New Book Releases

Author John E. O’Rourke recounts the crime that rocked a sleepy community and brought the nation’s eyes to North Jersey.

On a spring morning in Morristown in 1992, authorities discovered a car idling in a driveway with the door open and the driver missing. After they learned the driver was Sidney Reso, the president of Exxon International, the FBI joined the investigation. Over the next two months, law enforcement received cryptic communications that led to a cat-and-mouse chase for those responsible. Retired cop Arthur Seale and his wife, Irene, demanded one of the largest ransoms in U.S. history, and authorities struggled to solve the case.

In 1914, Poland, New York, was a picturesque slice of small-town America. But that innocence was shattered with the shocking murder of beloved schoolteacher Lida Beecher at the hands of her former student Jean Gianini. At twenty-one years old, Lida wasn't much older than her students. The son of a successful furniture dealer, Jean had all the advantages in life, but he had been labeled as different by all who encountered him. The shocking murder brought the world's best alienists to the packed Herkimer County Courthouse to try to prove that the teenager's mental development precluded his guilt. Author Dennis Webster utilizes unprecedented access to court documents to reveal details of the sensational crime never before made known to the public.

Visit the long ago crime and dire deeds in the Hudson Valley of New York.

The Hudson Valley is drenched in history, culture and blood. In the fall of 1893, Lizzie Halliday left a trail of bodies in her wake, slaughtering two strangers and her husband before stabbing a nurse to death at the asylum housing her. A Jazz Age politician, tired of fighting with his overbearing wife, murdered her and buried the body under the front porch. In 1882, a cantankerous old miner, dubbed the Austerlitz Cannibal by the press, chopped up his partner before he himself swung from the end of a rope. Author Andrew Amelinckx dredges up the Hudson Valley's dark past, from Prohibition-era shootouts to unsolved murders, in eleven heart-pounding true stories.

Murder on Maryland's Eastern Shore, by former Worcester County, Maryland State's Attorney Joseph E. Moore, explores the racially charged case of Euel Lee, alias Orphan Jones, an African American worker accused of murdering his white employer and family. Moore reconstructs the crime and ensuing trial of Orphan Jones against the backdrop of Jim Crow politics, which was very much a part of America in the 1930s. Moore provides accurate detail, local color and an enlightening empathy with all the participants in the saga of Euel Lee. He has sought out and mastered the available evidence, even to the extent of locating the two confessions of the convicted murderer. The Euel Lee case as explored by Joe Moore is more than good, readable, local history. It is about the stresses and strains in American society in the Depression, from the radicalism of a young Communist lawyer to the conscious efforts of a rural community to contain violence, confront or at least deal with their prejudices and see that justice was served for a senseless murder in their midst. Moore sets a high standard of factual accountability and entertaining narrative based upon oral history and archival research. General readers and scholars alike will not be disappointed.

Many of the North Jersey Shore towns we know today began as quiet retreats for pious New Yorkers wishing to escape the vice and crime of the city.

Towns such as Long Branch, Ocean Grove, Red Bank, and Atlantic Highlands all got their start like this, but with the passage of Prohibition in 1919, the region became a haven for criminals who began smuggling liquor through the serene seaside. Speakeasies sprang up on virtually every corner, as gangsters like Vito Genovese, Charles "Lucky'? Luciano, and Meyer Lansky ruled this brutal underworld, while civilians were caught in the crossfire of gun battles between rival syndicates. Discover the true drama that captured the Jersey Shore during Prohibition.

Why do people kill? In the case of the young and mentally unstable Frank Zastera, the rationale was as simple as the act was brutal: he wanted William Sheppard's money. In other homicides, such as the still-unsolved 1913 murder of George Harris, the motive for committing the ultimate crime remains obscured for eternity. In Murders in Monmouth, author George Joynson unflinchingly assembles the who, what, when, where and why surrounding twelve high-profile killings perpetrated by various individuals in early twentieth-century Monmouth County.

Local historians Geoffrey Fleming and Amy Folk uncover this gruesome 19th-century story of revenge and murder on Long Island.

In the mid-19th century, James Wickham was a wealthy farmer with a large estate in Cutchogue, Long Island. His extensive property included a mansion and eighty acres of farmland that were maintained by a staff of servants. In 1854, Wickham got into an argument with one of his workers, Nicholas Behan, after Behan harassed another employee who refused to marry him.

Several days after Behan's dismissal, he crept back into the house in the dead of night. With an axe, he butchered Wickham and his wife, Frances, and fled to a nearby swamp. Behan was captured, tried, convicted and, on December 15, became one of the last people to be hanged in Suffolk County.

Visitors gazing out over the Highlands of coastal New Jersey might never guess that these rolling hills have been a stage for mankind's darkest deeds.

Author John King shines a spotlight on the region's violent history of kidnapping, murder, smuggling, and extortion. From axe-wielding lunatics to killers who leave calling cards, King presents each case with the care of a criminal investigator, including details from coroners' reports and witness testimonies. In this sensational and gripping read, uncover the gritty history of the Highlands, where suspicious death typically meant foul play and staying in a hotel might cost you your life.

Stylish resorts, breathtaking vistas and glittering lakes are hallmarks of the Catskills region. But since the pre- Revolutionary era, this seemingly idyllic vacationland has been a theater for some of mankind's darkest deeds and evildoers, including the notorious Murder, Inc. Caroline Crane explores the stories behind the bodies and bones that turn up here, from the bizarre hex murder at Stone Arch Bridge to the murderous escapades of Lethal Lizzie. Meet Claudius Smith, the hotheaded Tory outlaw who terrorized local colonists, and Dutch Schultz, the mobster whose fortune still lies buried in the mountains. Murder & Mayhem in the Catskills provides a fascinating glimpse into the shadowy heart of the mountains and reveals the area s surprising connections to some of America's most infamous criminals.

St. Lawrence County is known for its picturesque waters and pristine seasons. But underneath this fair facade lies a sordid past, rife with tales of killings and cunning, like the man who slashed his wife to death after instructing a constable to close the door and depart; a robbery that descended into the brutal axing of a mother and her two small children; the unsolved case of a young woman bludgeoned to death on school grounds in an upscale neighborhood; and the gruesome poisoning of one man at the hands of his son, his wife and her lover. Join author Cheri Farnsworth as she investigates these and other notorious cases of murder and mayhem in New York's North Country.

Jefferson County, located in New York's beautiful North Country, has a dark and violent past. During the long winter months, it was not the cold that was feared, but the killers. In 1828, Henry Evans committed a crime so brutal that the location in Brownsville is still called "Slaughter Hill." A real-life "Little Red Riding Hood," eleven-year-old Sarah Conklin met someone far worse than a wolf on her way home from school in 1875. And in 1908, Mary Farmer, a beautiful young mother hacked her neighbor to death and was sent to the electric chair. Author Cheri L. Farnsworth has compiled the stories of the most notorious criminal minds of Jefferson County's early history.