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Much of Western Maine reads like a Stephen King novel.

The dense dark woods and backcountry ponds. The century-old houses with gravel driveways and immense flower gardens, acres of farmland miles from a highway. Serpentine country roads dotted with farmstands, and picturesque main streets lined with battered pickups. Places where-especially during the dark and rainy days of October and November—things can get downright spooky. 

Author Sharon Kitchens identifies the locations that serve as the basis for King’s fictional towns of Castle Rock, Jerusalem’s Lot, Derry, and Haven. Drawing on historical materials and conversations with locals and people who know King, the author sheds light on daily life in places that would become the settings for Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Dead Zone, Cujo, IT, and 11/22/63.

In the Steel City, "Yinzer" is a term of endearment, reserved for the city's most beloved and embraced by locals as a symbol of the grit and determination that Pittsburgh endows anyone from there.

The city's undeniable impact on the character and life of those who grew up there has shaped iconic figures of American sports, entertainment and culture. Legends of the gridiron such as Jim Kelly, Tony Dorsett, Dan Marino and Joe Namath forged their football prowess in Western Pennsylvania. Business pioneers including Mark Cuban, Ray Werner and Bill Strickland were ingrained with the value of hard work in the Steel City. Music and movie stars like Jeff Goldblum, George Benson and Billy Gardell found creative inspiration in Pittsburgh that led to new heights. Author Dick Roberts presents profiles, interviews and memories from some of the most famous and adored Pittsburghers.

Cursed awards, haunted estates, and deadly sets.   Hollywood is supposed to be the place where dreams come true, but it's also where nightmares come to life. Spirits haunt the halls of renowned studios, legendary cafes, and lavish estates, while rumors of curses lurk in the shadows of the rich and famous. It's said that stars like James Dean, Carrie Fisher, and Prince once predicted their own deaths, while slain screenwriter Paul Bern tried in vain to warn Sharon Tate about her own fate. Ghosts reportedly linger in the corners of the El Coyote Café and the Falcon Lair boasts sightings of Rudolph Valentino long after his death./ Join author and paranormal historian Brian Clune for a star-studded tour of the dark side of Hollywood.

Chilling Tales of the Hudson Valley

Nestled on the banks of the Hudson River, Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown are steeped in history and ghost lore. Famous for Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the storied Westchester region also has a dark history of witches, spies, and pirates. Rumors of Headless Horseman sightings surge during spooky season while visitors flock to the Valley’s haunted hot spots like the Old Dutch Church and the famed writer’s Sunnyside home. Join author and journalist Sam Baltrusis on a bone-chilling journey through the streets of Sleepy Hollow as he breathes new life into the legendary village’s long-departed souls.

A Thrilling Lost Chapter of Mob Rule

Western Pennsylvania’s New Kensington was in the grips of Mafia control throughout the 1950s, with a bevy of bookie joints, gambling casinos and brothels. An outgrowth of the Pittsburgh mob, New Kensington’s Costa Nostra ordered a group of Mafiosi to break into a National Guard station in Ohio and steal a shipment of weapons. The guns were destined for Fidel Castro, who was waging guerrilla war in Cuba. The Pittsburgh Mafia was hoping to get on Castro’s good side if he won the war to secure the reopening of gambling casinos. From a daring heist in Canada to Swiss bank accounts and CIA informants, this infamous gunrunning scheme was a high-speed saga of international intrigue. Join author Richard Gazarik as he presents a harrowing historical narrative of the criminal underworld of Western Pennsylvania.

In 1988, Judge Joe O'Kicki was regarded by his peers as one of the most brilliant legal minds in the United States. He was newly re-married, sworn in as the president judge of a Pennsylvania county and on the fast track to a federal bench....

Silently, however, a state police vice unit was in the midst of covert operation into O'Kicki's personal affairs. The judge would be accused of soliciting bribes, frequenting brothels and running the county as if he were a "battleship commander.'? Later he'd concoct a plan to flee the country and exact revenge on his enemies.

Set in the aftermath of the 1977 Johnstown flood and including courtroom testimony, the memos of whistleblowers, contemporary interviews and excerpts from O'Kicki's unfinished tell-all memoir, "Jailing the Johnstown Judge'? is a fresh examination of the extraordinary Western Pennsylvania case that attained international infamy.

During the early twentieth century, Sicilian and Southern Italian immigrants poured into New York City.

Looking to escape poverty and persecution at home, they soon discovered that certain criminal enterprises followed them to America. Before any codes of honor were established in the New World, violent bosses wreaked havoc on their communities in their quest to rule the underworld. It took several decades for the Mafia to mature into a contemporary organized crime syndicate. Some names and places from both eras are still infamous today, like Frank Costello and the Copacabana, while some have remained hidden in absolute secrecy until now. Walk in their footsteps as New York City author Eric Ferrara explores the myths and realities of one of America's most feared and fascinating subjects.

What do Vincent Price, Harrison Ford, Jackie Chan, and Uma Thurman all have in common with Frank Lloyd Wright? Answer: The Movies.

The influence of Frank Lloyd Wright on architecture can’t be overstated, and his unique creations have also left a lasting impression on movie audiences.

From the Marin County Civic Center’s starring role in George Lucas’s first feature film to the famous Ennis House appearing in multiple movies, eight of Wright’s California buildings have served as dramatic settings for stories about power, wealth and dystopian futures. Inspiring generations of filmmakers, these sites—both public and private—remain some of the most iconic places captured on film. With behind-the-scenes production facts and a peek into Wright’s design process, author Mark Anthony Wilson recounts the legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture in the movies.

