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True Crime
The Angel Makers is a true-crime story like no other--a 1920s midwife who may have been the century's most prolific killer leading a murder ring of women responsible for the deaths of at least 160 men.
The horror occurred in a rustic farming enclave in modern-day Hungary. To look at the unlikely lineup of murderesses--village wives, mothers, and daughters--was to come to the shocking realization that this could have happened anywhere, and to anyone. At the center of it all was a sharp-minded village midwife, a "smiling Buddha" known as Auntie Suzy, who distilled arsenic from flypaper and distributed it to the women of Nagyrév. "Why are you bothering with him?" Auntie Suzy would ask, as she produced an arsenic-filled vial from her apron pocket. In the beginning, a great many used the deadly solution to finally be free of cruel and abusive spouses.
But as the number of dead bodies grew without consequence, the killers grew bolder. With each vial of poison emptied, a new reason surfaced to drain yet another. Some women disposed of sickly relatives. Some used arsenic as "inheritance powder" to secure land and houses. For more than fifteen years, the unlikely murderers aided death unfettered and tended to it as if it were simply another chore--spooning doses of arsenic into soup and wine, stirring it into coffee and brandy. By the time their crimes were discovered, hundreds were feared dead.
Anonymous notes brought the crimes to light in 1929. As a skillful prosecutor hungry for justice ran the investigation, newsmen from around the world--including the New York Times--poured in to cover the dramatic events as they unfolded.
The Angel Makers captures in expertly researched detail the entirety of this harrowing story, from the early murders to the final hanging--the story of one of the most sensational and astonishing murder rings in all of modern history.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century - "The Art Thief, like its title character, has confidence, élan, and a great sense of timing."--The New Yorker A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Lit Hub "Enthralling." --The Wall Street Journal Stéphane Bréitwieser is the most prolific art thief of all time. He pulled off more than 200 heists, often in crowded museums in broad daylight. His girlfriend served as his accomplice. His collection was worth an estimated $2 billion. He never sold a piece, displaying his stolen art in his attic bedroom. He felt like a king. Until everything came to a shocking end. In this spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, Michael Finkel gives us one of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of our times, a riveting story of art, theft, love, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.
This true crime odyssey explores a forgotten, astonishing chapter of American history, leading the reader from a free-love community in upstate New York to the shocking assassination of President James Garfield. It was heaven on earth--and, some whispered, the devil's garden. Thousands came by trains and carriages to see this new Eden, carved from hundreds of acres of wild woodland. They marveled at orchards bursting with fruit, thick herds of Ayrshire cattle and Cotswold sheep, and whizzing mills. They gaped at the people who lived in this place--especially the women, with their queer cropped hair and shamelessly short skirts. The men and women of this strange outpost worked and slept together--without sin, they claimed. From 1848 to 1881, a small utopian colony in upstate New York--the Oneida Community--was known for its shocking sexual practices, from open marriage and free love to the sexual training of young boys by older women. And in 1881, a one-time member of the Oneida Community--Charles Julius Guiteau--assassinated President James Garfield in a brutal crime that shook America to its core. An Assassin in Utopia is the first book that weaves together these explosive stories in a tale of utopian experiments, political machinations, and murder. This deeply researched narrative--by bestselling author Susan Wels--tells the true, interlocking stories of the Oneida Community and its radical founder, John Humphrey Noyes; his idol, the eccentric newspaper publisher Horace Greeley (founder of the New Yorker and the New York Tribune); and the gloomy, indecisive President James Garfield--who was assassinated after his first six months in office. Juxtaposed to their stories is the odd tale of Garfield's assassin, the demented Charles Julius Guiteau, who was connected to all of them in extraordinary, surprising ways. Against a vivid backdrop of ambition, hucksterism, epidemics, and spectacle, the book's interwoven stories fuse together in the climactic murder of President Garfield in 1881--at the same time as the Oneida Community collapsed. Colorful and compelling, An Assassin in Utopia is a page-turning odyssey through America's nineteenth-century cultural and political landscape.
"Pringle's fast-paced book is a master class in investigative journalism... when institutions collude to protect one another, reporting may be our last best hope for accountability."
