Summary of Gregg Olsen's Abandoned Prayers


Book Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Chuck Kleveland, age 44, was a truck driver who lived in Chester, a small town near Hebron. He was on his way to the barber in Hebron when he saw a dead body in a cornfield. He knew it was a girl, dressed in a blue one-piece blanket sleeper, and her hand was glazed over with ice. #2 Kleveland, the owner of a truck stop, had seen enough. He did not move closer to the small corpse, which lay only fifteen feet from the roadside. He radioed his bookkeeper, who called the sheriff. #3 The Amish, descendants of Dutch and Swiss Anabaptists, are a religious group that live by strict interpretation of the Bible. They believe in adult baptism, nonresistance, and separatism from the world. #4 The Amish are a collection of scattered, great white boxes. They live together in large groups called families, and they never suffer the humiliation of a rest home. They speak a dialect of German and Swiss with a little English mixed in.




If I Can't Have You


Book Description

In If I Can't Have You, bestselling author Gregg Olsen and co-author Rebecca Morris investigate one of the 21st Century's most puzzling disappearances and how it resulted in the murder of two children by their father. Every once in a great while a genuine murder mystery unfolds before the eyes of the American public. The tragic story of Susan Powell and her murdered boys, Charlie and Braden, is the only case that rivals the Jon Benet Ramsey saga in the annals of true crime. When the pretty, blonde Utah mother went missing in December of 2009 the media was swept up in the story – with lenses and microphones trained on Susan's husband, Josh. He said he had no idea what happened to his young wife, and that he and the boys had been camping in the middle of a snowstorm. Over the next three years bombshell by bombshell, the story would reveal more shocking secrets. Josh's father, Steve, who was sexually obsessed with Susan, would ultimately be convicted of unspeakable perversion. Josh's brother, Michael, would commit suicide. And in the most stunning event of them all, Josh Powell would murder his two little boys and kill himself with brutality beyond belief.




A Twisted Faith


Book Description

New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen investigates the sensational story of a minister who seduced four of his female congregants, and hatched a cold-blooded plot to murder his wife. On December 26, 1997, near the affluent community of Bainbridge Island off the coast of Seattle, a house went up in flames. In it was the shy, beloved minister's wife Dawn Hacheney. When the fire was extinguished, investigators found only her charred remains. Her husband Nick was visibly devastated by the loss. What investigators failed to note, however, was that Dawn's lungs didn't contain smoke. Was she dead before the fire began? So begins this true crime story that's unlike any other. It investigates Nick Hacheney, a philandering minister who had been carrying on with several women in the months before and just after his wife's death. He would be convicted for the murder five years to the day after the crime. From one of the foremost names in true crime, Twisted Faith is a gripping and truly unforgettable story of a man whose charisma and desire rocked an entire community.




Starvation Heights


Book Description

In this true story—a haunting saga of medical murder set in an era of steamships and gaslights—Gregg Olsen reveals one of the most unusual and disturbing criminal cases in American history. In 1911 two wealthy British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, arrived at a sanitorium in the forests of the Pacific Northwest to undergo the revolutionary “fasting treatment” of Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard. It was supposed to be a holiday for the two sisters, but within a month of arriving at what the locals called Starvation Heights, the women underwent brutal treatments and were emaciated shadows of their former selves. Claire and Dora were not the first victims of Linda Hazzard, a quack doctor of extraordinary evil and greed. But as their jewelry disappeared and forged bank drafts began transferring their wealth to Hazzard’s accounts, the sisters came to learn that Hazzard would stop at nothing short of murder to achieve her ambitions.




Envy


Book Description

New York Times bestselling adult true crime author Gregg Olsen makes his YA debut with Empty Coffin, a gripping new fiction series for teens based on ripped-from-the-headlines stories...with a paranormal touch. Crime lives--and dies--in the deceptively picture-perfect town of Port Gamble (aka "Empty Coffin"), Washington. Evil lurks and strange things happen--and 15-year-olds Hayley and Taylor Ryan secretly use their wits and their telepathic "twin-sense" to uncover the truth about the town's victims and culprits. Envy, the series debut, involves the mysterious death of the twins' old friend, Katelyn. Was it murder? Suicide? An accident? Hayley and Taylor are determined to find out--and as they investigate, they stumble upon a dark truth that is far more disturbing than they ever could have imagined. Based on the shocking true crime about cyber-bullying, Envy will take you to the edge--and push you right over.




Shocking True Story


Book Description

Kevin Ryan is a writer in the much-maligned genre of true crime who desperately needs a devious, over-the-top story for the subject of his next book. How else can he keep his wife Valerie's roots dyed and keep himself from handing out taco samples at the local supermarket? When Kevin isn't Googling himself or spot checking his books' stock at stores around the country or online, he's bringing the hazards (i.e., criminals and other crazies) of his job home to wife Val and twin daughters Taylor and Hayley. Kevin is on the hunt for the big one, the story that could break him out of the mid-list and onto the bestseller lists. And then there's a knock at the door--a story finds him...A distraught 20-year old Jett Carter shows up at the Ryan house because her mother and sister are imprisoned-perhaps if Kevin writes their story and reveals the truth, he might help exonerate them. The Carters' tale is the perfect white-trash-attempted-murder-love-triangle that Kevin's editor will love and his fans will devour. He begins to write "Love You to Death." Then on a beautiful summer day, the wheels of homicide are set in motion and Kevin's own story begins to eclipse the crime he is chronicling. When his #1 fan is murdered and another body turns up, the Ryans' life in Port Gamble and all that Kevin holds dear is in jeopardy. Somewhere in "Love You to Death" and within the "bunch of low rent losers" he's interviewing is the killer.