This book features:

• 120 color and black and white images, including scenes from popular Hollywood films such as Blade Runner, Black Rain and A Summer Place, as well as cult favorites like House on Haunted Hill, Permanent Midnight, and Cannibal Women in The Avocado Jungle of Death.
• Little known facts about how Frank Lloyd Wright's work influenced Alfred Hitchcock and about Wright's friendship with Walt Disney and his comments about some of Disney's most famous films.
• Detailed information about how to visit those Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in this book that are open to the public.
• The controversies created by several of these films that caused members of some audiences to leave the theater in moral outrage and caused other audiences to scream in horror.
• Behind-the-scenes comments by Hollywood directors and producers about why they chose to use Frank Lloyd Wright buildings or design features in their films.
• A look at how Frank Lloyd Wright's design philosophy influenced the style of Hollywood films and how some of his strong-willed female clients got him to change the design of their homes.
• Why Frank Lloyd Wright was accused of being a "communist sympathizer" and "un-American" near the end of his career, and why this nearly derailed the construction of one of his most famous buildings.

In Yaphank, New York, hid the greatest threat to the United States war effort during World War II: the American Nazi.

Building on racial and ethnic biases, lack of trust in government and a dose of conspiracies, the German American Bund was able to contribute to a growing American fascist movement. Fueled partially by Nazi Germany’s financing of propaganda, thousands of New Yorkers embraced the ideals of an American Reich through retreats such as Yaphank’s Camp Siegfried, which groomed Nazi sympathizers to be ready for the fascist overthrow of the American republic. In opposition to Nazism, multiple local citizen groups fought to combat the Bund’s organized efforts to undermine America. Author Christopher Verga brings to life the often-overlooked history of New York’s World War II era through a story of Nazi sedition, espionage and citizen resistance to preserve the American republic.

“With previously unknown details, The West Virginia University Co-Ed Murders is a page-turning murder mystery.” --Hoppy Kercheval, Host, Talkline

Some said the killer couldn’t be a local. Others claimed he was the wealthy son of a prominent Morgantown family. Whispers spread that Mared and Karen were sacrificed by a Satanic cult or had been victims of a madman poised to strike again. Then the handwritten letters began to arrive: “You will locate the bodies of the girls covered over with brush--look carefully. The animals are now on the move.” Investigators didn’t find too few suspects, they had far too many. There was the campus janitor with a fur fetish, the “harmless” delivery man who beat a woman nearly to death, the nursing home orderly with the bloody broomstick and the bouncer with the “girlish” laugh who threatened to cut off people’s heads.

Local authors Geoff Fuller and S. James McLaughlin tell the complete story of the WVU co-ed murders for the first time.

Explore the dark and mysterious past of New Orleans with this riveting collection of tales that devle into the most haunted city in America.

New Orleans--the Big Easy, the birthplace of jazz, home of Cafe du Monde and what some call the most haunted city in America. Beneath the indulgence and revelry of the Crescent City lies a long history of the dark and mysterious. From the famous Queen of Voodoo, Marie Laveau, who is said to haunt the site of her grave, to the wicked LaLauries, whose true natures were hidden behind elegance and the trappings of high society, New Orleans is filled with spirits of all kinds. Some of the ghosts in these stories have sordid and scandalous histories, while others are friendly specters who simply can't leave their beloved city behind. Join supernatural historian Troy Taylor as he takes readers beyond the French Quarter and shows a side of New Orleans never seen.

Most know Detroit as the hometown of Motown legends like Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. And they’re all here! But beyond the well-known list of famous Detroiters awaits a veritable who’s who of pop culture, sports, TV, movies and more.

Christie Brinkley, Robin Williams, Sonny Bono, Lucille Ball, Charles Lindbergh, Robert Wagner, Lizzo, Tom Selleck, Ty Cobb, the creator of Gumby, the guy who portrayed Jaws in the James Bond films, and many more.

Compiling over 100 names and places, author Steve Platto leads a celebrity tour of the Motor City that readers can take with them on their own travels or explore from the comfort of home.

Did the phrase “That’s what I was wondering…” solve a murder?

In the morning hours of July 16, 1936, Helen Clevenger’s uncle discovered her bloodied body crumpled on the floor of her small room in Asheville’s grand Battery Park Hotel. She had been shot through the chest. Buncombe County Sheriff Laurence Brown, up for reelection, desperately searched for the teenager’s killer as the public clamored for answers. Though witnesses reported seeing a white man leave the scene, Brown’s focus turned instead to the hotel’s Black employees and on August 9 he arrested bell hop Martin Moore. After a frenzied four-day trial that captured the nation’s attention, Moore was convicted of Helen’s murder on August 22. Though Moore confessed to Sherriff Brown, doubt of his guilt lingers and many Southerners feared that justice had not, in fact, been served.

Author Anne Chesky Smith weaves together varying accounts of the murder and investigation to expose a complex and disturbing chapter in Asheville’s history.

Island Escapes, South Seas Adventures, and Musical Surf Parties of Midcentury Cinema

Tiki Culture arose as the defining expression of American pop culture during World War II and its influence continued through the 1960s. The essence of Tiki featured heavily in films of the era, depicting palm-tree and cocktail-laden escapes that captivated audiences nationwide. Films like South Pacific and The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit were a hodgepodge of jungle imagery and World War II Pacific theater memories. A fascination with the new State of Hawaii was reflected in Elvis's Blue Hawaii, while balmy youth flicks like Beach Blanket Bingo and Gidget showcased surf, sun and fun.