--The New York Times
For fans of Spotlight and Catch and Kill comes a nonfiction thriller about corruption and betrayal radiating across Los Angeles from one of the region's most powerful institutions, a riveting tale from a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who investigated the shocking events and helped bring justice in the face of formidable odds.
On a cool, overcast afternoon in April 2016, a salacious tip arrived at the L.A. Times that reporter Paul Pringle thought should have taken, at most, a few weeks to check out: a drug overdose at a fancy hotel involving one of the University of Southern California's shiniest stars--Dr. Carmen Puliafito, the head of the prestigious medical school. Pringle, who'd long done battle with USC and its almost impenetrable culture of silence, knew reporting the story wouldn't be a walk in the park. USC is one of the biggest employers in L.A., and it casts a long shadow.
The new edition of this Michigan Notable Book includes a new introduction and stories from interviews with two additional survivors, Myrna (Gates) Coulter and Ralph Witchell, which took place after the first edition was published in 2009. On May 18, 1927, the small town of Bath, Michigan, was forever changed when Andrew Kehoe set off a cache of explosives concealed in the basement of the local school. Thirty-eight children and six adults were dead, among them Kehoe, who had literally blown himself to bits by setting off a dynamite charge in his car. The next day, on Kehoe's farm, what was left of his wife--burned beyond recognition after Kehoe set his property and buildings ablaze--was found tied to a handcart, her skull crushed. With seemingly endless stories of school violence and suicide bombers filling today's headlines, Bath Massacre serves as a reminder that terrorism and large-scale murder are nothing new.
The vast majority of Hondurans would have never dared to set foot in Nueva Suyapa, a mountainside barrio that was under the thumb of a gang whose bravado and cruelty were the stuff of legend. But that is precisely where Kurt Ver Beek, an American sociologist, and Carlos Hernández, a Honduran schoolteacher, chose to raise their families. Kurt and Carlos were best friends who had committed their lives to helping the poor, and when they accepted that nobody else--not the police, not the prosecutors, not the NGOs--was ever going to protect their neighbors from the incessant violence they suffered, they decided to take matters into their own hands.
In magnetic prose, journalist Ross Halperin chronicles how these two do-gooders became quasi-vigilantes and charged into a series of life-and-death battles, not just with this one gang, but also with forces far more dangerous, including a notorious tycoon who commanded about a thousand armed men and a police force whose wickedness defied credulity.
Kurt and Carlos would eventually get catapulted from obscurity to being famous power players who had access to the backrooms where legislators, ambassadors, and presidents pulled strings. Their efforts made some of the most violent neighborhoods on earth safer and arguably improved a profoundly corrupt government. But in making all that happen, they were forced to compromise their principles, acquired a large number of outraged critics, and precipitated some heartbreaking collateral damage.
A remarkable and dangerous feat of reportage, Bear Witness shows what happens when altruism, faith, and an obsession with justice are pushed to the extreme.
In magnetic prose, journalist Ross Halperin chronicles how these two do-gooders became quasi-vigilantes and charged into a series of life-and-death battles, not just with this one gang, but also with forces far more dangerous, including a notorious tycoon who commanded about a thousand armed men and a police force whose wickedness defied credulity.
Kurt and Carlos would eventually get catapulted from obscurity to being famous power players who had access to the backrooms where legislators, ambassadors, and presidents pulled strings. Their efforts made some of the most violent neighborhoods on earth safer and arguably improved a profoundly corrupt government. But in making all that happen, they were forced to compromise their principles, acquired a large number of outraged critics, and precipitated some heartbreaking collateral damage.
A remarkable and dangerous feat of reportage, Bear Witness shows what happens when altruism, faith, and an obsession with justice are pushed to the extreme.
Behind Bars is filled with stories both ancient and urgent of what happens when alcohol meets crime, from illicit stills in the Scottish Highlands to moonshine in the USA, rum smuggled by Caribbean pirates to the roaring times of Prohibition, current-day gangs selling millions of dollars' worth of fake Bordeaux, and the often-unsolved cases of people walking into a liquor store, stealing whiskey bottles worth tens of thousands of dollars, and walking out, never to be seen again.
