Written in Blood


Book Description

A 2006 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime. With intimate access to the families, award-winning journalist Diane Fanning's Written in Blood spins a heart-wrenching true crime tale that's been the subject of an acclaimed documentary, "The Staircase", and an HBO TV miniseries starring Colin Firth. An army brat-turned-marine, Michael Peterson saw combat in Vietnam, and returned a decorated soldier. An avid reader, his dreams of being an acclaimed novelist came true. His desire to find love was fulfilled when he married brilliant executive Kathleen Atwater, the first female student accepted at Duke University's School of Engineering. The Petersons seemed the ideal academic couple- well-respected, prosperous, and happy. All that came crashing down in December of 2001, when Kathleen apparently fell to her death in their secluded home in an exclusive area of Durham, North Carolina. But blood-spattered evidence and a missing fireplace poker suggested calculated, cold-blooded murder. Her trusted husband stood accused. Prosecutors introduced evidence at trial that sixteen years earlier, Peterson was one of the last people to see his neighbor alive before she was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her home in Germany. A dramatic trial followed in the explosive final chapter of a life that no novelist could ever have conceived...




The Cumberland Mountain Trilogy, Volume 3 - The Sheriff of Hell's Murder Case


Book Description

The Sheriff of Hell's Murder Case is the final novel in Dr. Jack Justin Turner's highly-acclaimed Cumberland Mountain Trilogy. With a mangled arm, and with his long-barreled Luger close at hand, Sheriff Jacob Newton Herald must muster all the cunning and courage that saw him through The Great War to survive the sometimes savage place he calls home. Jake, as he is known by both friend and foe, has been described as a combination of Hamlet and Dirty Harry – but in this last volume Jake exhibits a quite different and endearing personality, when he makes two of the most important decisions of his life. Part murder mystery and part magnificent love story, The Sheriff of Hell's Murder Case again demonstrates Dr. Turner's powerful and insightful explanation of character and locale, in a page-turner that is perhaps unparalleled in modern Appalachian fiction. Turner obviously knows and loves the setting and its inhabitants and puts the lie to the work of a litany of literary carpetbaggers. As one reviewer put it, "Jack Justin Turner's voice rings so true that one might think the author is actually channeling the spirits of his early twentieth century characters. Seldom does a book transport a reader so surely to another place and time." Keywords: Romance, Revenge, Action, History, War, Kentucky, Herald, Fiction, Iron Fist, Mystery, Veteran




Mommy's Little Girl


Book Description

***Please note: This ebook does not contain the photos found in the print edition of this title.*** When news broke of three-year-old Caylee Anthony's disappearance from her home in Florida in July 2008, there was a huge outpouring of sympathy across the nation. The search for Caylee made front-page headlines. But there was one huge question mark hanging over the case: the girl's mother. As the investigation continued and suspicions mounted, Casey became the prime suspect. In October, based on new evidence against Casey—her erratic behavior and lies, her car that showed signs of human decomposition—a grand jury indicted the young single mother. Then, two months later, police found Caylee's remains a quarter of a mile away from the Anthony home. Casey pled not guilty to charges of murder in the first degree, and she continues to protest her innocence. Did she or didn't she kill Caylee? Mommy's Little Girl is the story of one of the most shocking, confusing, and horrific crimes in modern American history.




Murder in the Stacks


Book Description

On Nov. 28, 1969, Betsy Aardsma, a 22-year-old graduate student in English at Penn State, was stabbed to death in the stacks of Pattee Library at the university’s main campus in State College. For more than forty years, her murder went unsolved, though detectives with the Pennsylvania State Police and local citizens worked tirelessly to find her killer. The mystery was eventually solved—after the death of the murderer. This book will reveal the story behind what has been a scary mystery for generations of Penn State students and explain why the Pennsylvania State Police failed to bring her killer to justice. More than a simple true crime story, the book weaves together the events, culture, and attitudes of the late 1960s, memorializing Betsy Aardsma and her time and place in history.




Murder at Mountain Creek


Book Description

Beth was covered in blood and ashes. Unable to stand up and walk in the slick pool of blood, she crawled to her grandfather. Her nightgown, heavy with blood, slid along the floor, leaving a trail of red behind her. She was crying uncontrollably. Samson took her in this arms, cradling her close to his chest.