Join authors Jason Henderson and Adam Foshko as they explore films about the experiences of war filtered through the tropical splendor that defined an era.

Death on the Turnpike

Discover the bloody story of John Wesley Wable's 1950s killing spree that rocked Western Pennsylvania, and left truckers and drivers alike frightened of the turnpike. After a series of murdered truck drivers and a high-speed interstate chase, Wable's gruesome criminal story also involves a thrilling court case and unresolved mysteries to do this day.

Author Richard Gazarik details the incredible true crime narratives of the man dubbed the "Pennsylvania Turnpike Phantom Killer."

The full account of the 18th-century hanging of a school teacher is detailed in detailed in Carolyn Marvin's dramatic tale.

On a cold December morning in 1768, thirty-one-year-old Ruth Blay approached the gallows erected for her execution. Standing on the high ground in the northwest corner of what is now Portsmouth's old South Cemetery, she would have had a clear view across the pasture to the harbor and open sea. The eighteenth-century hanging of a schoolteacher for concealing the birth of a child out of wedlock has appeared in local legend over the last few centuries, but the full account of Ruth's story has never been told. Drawing on over two years of investigative research, author Carolyn Marvin brings to light the dramatic details of Ruth's life and the cruel injustice of colonial Portsmouth's moral code. As Marvin uncovers the real flesh-and-blood woman who suffered the ultimate punishment, her readers come to understand Ruth as an individual and a woman of her time.

Boston journalists Beverly Ford and Stephanie Schorow navigate the backrooms and seedy hangouts throughout the real story of Boston's gangster past.

The capture of notorious mobster James Whitey Bulger closed an infamous chapter in Boston history, yet the city's criminal underworld has a long and bloody rap sheet that stretches back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Ford and Schorow reveal the underbelly of Boston through profiles of ruthless gangsters like Charles King Solomon, the Angiulo brothers, Joseph The Animal Barboza, Stephen The Rifleman Flemmi and many more who carried out deadly hits and lucrative heists.

Steubenville Ohio, a mecca of murder was nicknamed Little Chicago with gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging running rampant for over one hundred years.

Steubenville's Water Street red-light district drew men from hundreds of miles away, as well as underage runaways. The white slave trade was rampant, and along with all the vice crimes, murders became a weekly occurrence. Law enforcement seemed to turn a blind eye, and cries of political corruption were heard in the state capital. This scenario replayed itself over and over again during the past century as mobsters and madams ruled and murders plagued the city and county at an alarming rate.

Violent bank heists, bold train robberies and hardened gangs all tear across the history of the wild west--western Pennsylvania, that is.

The region played reluctant host to the likes of the infamous Biddle Boys, who escaped Allegheny County Jail by romancing the warden's wife, and the Cooley Gang, which held Fayette County in its violent grip at the close of the nineteenth century. Then there was Pennsylvania's own Bonnie and Clyde--Irene and Glenn--whose murderous misadventures earned the trigger blonde and her beau the electric chair in 1931. From the perilous train tracks of Erie to the gritty streets of Pittsburgh, authors Thomas White and Michael Hassett trace the dark history of the crooks, murderers and outlaws who both terrorized and fascinated the citizenry of western Pennsylvania.

Chicago Heights was long the seat of one of the major street crews of the Chicago Outfit, but its importance has often been overlooked and misunderstood.

The crew's origins predate Prohibition, when Chicago Heights was a developing manufacturing center with a large Italian immigrant population. Its earliest bosses struggled for control until a violent gang war left the crew solidified under the auspices of Al Capone. For the remainder of the twentieth century, the boys from Chicago Heights generated large streams of revenue for the Outfit through its vast gambling enterprises, union infiltration and stolen auto rackets. For the first time, the history of the Chicago Heights street crew is traced from its inception through its last known boss.

How Long Beach caused the death of John A. Lamb.

Immediately after his 1914 election as mayor of Long Beach, Louis Napoleon Whealton fired the chief of police and raided the city treasury. To replenish the funds, Mayor Whealton concocted a scheme to collect fines from any male “who made advances toward other men.” Two special police officers entrapped and arrested thirty-one men, dragging them before a judge to pay up or risk a public trial. When one victim refused to play along, newspapers were quick to publish the names of everyone accused, including local pharmacist and popular churchman John A. Lamb. His suicide made headlines, but the city continued to target gay men well into this century.

Author and historian Gerrie Schipske uncovers the story of a tragic death with far-reaching consequences in Long Beach.

Take a tour of Buffalo, NY's mobster and mafia history. Local mob expert reveals gangsters' stories, hangouts and more.

Buffalo has housed its fair share of thugs and mobsters. Besides common criminals and bank robbers, a powerful crime family headed by local boss Stefano Magaddino emerged in the 1920s. Close to Canada, Niagara Falls and Buffalo were perfect avenues through which to transport booze, and Magaddino and his Mafiosi maintained a stranglehold on the city until his death in 1974. Local mob expert Michael Rizzo takes a tour of Buffalo's mafia exploits everything from these brutal gangsters' favorite hangouts to secret underground tunnels to murder.

Fifty-seven Irish immigrant laborers arrived in the port of Philadelphia in June 1832 to work on Pennsylvania's Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad. They all perished within six weeks.

Contractor Philip Duffy hired them to work a stretch of track in rural Chester County known as Duffy's Cut. For more than 180 years, the railroad maintained that cholera was to blame and kept the historical record under lock and key. In a harrowing modern-day excavation of their mass grave, a group of academics and volunteers found evidence some of the laborers were murdered. Authors and research leaders Dr. William E. Watson and Dr. J. Francis Watson reveal the tragedy, mystery and discovery of what really happened at Duffy's Cut.