Award-winning travel and drinks writer Mike Gerrard takes readers on a centuries-long journey highlighting the most bizarre - and expensive - alcohol-related crimes all while revealing the inside world of spirits, how they have been distilled, legislated, imbibed, and infused into our culture for hundreds of years. Featuring colorful tangents and detailed appendices, Behind Bars will whet the whistle of any curious reader. Spanning the stories of ancient wine swindlers in Pompeii to the modern radiocarbon-dating techniques used by today's cutting-edge scientists to investigate suspect bottles of expensive alcohol, from million-dollar robberies of wine cellars buried deep underground to whiskey rings surrounding the highest reaches of the Presidency, Gerrard smartly and swiftly reveals that the link between alcohol and crime is a never-ending story.
The disturbing true story of the notorious Cecil Hotel in downtown LA, by its general manager for a decade and star of the controversial Netflix documentary series Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.
When Amy Price took a temporary design job at an Art Deco hotel in Los Angeles to help a friend, she had no idea the path it would lead her down. Before long, she would become manager of the Cecil Hotel, seeking to make it more welcoming and correct its notoriety, not helped by sitting at the foot of Skid Row, or the fact that since its opening in 1927, there had been any number of deaths by suicide, and residents such as serial killers Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger.
She cared about guests and residents alike, though she faced challenges on many fronts, with over eighty people dying during her decade of service. Among them was Elisa Lam, whose tragic death became the subject of a Netflix documentary series that captivated millions and led to its own controversies and unwarranted personal attacks on Amy.
For the first time, Amy delves into her experiences at the Cecil Hotel. Equal parts memoir, true-crime, and cultural history, Behind the Door is essential to understanding one of America's most enigmatic hotels.
"Sam Little is the monster in this story and Jillian Lauren is the slayer. She is the one who stuck her nose into it, saw something was not right, was dreadfully wrong, in fact, and did something about it." --Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author
He was sitting right across the table... and he would have killed her if he could
Jillian Lauren had no idea what she was getting into when she wrote her first letter to prolific serial killer Samuel Little. All she knew was her research had led her to believe he was good for far more murders than the three for which he had been convicted. While the two exchanged dozens of letters and embarked on hundreds of hours of interviews, Lauren gained the trust of a monster. After maintaining his innocence for decades, Little confessed to the murders of ninety-three women, often drawing his victims in haunting detail as he spoke. How could one man evade justice, manipulating the system for over four decades?
As the FBI, the DOJ, the LAPD, and countless law enforcement officials across the country worked to connect their cold cases with the confessions, Lauren's coverage of the investigations and obsession with Little's victims only escalated.
New York Times bestselling author and lead of the Starz docuseries Confronting a Serial Killer Jillian Lauren delivers the harrowing report of her unusual relationship with a psychopath. But this is more than a deep dive into the actions of Samuel Little. Lauren's riveting and emotional accounts reveal the women who were lost to cold files, giving Little's victims a chance to have their stories heard for the first time.
"Jillian Lauren's devastating portrait of Sam Little and his innumerable victims is a journey into a darkness that is almost unfathomable; as well as an indictment of a failed justice system and the social decay that created a serial killer in the first place. Utterly gripping, this book will tear you apart." --Janelle Brown, New York Times bestselling author
Sometimes the most mystifying and enticing stories are those without an ending. Mitzi Szereto's latest collection The Best New True Crime Stories: Unsolved Crimes & Mysteries profiles the true crime stories that have mystified us for years, teasing us with possibilities and unpredictable suspects.
This inaugural edition of what will be a yearly collection offers a fascinating variety of essays and crime reporting, taken from regional, national, and international publications. The stories range from reports of homicide at a Toronto massage parlor to blackmail and murder-for-hire in Austin, Texas to an unusual murder weapon in rural Minnesota. Other stories examine controversial rehabilitation techniques for sexual criminals and explore the phenomenon of victims' relatives appearing as guests at true crime conventions.
A must-read for anyone interested in true crime, The Best True Crime Stories of the Year 2025 takes the pulse of this increasingly popular genre.
A must-read for anyone interested in true crime, The Best True Crime Stories of the Year 2025 takes the pulse of this increasingly popular genre.
