Download or read book Portrait of a Murderer written by Anne Meredith and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder "Golden age fans will be enthralled." —Publishers Weekly STARRED review 'Adrian Gray was born in May 1862 and met his death through violence, at the hands of one of his own children, at Christmas, 1931.' Thus begins a classic crime novel published in 1933 that has been too long neglected—until now. It is a riveting portrait of the psychology of a murderer. Each December, Adrian Gray invites his extended family to stay at his lonely house, Kings Poplars. None of Gray's six surviving children is fond of him; several have cause to wish him dead. The family gathers on Christmas Eve—and by the following morning, their wish has been granted. This fascinating and unusual novel tells the story of what happened that dark Christmas night; and what the murderer did next.
Download or read book John George Haigh the Acid Bath Murderer written by Jonathan Oates and published by Wharncliffe. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What motivated John George Haigh to murder at least six people, then dissolve their corpses in concentrated sulphuric acid? How did this intelligent, well-educated man from a loving, strongly religious family of Plymouth Brethren become a fraudster, a thief, then a serial killer? In the latest of his best-selling studies of criminal history, Jonathan Oates reinvestigates this sensational case of the late 1940s. He delves into Haigh's Yorkshire background, his reputation as a loner, a bully and a forger during his years at Wakefield Grammar School, and his growing appetite for the good life which his modest employment in insurance and advertising could not sustain. Then came his move to London and a rapid, apparently remorseless descent into the depths of crime, from deceit and theft to cold-blooded killing. As he follows the course of Haigh's crimes in graphic, forensic detail, Jonathan Oates gives a fascinating inside view of Haigh's attempt to carry through a series of perfect murders. For Haigh intended not only cut off his victims' lives but, by destroying their bodies with acid, literally to remove all traces that they had ever existed.
Download or read book Portrait of a Monster written by Lisa Pulitzer and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a pair of "New York Times"-bestselling authors comes an in-depth account of the manhunt for Joran van der Sloot, a suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba and, five years later, the murder of a young woman in Peru.
Download or read book Blood Relative written by Crocker Stephenson and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of an unsolved mass murder of five family members in rural Wisconsin
Download or read book Alfred Hitchcock written by Alfred Hitchcock and published by . This book was released on 2005-08 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 47 tales of murder for profit, revenge, accident, or assassination are related with twists and turns, if necessary
Download or read book Murder by the Book written by Claire Harman and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2019 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From the prize-winning biographer--the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: can a novel kill? In May 1840, Lord William Russell, well known in London's highest social circles, was found with his throat cut. The brutal murder had the whole city talking. The police suspected Russell's valet, Courvoisier, but the evidence was weak. And the missing clue lay in the unlikeliest place: what Courvoisier had been reading. In the years just before the murder, new printing methods had made books cheap and abundant, the novel form was on the rise, and suddenly everyone was reading. The best-selling titles were the most sensational true-crime stories. Even Dickens and Thackeray, both at the beginning of their careers, fell under the spell of these tales--Dickens publicly admiring them, Thackeray rejecting them. One such phenomenon was William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard, the story of an unrepentant criminal who escaped the gallows time and again. When Courvoisier finally confessed his guilt, he would cite this novel in his defense. Murder By the Book combines the thrilling true-crime story with a illuminating account of the rise of the novel form and the battle for its early soul between the most famous writers of the time. It is a superbly researched, vividly written, fascinating read from first to last"--
Download or read book Perfume written by Patrick Süskind and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-06-25 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An erotic masterpiece of twentieth century fiction - a tale of sensual obsession and bloodlust in eighteenth century Paris 'An astonishing tour de force both in concept and execution' Guardian In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. His name was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, and if his name has been forgotten today. It is certainly not because Grenouille fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance, misanthropy, immorality, or, more succinctly, wickedness, but because his gifts and his sole ambition were restricted to a domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of scent . . . 'A fantastic tale of murder and twisted eroticism controlled by a disgusted loathing of humanity . .. Clever, stylish, absorbing and well worth reading' Literary Review 'A meditation on the nature of death, desire and decay . . . A remarkable début' Peter Ackroyd, The New York Times Book Review 'Unlike anything else one has read. A phenomenon . . . [It] will remain unique in contemporary literature' Figaro 'An ingenious and totally absorbing fantasy' Daily Telegraph 'Witty, stylish and ferociously absorbing' Observer
Download or read book Susan Smith written by George Rekers and published by Glenbridge Publishing Ltd.. This book was released on 1996 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is based upon the publicly available facts, primarily from the Susan Smith trial itself, which consisted of public sworn testimony, and by interviews with individuals whose comments are public knowledge. The key question I have addressed is the question, Why? Why did Susan V. Smith do what she did? Various views were expressed during the trial. The jury found Susan guilty of two counts of murder, finding her guilty of harboring malice against her two little boys. On the other hand, mental health experts, social workers, and school counselors testified as to Susan's history of depression, suicidal thoughts and actions, and adjustment problems in the context of her tragic loss of her father to suicide, her sexual abuse by her stepfather, and her growing up in a dysfunctional family with a family tree replete with multiple cases of depression and alcoholism. - Introduction.