In the wake of a love affair and a mysterious chain of events, Tom Dooley was convicted and hanged for the murder of Laura Foster.

At the conclusion of the Civil War, Wilkes County, North Carolina, was the site of this nationally publicized crime of passion, the nation's first. This notorious crime became an inspiration for musicians, writers and storytellers ever since, creating a mystery of mythic proportions. Through newspaper articles, trial documents and public records, Dr. John E. Fletcher brings this dramatic case to life, providing the long-awaited factual account of the legendary murder. Join the investigation into one of the country's most enduring thrillers.

Haunting cold cases from the Heart of It All/

Northern Ohio is best known for its stunning lake views and bustling cities, but even a region as gorgeous and prosperous as this has seen its measure of tragedy. Judy Martins was a beautiful Kent State University coed who disappeared after a dorm party. Frank Noch was a mathematical genius and valuable employee at the General Motors plant in Cleveland. Someone broke into his home and killed him. Hinckley Police Chief Mel Wiley had a secret. Maybe that is why he disappeared. DNA helped Sandusky Police identify a Jane Doe forty-three years to the day she washed up on the shores of Lake Erie. Now, detectives are hoping to find out who put Patricia Greenwood in the water and why.

Award-winning author Jane Ann Turzillo unfolds these unsolved cases and eight more from the north of the Buckey State.

Discover the lasting legacy of Southern Women during the Revolutionary War whether they were on the sidelines or on the battlefield.

Each of the Southern Revolutionary battlefields holds the history of soldiers and legends of women. From the wooded slopes of Kings Mountain to the fields of Cowpens, to the lesser-known sites like Fishing Creek and Hanging Rock, author Robert M. Dunkerly uncovers the stories and legends surrounding the women who were caught up in the struggle. This book serves not only as a study of the battles, but also as a chronicle of the experiences of women in the eighteenth century. Some were camp followers attached to the armies, while others were civilians caught in the line of fire. Women were present on nearly every battlefield, and their stories are told here for the first time.

On July 26, 1981, eight-year-old Cheryl Ziemba and her four-year-old brother, Christopher, disappeared from their backyard in Old Forge, Pennsylvania.

Within hours, hundreds of neighbors, police and firefighters were engaged in a frantic search, praying that they were not a town “snakebitten,” or cursed to misfortune. Two days later, all hope was lost when firefighters discovered the bodies of the children in an abandoned strip-mining pit. Pennsylvania State Police arrested their fifteen-year-old neighbor, Joey Aulisio, who was tried as an adult and sentenced to death by electric chair. Forty-three years later, Joey Aulisio still sits in prison.

Author Brian W. Kincaid presents a definitive account of one of the most infamous crimes and sensational trials in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The tragic story of the murders of three women committed over three decades by one cold-blooded man in Maine's North Woods.

Jennie Cyr disappeared in 1977. Jerilyn Towers vanished in 1982. Lynn Willette never came home on a night in 1994. Each woman had a relationship with James Hicks, who in 2000 confessed to murdering them, dismembering their bodies and burying the remains alongside rural roads in Aroostook County. This is their story.

Author Trudy Irene Scee follows Hicks from the North Woods to west Texas, detailing three decades of evasion, investigation and prosecution. She interviews police officers and victims' families—and meets Hicks at the state prison in Thomaston, where he remains remorseless as he lives out his days behind bars. Thoroughly researched and carefully documented, Tragedy in the North Woodsis the definitive history of one of Maine's most ruthless killers.

Author Robert Thompson recounts the harrowing story of Phebe Tucker Cunningham, from her marriage at Prickett's Fort to her return to the shores of the Monongahela.

Life on the West Virginia frontier was a daily struggle for survival, and for Phebe Tucker Cunningham, that meant the loss of her four children at the hands of the Wyandot tribe and being held captive for three years until legendary renegades Simon Girty and Alexander McKee arranged her freedom. Thompson describes in vivid detail early colonial life in the Alleghenies and the ways of the Wyandot, providing historical context for this unforgettable saga.

South Dakota’s Mathis Family Murders brought death and deception to the heartland.

It was perhaps the most infamous murder case in state history. Ladonna Mathis was shot twice in the head at point-blank range inside the family’s metal shed serving as their makeshift home. Two of her three children, ages 2 and 4, were also shot in the head. The brutality of the killings shocked the state and set off a frenzy of law enforcement activity. Despite its intensity, the investigation never found the murderer or the murder weapon. Though charged with the crime, the husband was acquitted, leaving the door open for endless speculation about what really occurred on that late summer morning of Sept. 8, 1981.

With renewed insight from those involved, veteran South Dakota journalist Noel Hamiel explores this cold case of murder and mystery that still haunts the Mount Rushmore state.

In the summer of 1967, 19 year old Brenda Joyce Holland disappeared.

A mountain girl who had come to Manteo to work on The Lost Colony, Brenda’s body was found three days later, floating in the Sound. This riveting narrative, built on unique access to state investigative files and multiple interviews with insiders, searches for the truth of the unsolved murder. This island odyssey of discovery includes séances, a suicide, and a supposed shallow grave.

Journalist John Railey cuts through the myths and misdirections to finally arrive at the long-hidden truth of what happened to Brenda Holland that summer on Roanoke Island.