"Haunting and heartfelt...Thomson's memoir is meticulously recounted with powerful suspense and hard-earned wisdom." --Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road A propulsive and moving memoir about a brother's decades-long investigation into the circumstances surrounding his sister's tragic death--and his own journey to forgiveness and closure. On a summer evening in 1974, Jim Thomson arrived home from a baseball game to the news that his younger sister, Eileen, had taken her own life. To Jim, his parents, and his brother, Keith, the loss was unexpected and devastating. Only twenty-seven years old, Eileen had been living in California with her high school sweetheart, Vic, a cop, surrounded by a circle of close friends and working at a job she loved. It seemed unfathomable that she would kill herself, but as the family gathered in Pittsburgh to say goodbye, more details emerged that seemed to explain the tragedy: Eileen had confided in her parents that she had been suffering from depression, and her storybook marriage had been plagued by bitter fights, infidelity, and guilt. When Jim eventually sat down with his brother-in-law to talk about the final hours of Eileen's life, Vic looked him in the eye and explained that he had stormed out of the room in the midst of a volatile argument. Moments later, a gunshot went off. Sensing no lies or evasion, Jim believed him. He recounted the story to the rest of the family, and they got on with their lives as best they could. Twenty-seven years later, with all of his family passed away, Eileen's death began to nag at Jim. Now a writer, he wanted to fill in the blanks of her story and answer the questions that were plaguing him. What had the final months of Eileen's life been like? Why had she not told him about her troubles? How had the infidelity in her marriage brought her and Vic to that fateful day, and who else had been a part of it? What other demons had she been battling? Determined to uncover the truth, Jim hired a private investigator to help him. Together, they tracked down Eileen's old friends and clandestinely obtained copies of police reports, which revealed that Vic and Eileen's relationship--and the sheriff's investigation that followed her death--was much darker and more complicated than they had imagined. Torn by doubt, Jim began a two-decade journey that took him from the streets of Pittsburgh to the hills of San Bernardino, leading him into a tangled web of secrecy, deception, and shifting stories that forced him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about Vic, Eileen, and himself--and to confront the chilling question of whether his sister had really taken her own life. Told with the precision and pace of a whodunit and the searing emotion of a family saga, A Better Ending is an unforgettable tale about the love between siblings, the murkiness of truth and memory, and the path to acceptance.
When Jussie Smollett took Bola Osundairo under his wing, grooming him for greater roles in Hollywood, the UNTHINKABLE happens...
Bola Osundairo couldn't believe his luck when actor, Jussie Smollett, took an interest in him. He barely knew the man when he was hired to be an extra on the hit show Empire. Within a short time, thanks to Jussie's assistance, Bola became a stand-in. His star was on the rise.
Ola Osundairo became an extra on Empire before Bola. Soon he was in a picture with the creator of the show that was posted on Instagram. His acting career was blasting off.
When Jussie asks for a favor, Bola is only too happy to help. At first, when he heard Jussie's plan, he thought it was a joke. Why would Jussie need someone to attack him? Jussie assured him this was normal in Hollywood. When Jussie asked if Bola knew of someone who could help, Bola knew his brother Ola would be perfect.
Soon Bola and Ola find themselves outcasts in Hollywood, dropped by a major casting agency, and their lives totally turned upside down.
Who are Ola and Bola Osundairo? They are so much more than the 'attackers' in Jussie's hoax. Get to know the American-Nigerian brothers. Their lives are an open book. Find out why Jussie knew Bola would agree to help him before he ever asked him to.
The truth of this hoax comes to light through text messages and emails. Never before seen evidence removes all doubt of what happened that night and explains why Bola and Ola agreed to take on this role. Was Jussie really trying to help the Osundairo brothers, or was he preparing them for the acting role that would prevent them from ever acting again?
On the night of October 23/24, 1995 in Prairie Village, Kansas, a fierce, wind-driven fire devastated the luxurious mansion of Dr. Debora Green and her husband, Dr. Michael Farrar. Trapped and burned to death in the flames were twelve-year-old Tim and his six-year-old sister Kelly. Lissa, ten, was barely able to leap to safety from the garage roof into the arms of her mother, who was standing outside the house. When Michael Farrar returned to the scene, he had lost more than his children and his home. His entire life was in ruins.
The fire was the climactic event of Michael and Debora's lives. Until that summer, they seemed to have it all -- a happy marriage, successful medical practices, three bright and beautiful children. Then they went on a trip to Peru with their son. There, they met attractive, blonde Celeste Walker, whose husband, John was also a successful doctor. But after that trip, nothing was the same again for either couple, and all the dark hidden places in Debora and Michael's marriage bubbled to the surface in a series of almost unbelievable horrors.
