Books for the Armchair Detective in Your Life

Name: Murder & Mayhem in Herkimer County
Brand: Caryl Hopson
SKU: 9781467144391
Price: 23.99 USD
Availability: InStock

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!

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Murder & Mayhem in Herkimer County

Paperback

$23.99

Crusading Iowa Journalist Verne Marshall

Paperback

$21.99

Murder & Mayhem on Ohio's Rails

Paperback

$23.99

Onondaga County Sheriff's Office

Wicked Washtenaw County

Paperback

$21.99

Injustice on the Eastern Shore

Justice in the Midlands

Manhattan Beach Police Department

Mystery on the Vineyard:

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Murder & Mayhem in Herkimer County

9781467144391

$23.99

Caryl Hopson and Susan R. Perkins collect historic narratives of murder and mayhem in Herkimer County.

Herkimer County is steeped in history, from the settlement of the Mohawk Valley by Palatine German settlers to the flood of western migration with the opening of the Erie Canal. But the region also boasts an infamous history of high-profile homicides and crimes. Roxalana Druse murdered her abusive husband and became the last woman to be hanged in New York in 1887. The death of Grace Brown on scenic Big Moose Lake became one of the most famous cases in the country in 1906, inspiring author Theodore Dreiser’s novel An American Tragedy. Psychological tests of intelligence were admitted into court for the first time in an acquittal of sixteen-year-old Jean Gianini in 1914.

Crusading Iowa Journalist Verne Marshall

9781467135979

$21.99

On December 12, 1934, police raided a canning factory in Cedar Rapids, uncovering an illegal liquor and gambling set-up. Verne Marshall, tempestuous editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, sensed a bigger story and a wider network of corruption. His aggressive investigative reporting led to multiple resignations, nearly fifty indictments and the dramatic trial of the state's attorney general. These explosive exposés earned Verne Marshall and the paper the 1936 Pulitzer Prize. Author Jerry Harrington traces the legacy of Marshall's incendiary crusade across Iowa's political landscape.

Murder & Mayhem on Ohio's Rails

9781626192607

$23.99

Ride Ohio's rails with some of the bravest trainmen and most vicious killers and robbers to ever roll down the tracks.

The West may have had Jesse James and Butch Cassidy, but Ohio had its own brand of train robbers. Discover how Alvin Karpis knocked off an Erie Railroad train and escaped with $34,000. Learn about the first peacetime train holdup that took place in North Bend when thieves derailed the Kate Jackson, robbed its passengers and blew the Adam's Express safe. Make no mistake--railroading was a dangerous job in bygone days.

Onondaga County Sheriff's Office

9781467134538

$24.99

The Onondaga County Sheriff's Office was formed on March 5, 1794. At that time, its jurisdiction covered what had previously been known as the Military Tract, a 1.75 million–acre stretch of land made available as bounty to soldiers of the Continental army during the Revolutionary War. Since then, the episodes that sketched the history of Onondaga County and Central New York have painted an exciting historical portrait of the sheriff's office and the role it has played in the development of its communities. Intriguing theaters of the office's history include promoting peace with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, maintaining jails, conducting early legal hangings, suppressing insurrections, policing the storied Erie Canal, and keeping pace of the ever-changing trends in crime, technology, and strategy.

Charleston's Trial

9781596295766

$21.99

June 1910, Charleston, South Carolina. A Jewish merchant, Max Lubelsky, lay murdered in his clothing store on Upper King Street. The black man eventually convicted of the crime was arrested several weeks later as an angry mob called for his lynching. What followed became the story of one man's quiet protestations of innocence in the face of overwhelming condemnation by the white community. Drawing on local historical records and detailed court transcripts, Charleston historians Danny Crooks and Doug Bostick give an intimate account of the proceedings, as well as provide the historical background on the vices, violence and victims of the Holy City during the Jim Crow era. Join them as they reveal the tale of a man whom justice passed by in the hot Southern summer.

Portland on the Take

9781626197497

$21.99

In an era when Portland's shipyards thrived, so, too, did corruption. The Red Scare that followed the 1934 Waterfront Strike allowed gangsters to gain control of some of the city's unions. Working in cahoots with high-ranking city officials, criminals like Al Winter and James Elkins gained power and influence, often using goon squads of union men and hired criminals to enforce their will. Now authors JD Chandler and JB Fisher bring Portland's days of civic corruption and hidden murders out of the shadows. With unprecedented access to the police investigative files of the Frank Tatum murder of 1947 and the detective notebooks and tape recorder transcripts of Multnomah County sheriff's detective Walter Graven, the authors shed new light on Portland's turbulent mid-twentieth-century past.