The saga of The Montana Stranglers in Dakota Territory embodies the violence and vigilantism of the Old West

In the early 1880s, desperate characters left over from the fur trade began robbing arriving settlers in the wilderness of Eastern Montana and Northwestern Dakota Territory. Gangs of horse thieves sprang out of camps from the Musselshell in Montana, along the Missouri into Dakota Territory, up into Mouse River-Dogden Butte country and ending at Turtle Mountain. Cattlemen and homesteaders formed vigilance committees, including Granville Stuart's Montana Stranglers, resulting in the violent death of fifty-four people from September 1883 to December 1884. They weren't all guilty and there were probably more. Author Ron Berget shares this thoroughly researched, true story of the Montana Stranglers' bloody pursuits throughout the northern plains.

Since William Penn presided over the state's only official witch trial in 1684, witchcraft and folk magic have been a part of the history of the Keystone State.

English and German settlers brought their beliefs in magic with them from the Old World--sometimes with dangerous consequences. In 1802, an Allegheny County judge helped an accused witch escape an angry mob. Susan Mummey was not so fortunate. In 1934, she was shot and killed in her home by a young Schuylkill County man who was convinced that she had cursed him. In other regions of the state, views on folk magic were more complex. While hex doctors were feared in the Pennsylvania German tradition, powwowers were and are revered for their abilities to heal, lift curses and find lost objects. Folklorist Thomas White traces the history and lore of witchcraft and the occult that quietly live on in Pennsylvania even today.

The last Public Enemy No. 1 of the Depression era, Alvin “Creepy” Karpis reportedly compiled a record of fifty-four aliases, fifteen bank robberies, fourteen murders, three jailbreaks and two kidnappings.

His criminal career came to an end when J. Edgar Hoover and his famed G-Men apprehended the man they wanted more than any other in New Orleans. From there, Karpis found himself confined on Alcatraz Island, where he spent nearly twenty-six years - more than any inmate in the prison’s history. Historian Julie Thompson tells the true story of Karpis’s life and career, a riveting tale taking readers from rural Kansas and Ohio to the bustling streets of the Big Easy and into the bleak innards of “the Rock.”

Local storyteller Jonathan Kruk shares the mysterious lore of the Hudson Valley, best known among them Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." 

This exciting volume and its author has been featured in the Travel Channel's "Mysteries at the Museum," and helped establish the galloping goblin's origin story.

The story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman is one of America's best known fables, but what other stories does the Hudson Valley hold? Imps cause mischief on the Hudson River, a white lady haunts Raven Rock, Major Andre's ghost seeks redemption and real headless Hessians search for their severed skulls. These mysterious and spooky tales from the region's past that inspired Irving and continues to captivate the imagination to this day.

Capturing the Younger Brothers Gang in the Northern Plains: The Untold Story of Heroic Teen Asle Sorbel is a historic tale of vigilante valor

Near sleepy Hanska slough, September 21, 1876, Norwegian teen Asle Sorbel made a daring “Paul Revere ride" into Madelia, Minnesota. His efforts, and those of the Madelia Magnificent Seven, led to the capture of the Younger Brothers of the Jesse James-Younger Gang. The gang’s botched Northfield bank raid and infamous Madelia Shoot Out were well reported. But, Alse’s story was lost to history. Friends of the outlaws planned reprisals. Alse changed his name, his persona and his location. He kept his mount shut. In 1883, he quietly reestablished himself in Dakota Territory. As years passed, he became the premier horse doctor in the Webster, South Dakota area, all the while haunted by vigilant fear.

Author Arley K. Fadness uncovers the lost secrets and remarkable life of valiant Asle Oscar Sobel.

Author Amy Petulla uncovers the curious case that left two men dead and the incredible story still surrounded by controversy, speculation and myth.

In 1982, Tony West and Avery Brock made a visit to notorious Corpsewood Manor under the pretense of a celebration. They brutally murdered their hosts. Dr. Charles Scudder and companion Joey Odom built the castle in the woods in the Trion forest after Scudder left his position as professor at Loyola. He brought with him twelve thousand doses of LSD. Rumors of drug use and Satanism swirled around the two men. Scudder even claimed to have summoned a demon to protect the estate. The murders set the stage for a trial vibrant with local lore.

Social scientist and crime writer James A. Buccellato explores Detroit's struggle with gang violence, public corruption and the politics of vice during the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century.

Though detectives denied it, the Italian mafia was operating in Detroit as early as 1900, and the city was forever changed. Bootleggers controlled the Detroit River and created a national distribution network for illegal booze during Prohibition. Gangsters, cops and even celebrities fell victim to the violence. Some politicians and prominent businessmen like Henry Ford's right-hand man, Harry Bennett, collaborated closely with the mafia, while others, such as popular radio host Gerald Buckley, fought back and lost their lives.

Discover the ghostly lore of Glass City

The city of Toledo is rich in tradition and history, including a lively collection of spooky tales and odd occurrences. A murdered maid and a bashful child are but two of numerous restless spirits roaming the notoriously haunted Oliver House. The nuns of St. Ursula's Academy, now the Collingwood Arts Center, tend the campus in death as they did in life. Supernatural events at the Toledo Yacht Club may be explained by its little-known history. Employees of the Toledo Zoo have reported strange things after hours, and the Franklin Park Mall, the airport, and even a Rite-Aid have their own chilling stories.

Pinpointing fifty locations across the city, paranormal expert Chris Bores uncovers Toledo's haunted history.

