by Mike Ricksecker and published by Campfire Tales. This book was released on 2015-03-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experience 10 heart-pounding tales of the Midwest based on history, lore, and legends from around the region--perfect for telling around the campfire. Discover what it feels like to be a ghost or to bring one home. Explore what may be lurking at the bottom of a lake at a favorite vacation spot. Solve the mystery and unlock the secrets of a strange journal brought forth by an old doctor who may or may not be a part of this world. Unearth one of the seven gateways to hell and venture into the fiery depths below. Determine for yourself what is real and what is fiction, as these and other haunting tales paint a landscape rife with creepy paranormal activity.

Download or read book Weird Chicago written by Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Although there had been treaties and seemingly cordial trading between the Native Americans and the new settlers in that area, recent fighting in nearby areas like the Battle of Tippecanoe less than a year earlier kept all sides on edge, and the British aim to maintain a barrier between America and Canada by propping up Native American tribes led to a controversial battle in the Illinois Territory at Fort Dearborn, a fort built along the Chicago River, shortly after the War of 1812 broke out. When the war came, the close proximity of British forces compelled American military officers in the area to attempt to evacuate the garrison at Fort Dearborn, but misunderstandings and a lack of time resulted in Potawatomi warriors ambushing the soldiers and several civilians before they could retreat back to Fort Wayne, Indiana. In the wake of cutting down dozens of whites, the Potawatomi laid waste to Fort Dearborn itself, and though the fighting was technically a battle, in America the Battle of Fort Dearborn was known colloquially as the Fort Dearborn Massacre. Though it started as a 300 person settlement in 1832, Chicago's location near the Great Lakes and its access to the Mississippi River turned it into a major trading city overnight. The city became even more important when railroads were constructed to connect the country, making it the first major city in the "West" during the mid-19th century. By 1871, the original 300 person settlement was now home to about 300,000 people, and Chicago had become the first major city built by Americans rather than European colonial powers Thus, it had taken less than 40 years for the new settlement of 300 to become a city of nearly 300,000, but it only took two days in 1871 for much of it to be destroyed. On the night of October 8, 1871, a blaze in the southwestern section of Chicago began to burn out of control. The popular legend is that a cow in Mrs. Catherine O'Leary's barn had kicked over a lantern and started a fire. The story blaming the cow was a colorful fabrication, but the fire itself was very real, lasting almost two whole days and devouring several square miles of the city. The fire was so powerful that firefighters could not put it out, due to dry conditions, stiff winds, and the fact the city was mostly made of wood. Walking around Chicago today, it's easy to forget about its past as a rural frontier. That's due in no small part to the way Chicago responded to the Great Fire of 1871. Immediately after the fire, Chicago encouraged inhabitants and architects to build over the ruins, spurring creative architecture with elaborate designs. Architects descended upon the city for the opportunity to rebuild the area, and over the next few decades they had rebuilt Chicago with the country's most modern architecture and monuments. Chicago has a long and fascinating history, but there's another, more mysterious side to the Windy City. Ghosts have competed with gangsters in scaring the locals, while serial killers beat them both in instilling terror. Out on Lake Michigan, boats disappear and strange ruins lie under the water, while in graveyards, phantoms and even vampires are alleged to walk amid the tombstones. What follows is just a sampling of the many strange tales Chicago has to offer. Weird Chicago: A History of Mysteries, Strange Tales, and Hauntings across the Windy City is part of an ongoing series by Sean McLachlan and Charles River Editors that includes The Weird Wild West, Mysteries of the South, The Mysterious Midwest, and Mysterious New England, and more regional titles will be coming soon. This book offers a sampling of strange, unexplained, and just plain odd stories from Chicago that have fascinated people in and around the region for centuries.

Download or read book Witching You Were Here written by Amanda M. Lee and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-11-20 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winter has hit Hemlock Cove – and not in a fun way.The cold weather is keeping most tourists out of town, which is just fine with the Winchester witches. They're using the lull as a way to recharge and take a break – even if Aunt Tillie is causing her usual havoc.All that comes crashing down, though, when a large yacht is found abandoned in a nearby channel and there's blood on the deck. For Bay, things go from bad to worse when local law enforcement is joined by a federal representative in the form of Landon Michaels – her former flirt partner and possible boyfriend.Landon has come to town for more than just the case, though; he's here to make amends. And even if Bay is ready to accept his apology, that doesn't mean her family is. Landon may be here to win her back, but he's also a man on a mission – and that mission is truth. He wants to know the Winchester family secret – whether Bay is ready to share it or not.Landon isn't the only visitor in Hemlock Cove, either. Thistle's father – Ted Proctor – is also in town. He says he's there to buy some property for a business consortium – but he's having secret meetings and hiding a bevy of truths from his daughter and her busybody cousins – something that sets the whole family on edge.When you couple that with the hot new handyman, the hipster snowboarders and Aunt Tillie's rage about her wine closet being confiscated for a new furnace, it's another fun-filled mystery for the Winchester witches and Hemlock Cove – as long as everyone can survive the snow, and the killer that hides in it, that is.

Download or read book The Midwest Paranormal written by Charles A. Banks and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-07-30 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Death is a destination of finality. We are all headed towards this destination, which, depending on beliefs, leads us to an afterlife, or to a never-ending sleep. Throughout the pages in the book, I will explore questions that we all have regarding the processes of death and beliefs of an afterlife. The stories shrouded in the mystery of death will hold a true testament to the beliefs of groups throughout history and today. There are times when spirits can align themselves with people within this plane. When this happens, we can either look at it as if there is a mental condition, or a deeper meaning that perpetuates within the psyche of the paranormal. Many of us out there would question the mental make-up of someone that writes about such instances. I can say from personal experience, that this phenomenon occurs, and maybe at a higher rate than we realize. The paranormal has always been an interest of mine through the years. Whether the typical movie at the theater, or visiting areas that have been a hot spot for activity from enthusiasts. Several years ago, during a family vacation we visited two such sites; Bullock Hotel in Deadwood, South Dakota and the Villisca Axe Murder House in Villisca, Iowa. Like all families, we had fun experiencing such sites that the "Ghost Hunters" have visited. Chasing ghosts was a fun activity and seemed harmless. Although there have been occurrences in my life that I cannot physically explain. I have broken down the stories in my book in occurrences that I have personally experienced. Take a look, examine the situation and believe what you wish regarding the paranormal and how it affects us in our daily lives. Compiling a list of the top 10 most haunted destinations in the Midwest is a daunting task to say the least. As a novice investigator with abilities that many would say is mind blowing, I will be sharing personal accounts with the unknown, along with experiences from other investigators in the region. There are several unknown and known locations listed in the top 10, some may just surprise you. One thing to keep in mind as you contemplate the locations in the top 10, that these are real experiences of the participants involved and myself. The participants or myself have visited the locations on numerous occasions, and hours of evidence have been examined to share with you within the pages of the book. Sit back, relax, and get ready for the list that will blow your mind and may perhaps change the minds of skeptics everywhere.