"Bitter Harvest" is the chronicle of this tragedy in the heartland of America, the true story of the disintegration of a marriage and its horrifying consequences. Rule takes us deep in the psyche of a killer whose behavior was so twisted and so evil that it defies belief. Gripping, powerful, and ultimately terrifying, "Bitter Harvest" is a vivid recreation of an unthinkable crime -- and a depiction of the unimagined depths of a darkness within the human spirit.
The fire was the climactic event of Michael and Debora's lives. Until that summer, they seemed to have it all -- a happy marriage, successful medical practices, three bright and beautiful children. Then they went on a trip to Peru with their son. There, they met attractive, blonde Celeste Walker, whose husband, John was also a successful doctor. But after that trip, nothing was the same again for either couple, and all the dark hidden places in Debora and Michael's marriage bubbled to the surface in a series of almost unbelievable horrors.
"Bitter Harvest" is the chronicle of this tragedy in the heartland of America, the true story of the disintegration of a marriage and its horrifying consequences. Rule takes us deep in the psyche of a killer whose behavior was so twisted and so evil that it defies belief. Gripping, powerful, and ultimately terrifying, "Bitter Harvest" is a vivid recreation of an unthinkable crime -- and a depiction of the unimagined depths of a darkness within the human spirit.
Copyright © 1998 Ann Rule. All Rights Reserved
Performance copyright 1998 by Simon & Schuster Inc. All Rights Reserved
The basis for the Apple TV+ show Black Bird.
In with the Devil presents the true story of a young man destined for greatness on the football field--until a few wrong turns led him to a ten-year prison sentence. He was offered an impossible mission: Coax a confession out of a fellow inmate, a serial killer, and walk free.
Detective Rick Jackson, a decorated LAPD detective and a key inspiration in the development of Harry Bosch, delivers a shocking and immersive look into the one case he could never let go. In June 1990, Ronald Baker, a straight-A UCLA student, was found repeatedly stabbed to death in a tunnel near Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his followers once lived. Shortly thereafter, Detective Rick Jackson and his partner, Frank Garcia, were assigned the case. Yet the facts made no sense. Who would have a motive to kill Ron Baker in such a grisly manner? Was the proximity to the Manson ranch related to the murder? And what about the pentagram pendant Ron wore around his neck? Jackson and Garcia soon focused their investigation on Baker's two male roommates, one Black, and one white. What emerges is at once a story of confounding betrayal and cold-hearted intentions, as well as a larger portrait of an embattled Los Angeles, a city in the grip of the Satanic Panic and grappling with questions of racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of Rodney King. In straightforward, matter-of-fact prose, Rick Jackson, the now-retired police detective who helped inspire Michael Connelly's beloved Harry Bosch, along with co-writer, Matthew McGough, take us through the events as he and his partner experienced them, piecing together the truth with each emerging clue. Black Tunnel White Magic is the true story of a murder in cold blood, deception and betrayal, and a city at the brink, set forth by the only man who could tell it.
"Blood in the Water is a twisty true crime narrative of greed, suspicion, and revenge, taking us from the high seas to the mansion of an enormously wealthy family. Compelling and cinematic, it keeps you guessing about the complicated family at the heart of this saga until the very last page." --Shawn Cohen, New York Times bestselling author of College Girl, Missing
Troubled waters hide deadly secrets...
When Nathan Carman, a young man with a complicated past, is miraculously rescued from a lifeboat bobbing in the unforgiving North Atlantic, questions swirl about the fate of his mother, who is presumed to have drowned when their fishing boat sank. Nathan is in remarkably good shape for being lost at sea for a week, and his account of what exactly happened out there on the waves raises questions from family members and law enforcement.
Nathan's story of a fishing trip gone awry doesn't quite add up, and suspicion mounts. The mysterious murder of Nathan's multi-millionaire grandfather a few years before had made Nathan's mother an extremely wealthy woman. With a seven-million-dollar fortune at stake, did Nathan commit the ultimate betrayal? Or is there more to this tragic tale than meets the eye?
From New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman comes a gripping contemporary true crime narrative for everyone who was fascinated by the Murdaugh murders, and for anyone compelled by the intersection between money, power, and family.
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