A Killing in Amish Country


Book Description

At just 30 years old, with dark-blonde hair and freckles, Barbara Weaver was as pretty as the women depicted on the covers of her favorite "bonnet" stories - romance novels set in Amish America. Barbara had everything she'd ever wanted: five beautiful children, a home, her faith, and a husband named Eli. But while Barbara was happy to live as the Amish have for centuries - without modern conveniences, Eli was tempted by technology: cell phones, the Internet, and sexting. Online he called himself "Amish Stud" and found no shortage of "English" women looking for love and sex. Twice he left Barbara and their children, was shunned, begged for forgiveness, and had been welcomed back to the church. Barb Raber was raised Amish, but is now a Conservative Mennonite. She drove Eli to appointments in her car, and she gave him what he wanted when he wanted: a cell phone, a laptop, rides to his favorite fishing and hunting places, and, most importantly, sex. When Eli starts asking people to kill his wife for him, Barb offers to help. One night, just after Eli had hitched a ride with a group of men to go fishing in the hours before dawn, Barb Raber entered the Weaver house and shot Barbara Weaver in the chest at close range. It was only the third murder in hundreds of years of Amish life in America, and it fell to Edna Boyle, a young assistant prosecutor to seek justice for Barbara Weaver.




The Last Thing She Ever Did


Book Description

It only takes one fleeting moment for Liz Camden to change the lives of everyone she loves. The community along Oregon's Deschutes River is one of successful professionals and perfect families. For years, up-and-comers Liz and Owen have admired their good friends and neighbors, Carole and David. They appear to have it all--security, happiness, and a beautiful young son, Charlie. Then Charlie vanishes without a trace, and all that seemed safe is shattered by a tragedy that is incomprehensible--except to Liz. She can't undo the terrible mistake she made. Or her unforgiveable decision to conceal it. As two marriages crack and buckle in grief and fear, Liz retreats into her own dark place of guilt, escalating paranoia, and betrayals even she can't imagine. Because there's another good neighbor who has his own secrets, his own pain, and his own reasons for watching Liz's every move. . . . Someone who knows that the mystery of the missing boy on the Deschutes River is far from over.




A True Crime Collection


Book Description

Master true crime writer Gregg Olsen's has been hailed by Ann Rule as "searing and brilliant," and this collection, featuring three of his most shocking cases, shows why. Abandoned Prayers Eli Stutzman, the son of an Amish bishop, was by all appearances a dedicated farmer and family man in the country's strictest religious sect. But behind his quiet façade was a man involved with pornography, sadomasochism, and drugs. After the suspicious death of his pregnant wife, Stutzman took his preschool-age son, Danny, and hit the road on a sexual odyssey ending with his conviction for murder. But the mystery of Eli Stutzman and the fate of his son didn't end on the barren Nebraska plains. It was just beginning. . . A Twisted Faith Olsen investigates the sensational story of a minister who seduced four of his female congregants, and hatched a cold-blooded plot to murder his wife: On December 26, 1997, a house went up in flames. In it was the shy, beloved minister's wife Dawn Hacheney. When the fire was extinguished, investigators found only her charred remains. Her husband Nick was visibly devastated by the loss. What investigators failed to note, however, was that Dawn's lungs didn't contain smoke. Was she dead before the fire began? Cruel Deception In and out of hospitals since birth, angelic nine-month-old Morgan Reid finally succumbed to what appeared to be Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Morgan's Texas-born mother Tanya, a nurse and devoted wife, pulled up stakes with her grieving husband Jim, and moved on. It was the best way to put the past behind them. Until their son Michael began showing signs of the same mysterious affliction that stole the life of his baby sister . . .




Someone Has To Die Tonight


Book Description

Lords Of Chaos It was big news in Ft. Myers, Florida when an abandoned historic building was destroyed by vandals in a spectacular blast. Behind it lay the Lords of Chaos, a band of teenage misfits led by Kevin Foster, 18, a vicious hatemonger who idolized Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and was known as "God" to his five-man gang. Vortex Of Violence The explosion was only one episode in a month-long crime spree that began with vandalism and theft, escalating into what a local sheriff later called "a vortex of bloodlust and arson." The rampage culminated in the brutal shotgun murder of high school band director Mark Schwebes, 32. Police busted the gang before they could unleash a planned racist mass murder at Disney World--but their leader wasn't done yet. Compulsion To Kill Author Jim Greenhill conducted extensive interviews with Kevin Foster on Florida's Death Row. In an astounding development, Greenhill was solicited by the prisoner and his mother Ruby Foster to arrange the killings of three witnesses, leading to a new case against Foster in 2002. Here is the chilling inside story of how a pack of teenage losers found a way to succeed--at murder. . . 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos Praise for Jim Greenhill and Someone Has to Die Tonight "Fascinatingly lurid . . . insightful and well written. . . . Greenhill has brought the light of excellent reporting and emotional insight to the brooding darkness that consumes fringe-dwellers at virtually any high school." --Mike Clark, The Durango Herald (Durango, CO) "Recommended reading. . . . True crime in the strictest sense . . . the most factual account possible of the events of that stormy April." --Jay MacDonald, The News-Press (Fort Myers, FL) "Greenhill, a big fan of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, did his hero proud . . . the most detailed true crime you will read." --Sam Cook, The News-Press (Fort Myers, FL) "Meticulously reported and carefully crafted, a major debut." --Gregg Olsen, bestselling author of Abandoned Prayers "Riveting and gut wrenching." --Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, bestselling author of On Killing "A searing look, by a true journalist, behind a sordid tale of murder and deception--a real page-turner." --M. William Phelps, author of Murder in the Heartland "An extraordinary book . . . compelling . . . it accumulates force as it rolls along and winds up flooring you with the sheer power of Greenhill's reporting." --Bob Norman, The Daily Pulp