A Prescription for Murder


Book Description

McLaren develops a historiographical survey on Victorian attitudes toward sexuality and morality, and their relation to violence as he describes the story of Dr. Thomas Cream. Cream murdered prostitutes and women seeking abortions in England and North America between 1877 and 1892.




Rx Murder


Book Description

“Help! I...can’t...breathe! He’s... trying to... kill me! Please! Oh, God! He’s... killing me!” Margery Harris’s last words…gasped in a hoarse, rasping voice on the county’s 9-1-1 line. For Marge’s doctor, they weren’t merely the last words of a patient, they were a desperate cry for help from an old friend. But they’re puzzling because Marge died from a fatal allergic reaction to peanuts. Was it possible…murder by peanut? Her doctor, Noreen Marconi, MD, a 30-something family practitioner in a suburban town outside Baltimore, feels she owes it to Marge to get to the truth. A dozen years ago Norrie left town as a size twenty. After college, medical school, and residency, she’s back as a size ten and she wants some answers. She enlists the help of Sheriff’s Deputy Travis Lawton, her big crush as a teen, and their investigation leads them along a twisty-turny path to a totally unexpected conclusion. Also unexpected are the feelings that begin to spark between them as they work together. In the middle of all this, her apartment floods and she has to move back into the old family home with her mother…a house that’s now haunted by the ghost of her father. Rx Murder is the first of a series blending romance, murder, mystery, and the paranormal.




Rx for Murder


Book Description

"Rx For Murder" Dr. Kurt Mason thinks a clinic run by Dr. James Howard is just a scam, and persuades his wealthy friend, Birney Britt, former investigative reporter, to check into the clinic to find out what is taking place there. Dr. Howard is murdered, and Birney learns that James Howard was a blackmailer and had hidden tapes containing the information he used in his extortion schemes. Police Lieutenant Randall O'Halloran makes life miserable for Birney as she tries to complete her investigation, even threatening prosecution if Birney continues. Birney accidentally finds Dr. Howard's tapes, but she keeps their contents to herself, wanting to learn what is on them before turning them over to the police. The information on the tapes puts Birney's life in danger as she moves through the maze created by the killer.




The Mastermind


Book Description

The incredible true story of the decade-long quest to bring down Paul Le Roux—the creator of a frighteningly powerful Internet-enabled cartel who merged the ruthlessness of a drug lord with the technological savvy of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. “A tour de force of shoe-leather reporting—undertaken, amid threats and menacing, at considerable personal risk.”—Los Angeles Times NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Evening Standard • Kirkus Reviews It all started as an online prescription drug network, supplying hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of painkillers to American customers. It would not stop there. Before long, the business had turned into a sprawling multinational conglomerate engaged in almost every conceivable aspect of criminal mayhem. Yachts carrying $100 million in cocaine. Safe houses in Hong Kong filled with gold bars. Shipments of methamphetamine from North Korea. Weapons deals with Iran. Mercenary armies in Somalia. Teams of hit men in the Philippines. Encryption programs so advanced that the government could not break them. The man behind it all, pulling the strings from a laptop in Manila, was Paul Calder Le Roux—a reclusive programmer turned criminal genius who could only exist in the networked world of the twenty-first century, and the kind of self-made crime boss that American law enforcement had never imagined. For half a decade, DEA agents played a global game of cat-and-mouse with Le Roux as he left terror and chaos in his wake. Each time they came close, he would slip away. It would take relentless investigative work, and a shocking betrayal from within his organization, to catch him. And when he was finally caught, the story turned again, as Le Roux struck a deal to bring down his own organization and the people he had once employed. Award-winning investigative journalist Evan Ratliff spent four years piecing together this intricate puzzle, chasing Le Roux’s empire and his shadowy henchmen around the world, conducting hundreds of interviews and uncovering thousands of documents. The result is a riveting, unprecedented account of a crime boss built by and for the digital age. Praise for The Mastermind “The Mastermind is true crime at its most stark and vivid depiction. Evan Ratliff’s work is well done from beginning to end, paralleling his investigative work with the work of the many federal agents developing the case against LeRoux.”—San Francisco Book Review (five stars) “A wholly engrossing story that joins the worlds of El Chapo and Edward Snowden; both disturbing and memorable.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)




The Book of Matt


Book Description

“Methamphetamine was a huge part of this case . . . It was a horrible murder driven by drugs.” — Prosecutor Cal Rerucha, who convicted Matthew Shepard's killers On the night of October 6, 1998, twenty-one-year-old Matthew Shepard left a bar with two alleged “strangers,” Aaron McKin­ney and Russell Henderson. Eighteen hours later, Matthew was found tied to a log fence on the outskirts of town, unconscious and barely alive. Overnight, a politically expedient myth took the place of important facts. By the time Matthew died a few days later, his name was synonymous with anti-gay hate. The Book of Matt, first published in 2013, demonstrated that the truth was in fact far more complicated – and daunting. Stephen Jimenez’s account revealed primary documents that had been under seal, and gave voice to many with firsthand knowledge of the case who had not been heard from, including members of law enforcement. In his Introduction to this updated edition, journalist Andrew Sullivan writes: “No one wanted Steve Jimenez to report this story, let alone go back and back to Laramie, Wyoming, asking awkward questions, puzzling over strange discrepancies, re-interviewing sources, seeking a deeper, more complex truth about the ghastly killing than America, it turned out, was prepared to hear. It was worse than that, actually. Not only did no one want to hear more about it, but many were incensed that the case was being re-examined at all.” As a gay man Jimenez felt an added moral imperative to tell the story of Matthew’s murder honestly, and his reporting has been thoroughly corroborated. “I urge you to read [The Book of Matt] carefully and skeptically,” Sullivan writes, “and to see better how life rarely fits into the neat boxes we want it to inhabit. That Matthew Shepard was a meth dealer and meth user says nothing that bad about him, and in no way mitigates the hideous brutality of the crime that killed him; instead it shows how vulnerable so many are to the drug’s escapist lure and its astonishing capacity to heighten sexual pleasure so that it’s the only thing you want to live for. Shepard was a victim twice over: of meth and of a fellow meth user.”




