True Crime
Based on clinical experience of killers. Includes a selection of USA/UK serial killer studies. Exposes police and other failings and shortcomings and the perversity of 'defences', 'excuses', etc. Strongly critical of USA gun laws and attitudes or perspectives making for an unhealthy environment, moral vacuum and lack of official/individual awareness and responsibility.
Dr Eric Cullen describes how he was 'so profoundly moved' by his inescapable conclusions about how serial killers are 'made' that he felt compelled to set out his findings. A critic of the serial killer growth industry, unhealthy interest and ill-informed comment he sets the record straight. Serial killers are made not born.
But his more central polemic is that serial killers are one of several malign human by-products of a dysfunctional, unduly permissive society, overwhelmingly American, brought about by modern-day culture and lax moral standards (as also reflected in other countries to the extent that they pursue a comparable way of life).
"Crime is a fact of the human species, a fact of that species alone."
--Georges Bataille, French philosopher
Interest in criminal behavior continues to flourish.
The worse the crime and the greater the notoriety of the perpetrator, the more the public yearns to digest every detail.
Atlas of True Crime offers a wide-ranging survey of the criminal underworld from the 1850s to the present, providing illustrated histories of dozens of infamous individuals who have left their mark on society -- in the darkest ways possible.
Profiled are the apex serial killers: John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz; the cannibals: Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein and Albert Fish; and the spree killers like Richard Speck, Charles Whitman and Charles Manson; plus murderers and cannibals from around the world.
Other contents include:
Filled with striking archival photos in a full-color design with full-color maps, this expansive volume will fascinate true-crime buffs everywhere.
"The Barn is serious history and skillful journalism, but with the nuance and wallop of a finely wrought novel... The Barn describes not just the poison of silence and lies, but also the dignity of courage and truth." -- The Washington Post "The most brutal, layered, and absolutely beautiful book about Mississippi, and really how the world conspired with the best and worst parts of Mississippi, I will ever read...Reporting and reckoning can get no better, or more important, than this." --Kiese Laymon
"An incredible history of a crime that changed America." --John Grisham
"With integrity, and soul, Thompson unearths the terrible how and why, carrying us back and forth through time, deep in Mississippi--baring sweat, soil, and heart all the way through." --Imani Perry A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long
Wright Thompson's family farm in Mississippi is 23 miles from the site of one of the most notorious and consequential killings in American history, yet he had to leave the state for college before he learned the first thing about it. To this day, fundamental truths about the crime are widely unknown, including where it took place and how many people were involved. This is no accident: the cover-up began at once, and it is ongoing. In August 1955, two men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were charged with the torture and murder of the 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. After their inevitable acquittal in a mockery of justice, they gave a false confession to a journalist, which was misleading about where the long night of hell took place and who was involved. In fact, Wright Thompson reveals, at least eight people can be placed at the scene, which was inside the barn of one of the killers, on a plot of land within the six-square-mile grid whose official name is Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, fabled in the Delta of myth as the birthplace of the blues on nearby Dockery Plantation. Even in the context of the racist caste regime of the time, the four-hour torture and murder of a Black boy barely in his teens for whistling at a young white woman was acutely depraved; Till's mother Mamie Till-Mobley's decision to keep the casket open seared the crime indelibly into American consciousness. Wright Thompson has a deep understanding of this story--the world of the families of both Emmett Till and his killers, and all the forces that aligned to place them together on that spot on the map. As he shows, the full horror of the crime was its inevitability, and how much about it we still need to understand. Ultimately this is a story about property, and money, and power, and white supremacy. It implicates all of us. In The Barn, Thompson brings to life the small group of dedicated people who have been engaged in the hard, fearful business of bringing the truth to light. Putting the killing floor of the barn on the map of Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, and the Delta, and America, is a way of mapping the road this country must travel if we are to heal our oldest, deepest wound.
A young woman is found dead on the floor of a Tijuana hotel room. An ID in a nearby purse reads "Atlantis Black." The police report states that the body does not seem to match the identification, yet the body is quickly cremated and the case is considered closed.