Enduring mysteries from the Hoosier State

Crime and tragedy have all too often disturbed the peace and stained the memory of Indiana’s bucolic countryside. The small town of Dupont was thrust into the nation's spotlight in 1947 after a series of suspicious deaths were blamed on a well-known local housekeeper—suspected serial killer Lottie “Tot” Lockman. On a fall day in 1976, a Benton County farmer found an unusual package in his cornfield—a corpse. Dubbed “The Box Lady of Benton County,” her identity remains a mystery. On September 13, 1989, Joseph Bova was killed outside of his Merrillville home when a pipe bomb rigged to his truck’s ignition exploded. With no witnesses, suspects, or motive, his case remains unsolved.

Author Autumn Bones explores some of Indiana’s least-known unsolved cases.

U.S. Route 44 stretches across New England from Massachusetts to Connecticut before completing its circuit in New York State, 237 miles later. Along the way, travelers may encounter the infamous Bridgewater Triangle, take a haunted tour of Plymouth, or see the ghosts of Chepachet.

Follow in the footsteps of famous science fiction horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft from Providence to Glocester, Rhode Island. Follow the road through small towns and dark forests where sightings of UFOs and cryptids have surprised travelers for years.

Join authors Tom D’Agostino and Arlene Nicholson as they explore the dark corners of New England’s most haunted highway.

North Carolina holds a special place in the history of moonshine. For more than three centuries, the illicit home-brew was a way of life.

NASCAR emerged from the illegal moonshine tradeas drivers such as Junior Johnson, accustomed to running from the law, moved to the racetrack. A host of colorful characters populated the state's bootlegging arena, like Marvin Popcorn Sutton, known as the Paul Bunyan of moonshine, and Alvin Sawyer, considered the moonshine king of the Great Dismal Swamp. Some law enforcement played a constant cat-and-mouse game to shut down illegal stills, while some just looked the other way. Authors Frank Stephenson and Barbara Mulder reveal the gritty history of moonshine in the Tar Heel State.

The Ohio State Reformatory has a century long history of housing thousands of the most dangerous criminals, and the angry ghosts of the past still roam the corridors.

First opened in 1896, the Ohio State Reformatory intended to do what their name implied, to reform young offenders, but eventually came to house the most dangerous criminals in society. Built on a former Civil War camp ravaged by disease, one can only imagine the unease creeping through the cells and down the dark corridors, made famous as the backdrop for the The Shawshank Redemption. The prison grew to hold more than a thousand prisoners, suffering what were described as brutalizing and inhumane conditions. Ghost tour guide Sherri Brake escorts the reader on a tour of the dark and violent history of one of America's most notorious prisons, the spirits of these men still haunting these halls, forever searching for justice... or revenge.

Cold Case Clues

On May 21, 1932, Arthur Oker, a mild-mannered Finnish tailor, was brutally murdered in his shop in the small seaside town of Rockport, Massachusetts.

While this unsolved crime terrified local residents, their fears increased after another horrifying murder, that of Swedish immigrant and fellow churchgoer Augusta Johnson in her home on Halloween night in 1933. Following the crimes, authorities searched every house and building in Rockport, and some 2,500 households were interviewed. A reward was posted, a mystic volunteered her services and local children wearing badges provided by a breakfast cereal company joined in the search. However, the crimes went unsolved. Local authors Robert Fitzgibbon and Wayne Soini reveal long-lost details about the crime, the investigation and a surprise suspect from the state police archives.

Investigate the mysteries surrounding the brutal murder of Wauwatosa’s Arthur "Buddy" Schumacher Jr.

In 1925, the peaceful Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa found itself involved in mystery and horror. Eight-year-old Arthur "Buddy" Schumacher Jr. was last seen by three of his friends after they hopped off a freight train they'd jumped to get a ride to a nearby swimming hole.

For seven weeks, the community and state searched desperately to find the boy until his body was found just a mile from his house with his clothing torn and a handkerchief shoved down his throat. The police pursued several promising leads, but to no avail.

In this engaging mystery, author Paul Hoffman walks us back to the scene of the crime and through the reasons it was never solved.

The Saga of a Brutal Murder

Janet Siclari, a beautiful 35-year-old visitor to the Outer Banks, was found raped and fatally stabbed on the early morning of August 28, 1993, behind the iconic Carolinian hotel at Nags Head. After a long and intriguing probe, two investigators ultimately charged a suspect, thanks to advances in DNA testing. Defense attorneys, trying to save that defendant’s life, argued another suspect could have killed Janet. In this moving narrative, based on exclusive interviews with case insiders, investigative author John Railey reveals for the first time all the twists and turns that led to the killer’s conviction.

They used arsenic to obtain chemical divorces and strychnine to settle scores. They bludgeoned husbands to make way for lovers. They flattened love triangles with blunt objects. They murdered for money, for revenge, for pleasure./

Meet the heiress who just could not take “no” for an answer from her mechanic lover; meet the two nursing home workers whose deadly game ended after the murders of six residents; meet the three sirens who lured a wealthy banker to the strip poker game of death. And many, many other Michigan mistresses of mayhem in this collection of true crime tales.

Haunting mysteries from America’s Heartland/

Indiana rightly prides itself as a safe place to live. Nevertheless, the Hoosier State has experienced its share of unexplained deaths and unsolved disappearances. The state’s oldest missing child case, the disappearance of four-year-old Richmond Byers from Seelyville in 1904, may never be solved. The 1998 attempted bombing of the Tippecanoe County Courthouse remains one of the only unsolved instances of domestic terrorism in the United States. The identities of Bedford’s so-called Carnival Babies will likely forever be unknown. The 1929 murder of Elizabeth Miller may have been the result of the community’s belief that she was a witch, but the true culprit has never been brought to light./

Author of Unsolved Indiana/ Autumn Bones explores some of Indiana’s least known unsolved mysteries.

