Books for the Armchair Detective in Your Life

Inside some of the mildest people we know is a penchant for reading dark stories of small-town murders, or chilling serial killers. Why not arm the armchair detective in your life with true crime books from every dark corner of the American dream? Here are fascinating stories of unsolved cases, organized crime, historical murders, detective memoirs, epic manhunts, and everyday small-town murder. For the true crime fan in your life, we offer these gripping cases served hot, cold, strange, and straight – so go ahead, throw the book at them!
3 products
Cover image for Murder & Mayhem on the Texas Rails, isbn: 9781467151450
Murder & Mayhem on the Texas Rails
Jeff Campbell
$21.99
Cover image for Tragedy at Southern Oregon Tunnel 13, isbn: 9781626193468
Tragedy at Southern Oregon Tunnel 13
M Scott Mangold
$24.99
Cover image for Crime & Corruption on the Michigan Railroad, isbn: 9781467172363
Crime & Corruption on the Michigan Railroad
Michael Delaware
$24.99
Jeff Campbell

Murder & Mayhem on the Texas Rails

9781467151450

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Texas has a long, romantic history when it comes to railroads. But even though steam engines and streetcars offer nonstop service to Nostalgia City, there's a dark side to Texas rail. The Black Widow of Fort Worth engineered a fatal double-cross at a railroad crossing. The Mountaineer Madman brought death to the Texas Electric Railway, while the Trolley Bandit terrorized the citizens of El Paso. From a freak accident involving a banana peel to a tragic trip to see Santa Claus, Jeff Campbell and the staff of the Interurban Railway Museum cross the Lone Star State on trains derailed by murder and mayhem.
Cover image for Murder & Mayhem on the Texas Rails, isbn: 9781467151450
M Scott Mangold

Tragedy at Southern Oregon Tunnel 13

9781626193468

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
The DeAutremont brothers were looking for a big score. They brought dynamite, guns and a getaway car. On October 11, 1923, at the summit of the Siskiyou Mountains in southern Oregon, the three young men held up a passenger train, with disastrous consequences. Their rash actions resulted in the tragic deaths of three Southern Pacific trainmen and one U.S. Mail clerk, unleashing a public outcry that still rings through Oregon's history. In this riveting account, rail historian Scott Mangold draws on interviews, in-depth research and previously unpublished maps and photographs to document the events at Tunnel 13. Join Mangold as he chronicles the resulting four-year manhunt and eventual conviction of the DeAutremonts and provides insight into the lives derailed by the robbery's bitter legacy.
Cover image for Tragedy at Southern Oregon Tunnel 13, isbn: 9781626193468
Michael Delaware

Crime & Corruption on the Michigan Railroad

9781467172363

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%

From the author of Murder in Victorian Western Michigan and Victorian Southwest Michigan True Crime comes more thrilling stories from the Wolverine State's past.

As the Michigan Central Railroad company became a juggernaut, the nineteenth-century rail line also devolved into a bastion for crime as morality was often set aside for profit. In 1850, a grand jury indicted fifty men in Jackson County for conspiracy to commit arson after a freight depot in Detroit was set ablaze. When two Grand Trunk locomotives collided in Battle Creek in 1893 killing twenty-seven people, a conductor and an engineer each accused the other, avoiding conviction. A Mineral Ridge train robbery of $70,000 in payroll money destined for miners on the Keweenaw Peninsula was exposed by a former railroad worker involved in the heist, allowing him to escape prosecution and sending four others to prison.

Author Michael Delaware unfolds dark stories of corruption and crime from Michigan’s Victorian age.

Cover image for Crime & Corruption on the Michigan Railroad, isbn: 9781467172363