Download or read book Murder Casts a Shadow written by Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2008-06-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Year’s Eve, 1934. While Honolulu celebrates with champagne and fireworks, someone is making away with the Bishop Museum’s portrait of King Kalakaua and its curator. A series of brutal murders follows, and an unlikely pair, newspaper reporter Mina Beckwith and visiting playwright Ned Manusia, find themselves investigating a twisted trail of clues in an attempt to recover the painting and uncover the killer. Honolulu in the 1930s is a unique (and volatile) mix of the provincial and the urban, East and West, islander and mainlander. Mina and Ned, both of Polynesian descent, confront the complexities and contradictions of Island life as their investigation takes them into the heart of Honolulu society and close-knit local families, whose intricate histories and relationships will have a direct impact on future lives and events. A lively cast of characters aids Mina and Ned in their search for answers: Cecily Chang, an antiques and explosives expert, steers them through Chinatown’s back alleys; Hinano Kahana, a hula chanter and dancer, brings Ned closer to solving an ancient riddle; Mina’s grandmother, Hannah, helps them unlock a secret from the past. Prewar Honolulu comes to life in this thoroughly entertaining mystery that evokes a colorful bygone era. The Mina Beckwith and Ned Manusia series continues with Murder Leaves Its Mark, available September 2011.
Download or read book Murder Underground written by Mavis Hay and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder "In terms of plot, the novel is almost pure puzzle, making it a prime example of a Golden Age mystery, but Hay injects humor and keen characterization into the mix as well." —Booklist STARRED review When Miss Pongleton is found murdered on the stairs of Belsize Park station, her fellow-boarders in the Frampton Hotel are not overwhelmed with grief at the death of a tiresome old woman. But they all have their theories about the identity of the murderer, and help to unravel the mystery of who killed the wealthy 'Pongle'. Several of her fellow residents—even Tuppy the terrier—have a part to play in the events that lead to a dramatic arrest. This classic mystery novel is set in and around the Northern Line of the London Underground. It is now republished for the first time since the 1930s, with an introduction by award-winning crime writer Stephen Booth.
Download or read book The Company written by Arabella Edge and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-01-09 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I, Jeronimus, am a man of phials, a measurer of powders on bronze scales, a potion brewer, an opium and arsenic merchant. The primped and perfumed Amsterdam burghers came to me in droves requiring cures for fevers, love balms, the miscarriage of a bastard child, and, of course, poisons. Ah, poisons." So speaks Jeronimus Cornelisz, a thirty-year-old apothecary who transforms before our eyes into a murderous madman. The Company is a novel based on the 1629 voyage of the Dutch East India Company flagship Batavia, bound for the colonies with a cargo of untold riches. Among the passengers is Cornelisz, a man ousted from polite society by sordid rumors of necromancy. Corrupt to the very marrow of his soul, Cornelisz considers himself God's equal, the rightful heir to gold, silver -- even another man's wife. So twisted is he by lust and greed that he incites a mutiny, running the ship aground on a reef. All is lost -- the ship is wrecked, its passengers dying, the treasure trashed at the bottom of the sea. "The apothecary will heal us," the survivors pray, believing themselves lucky to be alive. In the name of benevolence, Cornelisz seizes command of their island refuge. The brave castaways stir with hope -- until the killing begins. For forty frenzied days, Cornelisz decides who shall live and who shall die, leaving his victims with just one wish -- that they had gone down with the ship. Soaked with the blood of the innocent and the wicked, The Company plunges, with the weight of history, deep into the heart of darkness.
Download or read book Portrait in Death written by J. D. Robb and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003-02-25 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling In Death series, Lieutenant Eve Dallas faces a serial killer who offers his victims eternal youth by taking their life… After a tip from a reporter, Eve Dallas finds the body of a young woman in a Delancey street dumpster. Just hours before, the news station had mysteriously received a portfolio of professional portraits of the woman. The photos seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary for any pretty young woman starting a modeling career. Except that she wasn't a model. And that these photos were taken after she had been murdered. Now Dallas is on the trail of a killer who's a perfectionist and an artist. He carefully observes and records his victim's every move. And he has a mission: to own every beautiful young woman's innocence, to capture her youth and vitality—in one fateful shot...