“Ninety percent of [what] was written about me is bullshit”

Isadore Blumenfeld, aka Kid Cann, came to Minnesota as a toddler when his family emigrated from Romania. In Prohibition-era Minneapolis, a city of vast wealth inequality and vicious antisemitism, young Isadore rose from impoverished newsboy to millionaire. Kid Cann’s ruthless determination, growing organized crime network and willingness to commit wanton violence ignited his meteoric ascent. He got away with innumerable crimes over four decades before a series of relatively minor offenses brought him down. Although ravaged by stress and stripped of his social stature, the infamous gangster earned a place in the folklore of Minnesota. Historian Ron de Beaulieu recounts the saga of the state’s most notorious crime boss.

From Mesoamerican mysteries to local legends, history waits to be unearthed on Colorado’s western slope.

Revelations include discovering new evidence in the infamous Alferd Packer case and old Spanish colonial relics near Kannah Creek. Investigators follow the trail of lost Spanish explorers searching for the Seven Cities of Gold and pursue archaeological signs of a prehistoric civilization north of Collbran. Expeditions search for the legend of the Utes’ Cave of the Ancients and the fabled location of Aztlán, the Aztecs’ original homeland.

A crew of historians, archaeologists and scientists, the Western Investigations Team uses ground-penetrating radar, electron microscopy, innovative metallurgic research and newly discovered documents to reexamine fascinating historical questions and contribute new chapters to history.

Death & Destruction in the Queen City

Cincinnati's history is rife with reprehensible crimes and great tragedies. In 1874, a brutal murder caught the attention of a strange and notorious journalist who turned the crime into a legend. In the 1930s, Cincinnati resident Anna Marie Hahn became Ohio's first female serial killer and the first woman executed in its electric chair--but she isn't the only serial killer to have darkened the dangerous streets of the city. Murderers are not the only monsters. Microbes did the dirty work in 1849 and 1919, and Mother Nature herself turned killer in 1937 when the Ohio River lethally overflowed its banks.

Explore stories of murder and catastrophe as author and history lecturer Roy Heizer leads this dark journey into the sinister side of Cincinnati.

During the 1800s, when northeast Oklahoma was part of Indian Territory, many fugitives from US justice, like Henry Starr and Cherokee Bill, sought refuge in its hills and hollows. Statehood in 1907 did little to tame the area. Northeast Oklahoma remained a hideout for outlaws into the gangster era of the 1930s, when one of the biggest manhunts in history failed to flush Pretty Boy Floyd from the rugged Cookson Hills. Even in modern times, the region has been home to its share of desperate characters and notorious incidents. Join award-winning author Larry Wood as he chronicles dramatic criminal episodes in northeast Oklahoma history. 

An Agatha Nominee for Best Non-Fiction

On a bitter November night in 1945, a widow shot her young boarder, a WWII veteran, and left him to die on the floor of his room.

Helen Clark tossed the gun under the neighbor’s porch and then took a taxi to join her teen daughters at a movie in Bristol. When the body was found, after several conflicting statements, she settled on the claim that he shot himself–four times, twice in the back. The Commonwealth of Virginia called it murder in a jealous rage. The trial enthralled the nation.

Local author Greg Lilly uses newspaper coverage of the murder, the investigation and the trial to reveal the facts of the Abingdon boardinghouse murder.

Down-home sayings, turns of phrase and expressions that have stood the test of time and tell the story of Eastern North Carolina word by word.

Growing up on a farm in the heart of eastern North Carolina's tobacco country, author Phil Beaman has been surrounded by country folk and their colorful language his entire life. Though these communities continue to change, the bond of their phrases, expressions, colloquialisms and just plain talk has remained within the hearts and minds of their people. Beaman chronicles this language in a humorous and fascinating collection of eastern North Carolina's most down-home sayings. Everything from the weather to drunken sayings to gobbledygook is presented straight from the horse's mouth. You may not know how to pronounce some of the words, but you will surely enjoy a trip back to the halcyon days of livin' off the land and chewin' the fat..

King Philip’s War not only left much of early New England in ruins, but it also left a permanent psychic scar upon the land that still resonates in the many haunted places where wartime tragedies took place.

Ghosts of both settlers and indigenous peoples flourish in the region to this day where battles, murders, and massacres took place. Even the ghost of Metacom, better known as King Philip, roams the many places he held dear in life. Visit Nine Men’s Misery in Cumberland, Rhode Island, where screams of the victims of the war can still be heard. Take a trip to Hockamock Swamp where ghosts and strange creatures roam among the thicket. Stroll the paths along Sin and Flesh Brook where the ghost of Reverend Howland is seen centuries after he was brutally murdered by the enemy. These are just a few of the many places that still harbor eternal tenants from one of the bloodiest conflicts ever fought on American soil.

Authors Thomas D’Agostino and Arlene Nicholson uncover the dark side of what is largely considered the “Forgotten War.”

"Show me your cemeteries, and I will tell you what kind of people you have.'?- Benjamin Franklin

Discover the historic haunts and frightful specters that make the city of brotherly love a haven for unexplained phenomena.

Author Josh Hitchens details the spooky stories of Philadelphia's past and present.

Listen to the unrestful dead of the Buckeye State's many graveyards

Throughout Ohio, chilling tales abound of places where the dead do not rest in their peaceful earthen beds. In a field east of Cleveland, the ghost of a missing farmhand returned to expose his murder. The violin music of a Cincinnati-area abolitionist continues to linger at a small burial ground in the hills west of the city, and a grave in Central Ohio is haunted by the spirit of a young girl with an ancestral connection to a dark chapter of America's past.