On Potato Mountain


Book Description

The people of the Chilcotin, their history, legends and pride, inspire this closely woven and captivating mystery and lead to its surprising conclusion...




A Good Dog's Guide to Murder


Book Description

The great Gingerbread Dog & Cat House competition has come to Wagtail, along with another murder to solve for Holly and her supersmart Jack Russell terrier Trixie in the New York Times bestselling Paws & Claws series by Krista Davis! Visitors are arriving in droves to spend Thanksgiving in the mountains of pet-friendly Wagtail, Virginia. Many of them are bringing dog and cat gingerbread houses to enter in the contest that will be held in the new convention center. Wagtail resident Orly Biffle bequeathed the land to the town in his will, provided that they not cut down the grand old oak tree on the property. Orly’s children are mighty miffed that they didn’t inherit the prime piece of property overlooking the lake. Holly notices that Trixie and Twinkletoes, her calico kitty, are fixated on the big oak tree. Trixie barks at it as though she thinks it’s a corpse! Just as contestants are spicing up their sweet gingerbread creations, the majestic tree drops an enormous limb. The mayor declares that the tree is dangerous and must come down. When a bulldozer churns up some roots, the tree falls over on its own accord revealing a body inside the trunk! Initially, everyone suspects this unsavory trick was Orly’s doing. But it soon becomes clear that someone is trying to keep the truth under wraps. Trixie and Twinkletoes now have to help Holly sniff out some suspects and leash a conniving killer.




Only by Death (Ozark Mountain Trilogy Book #2)


Book Description

Is Liam Berne a loving son--or a murderer? The second book in the Ozark Mountain Trilogy, Only by Death is a thought-provoking suspense story of a man who loses everything and learns he must die to find life. After much agonizing, Liam Berne takes his mother, who has Alzheimer's, to the Sure Foot River and drowns her. A mercy killing, he tells himself, to spare her years in a nursing home. And getting his inheritance early isn't a bad thing either. Dixie Berne's body is recovered and the coroner cannot find any sign of foul play, though Liam's sister isn't convinced. Then Liam hears rumors that a twelve-year-old boy has witnessed the drowning. Terrified that he will be discovered, Liam sets out to intimidate the boy into silence. Little does Liam know that someone else suspects him--someone who intends to make him pay.




Smoke, Mirrors And Murder


Book Description

An ideal family is targeted for death by the least likely enemy, who plotted their demise from behind bars.... A sexual predator hides behind multiple fake identities, eluding police for years while his past victims live in fear that he will hunt them down.... A modest preacher's wife confesses to shooting her husband after an argument -- but there's more to her shattering story than meets the eye. These and other true cases are analyzed with stunning clarity in a page-turning collection you won't be able to put down. Included in this volume are stories of a victim burned beyond recognition - spontaneous human combustion? - impossible - and yet no one else seemed to enter or exit; a man who was a woman who was a man, whose con games in a small community led to murder; a "counterfeit priest" who wasn't a priest at all; a lifetime rapist; and the strangest case ever to hit Montana.




Sworn to Silence


Book Description

Jim Tracy’s Sworn to Silence is an unforgettable story of two American lawyers who did the unprecedented. They searched for, found, and photographed the lifeless bodies of their client’s victims and then kept it secret. They did so in the face of unendurable pressure from the authorities and the victims’ families, who suspected the lawyers knew more than they were saying. When the American public eventually learned of the lawyers’ actions, they were horrified, outraged, and vengeful. People could not fathom how two attorneys—fathers of teenage girls themselves—and supposed officers of the law, could conduct themselves in a manner seemingly beyond any concept of humanity. Today, this landmark legal case is studied and analyzed in law schools worldwide. These events have been indelibly marked in Tracy’s mind since he was eight years old; in fact, he was present at the scene of New York state’s largest manhunt after the killer broke into Tracy’s father’s hunting camp in the Adirondack Mountains. In Sworn to Silence, Tracy weaves together a true crime narrative that should rank with some of the most compelling American crime stories of modern times. He does so while taking you—the reader—on a page-turning journey back to the early 1970s, unveiling an American serial killer most people have never heard of.