So begins Betsy Bonner's search for her sister, Atlantis, and the unraveling of the mysterious final months before Atlantis's disappearance, alleged overdose, and death. With access to her sister's email and social media accounts, Bonner attempts to decipher and construct a narrative: frantic and unintelligible Facebook posts, alarming images of a woman with a handgun, Craigslist companionship ads, DEA agent testimony, video surveillance, police reports, and various phone calls and moments in the flesh conjured from memory. Through a history only she and Atlantis shared--a childhood fraught with abuse and mental illness, Atlantis's precocious yet short rise in the music world, and through it all an unshakable bond of sisterhood--Bonner finds questions that lead only to more questions and possible clues that seem to point in no particular direction. In this haunting memoir and piercing true crime account, Bonner must decide how far she will go to understand a sister who, like the mythical island she renamed herself for, might prove impossible to find.
The gripping story of a young woman's murder, unsolved for over two decades, brilliantly investigated and reconstructed by her stepsister.
Growing up, Rachel Rear knew the story of Stephanie Kupchynsky's disappearance. The beautiful violinist and teacher had fled an abusive relationship on Martha's Vineyard and made a new start for herself near Rochester, NY. She was at the height of her life-in a relationship with a man she hoped to marry and close to her students and her family. And then, one morning, she was gone. Around Rochester-a region which has spawned such serial killers as Arthur Shawcross and the "Double Initial" killer-Stephanie's disappearance was just a familiar sort of news item. But Rachel had more reason than most to be haunted by this particular story of a missing woman: Rachel's mother had married Stephanie's father after the crime, and Rachel grew up in the shadow of her stepsister's legacy. In Catch the Sparrow, Rachel Rear writes a compulsively readable and unerringly poignant reconstruction of the case's dark and serpentine path across more than two decades. Obsessively cataloging the crime and its costs, drawing intimately closer to the details than any journalist could, she reveals how a dysfunctional justice system laid the groundwork for Stephanie's murder and stymied the investigation for more than twenty years, and what those hard years meant for the lives of Stephanie's family and loved ones. Startling, unputdownable, and deeply moving, Catch the Sparrow is a retelling of a crime like no other.
***With a brand new chapter, updates on the investigations, 8 pages of exclusive photos, and a behind-the-scenes conversation between Billy Jensen and retired detective Paul Holes on the Golden State Killer, their favorite cold cases, and more***
The New York Times bestselling true-crime hit, now in trade paperback!
Journalist Billy Jensen spent fifteen years investigating unsolved murders, fighting for the families of victims. Every story he wrote had one thing in common--they didn't have an ending. The killer was still out there.
But after the sudden death of a friend, crime writer and author of I'll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara, Billy became fed up. Following a dark night, he came up with a plan. A plan to investigate past the point when the cops had given up. A plan to solve the murders himself.
You'll ride shotgun as Billy identifies the Halloween Mask Murderer, finds a missing girl in the California Redwoods, and investigates the only other murder in New York City on 9/11. You'll hear intimate details of the hunts for two of the most terrifying serial killers in history: his friend Michelle McNamara's pursuit of the Golden State Killer and his own quest to find the murderer of the Allenstown Four. And Billy gives you the tools--and the rules--to help solve murders yourself.
Gripping, complex, unforgettable, Chase Darkness with Me is an examination of the evil forces that walk among us, perfect for every true crime fan who has read I'll Be Gone in the Dark and wants to know "what's next?"
"The book is pure story: chronological, downhill, fast." - Globe and Mail
From the outside looking in, Jennifer Pan seemed like a model daughter living a perfect life. The ideal child, the one her immigrant parents saw, was studying to become a pharmacist at the University of Toronto. But there was a dark, deceptive side to the angelic young woman.
In reality, Jennifer spent her days in the arms of her high school sweetheart, Daniel. In an attempt to lead the life she dreamed of, she would do almost anything: lie about her whereabouts, forge school documents, and invent fake jobs and a fictitious apartment. For many years she led this double life. But when her father discovered her web of lies, his ultimatum was severe. And so, too, was her revenge: a plan that culminated in cold-blooded murder. And it almost worked, except for one bad shot.
The story of Jennifer Pan is one of all-consuming love and devious betrayal that led to a cold-hearted plan hatched by a group of youths who thought they could pull off the perfect crime.
2017 Arthur Ellis Award, Best Nonfiction Book - Winner