E.R. Cutright, founder of Columbus Ghost Tours in Columbus, explores the sundry Ohio cemeteries and graveyards where the dead demand their stories be told.

The author of Michigan's Haunted Lighthouses shares tales of disaster and misfortune on the Great Lakes.

Losing one's life while tending to a Great Lakes lighthouse sadly wasn't such an unusual occurrence. Death by murder, suicide or other tragic causes--while rare--were not unheard of. Two keepers on Lake Superior's Grand Island disappeared one early summer day in 1908, their decomposed remains found weeks later. A newly hired and some say depressed keeper on Pilot Island in Wisconsin's Door County slit his own throat after a consultation with a local butcher about the location of the jugular vein. A smallpox outbreak in the late 1890s led to the tragic death of a lighthouse hired hand on South Bass Island in Lake Erie.

Join author Dianna Stampfler as she uncovers the facts (and debunks some fiction) behind some of the Great Lakes' darkest lighthouse tales.

Bucolic Door County has a rich haunted history of spooky shipwrecks, bizarre tales and ghost stories.

Because Door County received its name from Death's Door, the perilous strait with more freshwater shipwrecks than anywhere else in the world, it should be no surprise that the idyllic county has plenty of ghostly history. In the company of storyteller Gayle Soucek, meet lighthouse keepers whose sense of duty extends beyond the grave. Catch a glimpse of the phantom ship Le Griffon, never seen for more than a moment since it sailed through a crack in the ice in 1679. And it is not just the waters of Door County that carry the freight of haunted tales--Country Road T has its share of spooks, bizarre beasts have caused disturbances in the woods and there are whispered rumors that infamous gangster Al Capone added to the county's stock of ghosts through a handful of brutal murders, including an ex-girlfriend and two unacknowledged children.

While the Salem witch trials get the most notoriety, Virginia's witchcraft history dates back many years before that.

Colonial Virginians shared a common belief in the supernatural with their northern neighbors. While the witchcraft mania that swept through Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 was significant, fascination with it has tended to overshadow the historical records of other persecutions throughout early America. The 1626 case of Joan Wright, the first woman to be accused of witchcraft in British North America, began Virginia’s own witch craze. Utilizing surviving records, author, local historian and Emmy Award-winning screenwriter Carson Hudson narrates these fascinating stories.

Fear, rumor and white supremacist ideals clashed with an unprecedented labor action spawned an epic tragedy.

On November 23, 1887, white vigilantes gunned down unarmed black laborers and their families due to strikes on Louisiana sugar cane plantations. A future member of the U.S. House of Representatives was among the leaders of a mob that routed black men from houses and forced them to a stretch of railroad track, ordering them to run for their lives before gunning them down. According to a witness, the guns firing in the black neighborhoods sounded like a battle. Author and award-winning reporter John DeSantis uses correspondence, interviews and federal records to detail this harrowing true story.

Authors Joseph Bilby and Harry Ziegler chart the brief rise of the Ku Klux Klan and how New Jersey collectively stood up to bigotry.

The state, though, was not immune to the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the first half of the twentieth century. Former vaudevillians Arthur H. Bell and his wife used the tactics of public theater to advertise and recruit for the organization. At a massive riot in Perth Amboy, thousands of immigrants besieged a few hundred Klansmen, tossed them out of building windows, burned their cars and ran them out of town. The allying of pro-Nazi German Bund groups and the Klan in the lead-up to World War II marked the end of the Klan’s foothold. Authors Joseph Bilby and Harry Ziegler chart the brief rise of the Ku Klux Klan and how New Jersey collectively stood up to bigotry.

Across the state of Michigan, uneasy spirits stir in what should be their final resting places.

At Reynolds Cemetery in Jackson, the ghost of Eunice White, traveling from nearby Woodlawn Cemetery, can be seen visiting her father's grave. A mysterious lady in white roams the center of Lovejoy Cemetery in Durand. An apparition of the pacing man appears at Mount Joy in St. Johns. And only the bravest dare visit the Upper Peninsula's Mission Hill Cemetery, where a Native American spirit might appear to point them in the right direction.

Author and paranormal investigator Bradley P. Mikulka leads a tour of some of the Wolverine State's many haunted cemeteries.

The spirits of the Old West are alive and kicking in Flagstaff.

Once home to outlaws and pioneers, many former residents of this small mountain town never left. Read about the ghosts of the Weatherford Hotel, where strange sightings and disturbing events aren't just confined to the Zane Grey Ballroom. Step inside the Hotel Monte Vista, where locals swear that the Grizzly Meat Man still roams the hallways. Discover the historic train depot, an eternal home to those departed souls that once worked the rails, including a ghostly former train conductor.

Join author Susan Johnson as she uncovers the supernatural side of Flagstaff's fascinating history.

Discover what life was like in the heyday of the abandoned mines that dot the Nevada landscape, now host to the spirits of those who lost their lives in pursuit of gold, silver, and salt.

Step into the Silver State’s past, where the echoes of once-thriving boomtowns and mining operations reverberate through the desert to this day. Explore the remnants of a drowned town exposed by the receding waters of Lake Mead, and an abandoned pet cemetery sure to send chills down your spine. The bones of prehistoric creatures lie beside the former residents of Berlin, and in Goodsprings, reports of ghostly celebrity sightings stir up excitement.

Join author Heather Leigh on a journey through the eerie history of Nevada’s ghost towns.