Wicked Washtenaw County

9781596299122

$21.99

Washtenaw County has a dark and sordid history, filled with unexplained murders and vicious crimes. Venture into the dead of night with medical students from the University of Michigan as they snatch bodies from fresh graves. Discover how Irene Walling Smith, born and raised in Ypsilanti, became known as the Bandit Queen of the despicable Kozak Gang. Head back to Ann Arbor in 1878, when Howard Williams was found dead in his home with an empty bottle of morphine by his sidewas it murder, suicide or overdose? Revisit the puzzling details of the unsolved 1913 murder of seventy-three-year-old Elizabeth Stapish, something of an eccentric in Chelsea, who was strangled and buried under a pile of cornhusks in her barn. Join local history author and columnist James Mann as he reveals the enigmatic history of this Michigan county.

Injustice on the Eastern Shore

9781626199422

$23.99

Lynching rumors simmered as journalists descended on the small town of Millington, Maryland, in the spring of 1892. The frenzy focused on nine African American men and boys—some as young as fifteen—accused of murdering Dr. James Heighe Hill, who was white. Prosecutors portrayed this as retribution for the Christmas Eve slaying of Thomas Campbell, an African American, for which no one faced criminal charges. Hill's alleged assailants were tried as a group before three white judges. Although some were clearly bystanders, all but one were convicted and sentenced. Four were executed by hanging, and the rest died in prison. Using court records, contemporary accounts and newspapers, author G. Kevin Hemstock narrates the tragic and compelling story of justice denied on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Justice in the Midlands

9781467145428

$24.99

The murder of Ron "Little Red'? Beasley is one of the most bizarre murder cases in Midlands history solved after 30 years. Beasley's murder was originally ruled a suicide, but his family and his friend Herman Young refused to believe. This mystery, with a background of macabre events and colorful characters, remained unsolved since 1967. Beasley's murder was originally ruled a suicide, but his family and his friend Herman Young refused to believe. And when Beasley's wife was convicted of murdering her second husband, they grew even more suspicious. Young went on to become sheriff of Fairfield County and made it his mission to find the truth. Join author Lou Sahadi as he details the gruesome details of a murder, two dramatic court trials and the untiring work of a lawman to find justice for his friend.

Wicked Fishers

9781467144629

$21.99

Present-day Fishers, Indiana, is one of the safest places to live in the U.S., but this respectable city has a rough and rowdy past.

Starting off as a small railroad community, Fishers attracted its fair share of drifters, and the whiskey flowed like water. It may have been small, but the lawless town made national headlines on more than one occasion. A two-day bar brawl led to one death and dozens of injuries and required the Sheriff to restore order. A sensational trial exposed mass grave robberies and led to legislative changes. James Redwine became the town's first homicide victim over a Christmas turkey shootout. Author Robert Bowling explores the history of this once small town and the misdeeds that thrust it into the national spotlight.

Manhattan Beach Police Department

9780738520896

$24.99

The small community of Manhattan Beach, located in the county of Los Angeles, is situated on the shore of the Santa Monica Bay. Late in the 1800s, there was little need for law enforcement: this unspoiled terrain along the ocean coastline with its shifting sands, scrub brush, and native wildflowers had yet to be cultivated. By 1912, the sparsely populated area had been incorporated and the city fathers appointed the first peace officer, Fred W. Petway, who was one of three marshals to serve the new town. In 1924, the position of police chief was created with the appointment of Fred Garvin. However, it would be many years before a first-class police department would oversee the safety and security of the growing community. This volume tracks a century of social change and dramatic episodes that challenged a long line of dedicated men and women in law enforcement. Each of these professionals raised the bar on the high standard of police department service that operates in this seaside municipality today.

Mystery on the Vineyard:

9781596294233

$21.99

In the pre, World War II innocence of small-town America, a dapper off-Islander impresses the locals. Drawn to the prettiest girl, he is upset when an elderly woman tries to break off their romance. In a drunken stupor he murders the troublesome woman. Through an amazing confluence of circumstances, he avoids prosecution. The reclusive, paranoid teacher of the victim attracts the attention of a distracted district attorney who is eager for a sensational trial to promote himself in an impending election. The teacher is arrested and charged with the murder. The looming shadows of war on the international stage capture the people of Martha's Vineyard, and the local murder fades into the murky memoirs of history.

Murders in Monmouth

9781596293489

$21.99

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.