Download or read book The Murder of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval written by Martin Connolly and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2019-05 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: England entered the nineteenth century having lost the American states and was at war with France. The slave trade had been halted and the country was in torment, with industrialisation throwing men and women out of work as poverty haunted their lives. As the merchants of England and America saw their businesses stagnate and profits plummet, everyone blamed the government and its policies. Those in charge were alarmed and businessmen, who were believed to be exploiting the poor, were murdered. Assassination indeed stalked the streets. The man at the centre of the storm was Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. From the higher reaches of society to the beggar looking for bread, many wanted him dead, due to policies brought about by his inflexible religious convictions and his belief that he was appointed by God. In May 1812 he entered the Lobby of the Houses of Parliament when a man stepped forward and fired a pistol at him. The lead ball entered into his heart. Within minutes he was dead. Using freshly-discovered archive material, this book explores the assassin's thoughts and actions through his own writings. Using his background in psychology, the author explores the question of the killer's sanity and the fairness of his subsequent trial. Within its pages the reader will find an account of the murder of Spencer Perceval and a well-developed portrait of his assassin.
Download or read book The Journalist and the Murderer written by Janet Malcolm and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-06-22 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A seminal work and examination of the psychopathology of journalism. Using a strange and unprecedented lawsuit by a convicted murder againt the journalist who wrote a book about his crime, Malcolm delves into the always uneasy, sometimes tragic relationship that exists between journalist and subject. Featuring the real-life lawsuit of Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, against Joe McGinniss, the author of Fatal Vision. In Malcolm's view, neither journalist nor subject can avoid the moral impasse that is built into the journalistic situation. When the text first appeared, as a two-part article in The New Yorker, its thesis seemed so radical and its irony so pitiless that journalists across the country reacted as if stung. Her book is a work of journalism as well as an essay on journalism: it at once exemplifies and dissects its subject. In her interviews with the leading and subsidiary characters in the MacDonald-McGinniss case -- the principals, their lawyers, the members of the jury, and the various persons who testified as expert witnesses at the trial -- Malcolm is always aware of herself as a player in a game that, as she points out, she cannot lose. The journalist-subject encounter has always troubled journalists, but never before has it been looked at so unflinchingly and so ruefully. Hovering over the narrative -- and always on the edge of the reader's consciousness -- is the MacDonald murder case itself, which imparts to the book an atmosphere of anxiety and uncanniness. The Journalist and the Murderer derives from and reflects many of the dominant intellectual concerns of our time, and it will have a particular appeal for those who cherish the odd, the off-center, and the unsolved.
Download or read book The Man from the Train written by Bill James and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Furious Hours written by Casey Cep and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This “superbly written true-crime story” (The New York Times Book Review) masterfully brings together the tales of a serial killer in 1970s Alabama and of Harper Lee, the beloved author of To Kill a Mockingbird, who tried to write his story. Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members, but with the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative assassinated him at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell’s murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend himself. Sitting in the audience during the vigilante’s trial was Harper Lee, who spent a year in town reporting on the Maxwell case and many more trying to finish the book she called The Reverend. Cep brings this remarkable story to life, from the horrifying murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South, while offering a deeply moving portrait of one of our most revered writers.
Download or read book The Invention of Murder written by Judith Flanders and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Superb... Flanders's convincing and smart synthesis of the evolution of an official police force, fictional detectives, and real-life cause célèbres will appeal to devotees of true crime and detective fiction alike." -Publishers Weekly, starred review In this fascinating exploration of murder in nineteenth century England, Judith Flanders examines some of the most gripping cases that captivated the Victorians and gave rise to the first detective fiction Murder in the nineteenth century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama-even into puppet shows and performing dog-acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other-the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P.D. James and Patricia Cornwell. In this meticulously researched and engrossing book, Judith Flanders retells the gruesome stories of many different types of murder in Great Britain, both famous and obscure: from Greenacre, who transported his dismembered fiancée around town by omnibus, to Burke and Hare's bodysnatching business in Edinburgh; from the crimes (and myths) of Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper, to the tragedy of the murdered Marr family in London's East End. Through these stories of murder-from the brutal to the pathetic-Flanders builds a rich and multi-faceted portrait of Victorian society in Great Britain. With an irresistible cast of swindlers, forgers, and poisoners, the mad, the bad and the utterly dangerous, The Invention of Murder is both a mesmerizing tale of crime and punishment, and history at its most readable.