Killer Material


Book Description

Stand-up comic Biff Kincaid puts his career and his life on the line when he sets out to discover the mystery behind Ned Lando, a lackluster performer who steals material from other comics yet has the money to rent a Los Angeles theater and fill it with a paid audience for his professional debut.




A Guide for Murdered Children


Book Description

"In her astonishing thriller, Sarah Sparrow has joined the ranks of Shirley Jackson and Stephen King. A warning: there is no safe place to read this book." –David Cronenberg Terrifying, thoroughly original and hauntingly written, A Guide for Murdered Children is a psychological thriller—and otherworldly surprise. We’ve heard it said that there is no justice in this world. But what if there really was? What if the souls of murdered children were able to briefly return, inhabit adult bodies and wreak revenge on the monstrous killers who stole their lives? Such is the unthinkable mystery confronting ex-NYPD detective Willow Wylde, fresh out of rehab and finally able to find a job running a Cold Case squad in suburban Detroit. When the two rookie cops assigned to him take an obsessive interest in a decades-old disappearance of a brother and sister, Willow begins to suspect something out of the ordinary is afoot. And when he uncovers a series of church basement AA-type meetings made up of the slain innocents, a new way of looking at life, death, murder—and missed opportunities—is revealed to him. Mystical, harrowing and powerfully moving, A Guide for Murdered Children is a genre-busting, mind-bending twist on the fine line between the ordinary… and the unfathomable.




Death Sentence


Book Description

In this “true story that reads like a novel,” the #1 New York Times–bestselling author reveals the facts behind a notorious Southern murder case (Library Journal). When North Carolina farmer Stuart Taylor died after a sudden illness, his forty-six-year-old fiancée, Velma Barfield, was overcome with grief. Taylor’s family grieved with her—until the autopsy revealed traces of arsenic poisoning. Turned over to the authorities by her own son, Velma stunned her family with more revelations. This wasn’t the first time she had committed cold-blooded murder, and she would eventually be tried by the “world’s deadliest prosecutor” and sentenced to death. This book probes Velma’s stark descent into madness, her prescription drug addiction, and her effort to turn her life around through Christianity. From her harrowing childhood to the crimes that incited a national debate over the death penalty, to the final moments of her execution, Velma Barfield’s life of crime and punishment, revenge and redemption, this is crime reporting at its most gripping and profound. “A painfully intimate, moving story about the life and death of the only woman executed in the U.S. between 1962–1998 . . . With graceful writing and thorough reporting, it makes the reader look hard at something dark and sad in the human soul . . . Breathes new life into the true crime genre.” —The News & Observer “Undertakes to answer the questions about the justice system and the motives that drive women to kill.” —The Washington Post Book World “An extraordinary piece of writing . . . The most chilling description of a legal execution that we are ever likely to get.” —Citizen-Times “Taut and engrossing on the nature of justice and the death penalty as well as on guilt and responsibility.” —Booklist




Murder In The Academy: A Chilling Murder Mystery Set in Belfast


Book Description

MURDER IN THE ACADEMY is a gripping must-read thriller - perfect for fans of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Steig Larsson, THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY by Agatha Christie and THE CUCKOO'S CALLING by Robert Galbraith. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'A new crime series set in Belfast. Cleverly constructred, with a plot that will keep you reading until the end.' Áine Toner, Belfast Telegraph Reluctant sleuth Alice Fox uncovers some dirty secrets in Belfast. A new year, a new term and the staff of the Department of Peace and Reconciliation return from the Christmas break with renewed hope and energy. One person is missing, however. Then a violent storm reveals a grisly murder. It soon becomes clear to DI Caroline Paton that the victim, Dr Helen Breen, was almost universally disliked among the college staff - but surely departmental politics or boardroom squabbles would not unleash such a level of brutality? Alice Fox, visiting research fellow, agrees and finds herself distracted from her studies as she is drawn back into old patterns of life as a detective in the States. She soon finds herself playing a key support role in Caroline Paton's murder investigation. How did Helen Breen arouse such murderous rage? Or are there more sinister forces at work?




Prescription


Book Description

Drama / Characters: 4 males, 3 females Scenery: 3 interiors The TV series was based on this play. A brilliant psychiatrist and his mistress hatch a plot to murder his neurotic, possessive wife that depends on a bizarre impersonation to create a perfect alibi. Lt. Columbo and the doctor engage in a cat and mouse duel of wits until the doctor succeeds in having Columbo removed from the case. But the mistress is the weak link that leads to a trap and a surprising climax.