Manhattan's past whispers for attention amongst the bustle of the city's ever-changing landscape. At Fraunces Tavern, George Washington's emotional farewell luncheon in 1783 echoes in the Long Room. Gertrude Tredwell's ghost appears to visitors at the Merchant's House Museum. Long since deceased, Olive Thomas shows herself to the men of the New Amsterdam Theatre, and Dorothy Parker still keeps her lunch appointment at the Algonquin Hotel. In other places, it is not the paranormal but the abnormal violent acts by gangsters, bombers, and murderers that linger in the city's memory. Some think Jack the Ripper and the Boston Strangler hunted here. The historic images and true stories in Ghosts and Murders of Manhattan bring to life the people and events that shaped this city and raised the consciousness of its residents.

Gambling, prostitution and bootlegging have been going on in Steubenville for well over one hundred years. Its 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. Newspapers nationwide would come to nickname this mecca of murder "Little Chicago."

The excitement and vibrancy of big-city thrills take a deadly turn when they hit Staten Island. Edward Reinhardt murdered his wife and rolled her body in a barrel down a busy thoroughfare. A known bootlegger--and suspected police informant--was found shot three times in a Packard on South Beach, sparking one of the island's greatest mysteries. In 1843, the bodies of a mother and daughter were discovered in a Christmas Day fire; a family member would stand trial three times for their deaths. During the Jazz Age, a kiss would cost a popular Port Richmond teenager her life. Local historian Patricia M. Salmon has meticulously researched Staten Island's most horrific murders, some well known and others long forgotten.

A thoughtful and informative look at moonshine whiskey and the characters who produced it in the Southern Appalachian region.

In 1929, Chicago gangster Al Capone arranged a special St. Valentine's Day delivery for his favorite arch enemies: a massacre. Seven North Side mobsters were left dead. Yet random killings and bizarre murders were not unfamiliar in Chicago. Tales of the city's most violent and puzzling murders make this gripping work truly hair-raising: a deranged stalker kills his love object and then himself; a sausage maker uses the tools of his trade to rid himself of his wife; and a meticulous serial killer cleans his dead victims' wounds before taping them closed. Through accounts dripping with mystery, gory details and suspense, Troy Taylor brilliantly tells the twisted history of the worst of Chicago's North Side.

Prim and proper Philadelphia has been rocked by the clash between excessive vice and social virtue since its citizens burned the city's biggest brothel in 1800. With tales of grave robbers in South Philadelphia and and harlots in Franklin Square, "Wicked Philadelphia"; reveals the shocking underbelly of the City of Brotherly Love. In one notorious scam, a washerwoman masqueraded as the fictional Spanish countess Anita de Bettencourt for two decades, bilking millions from victims and even fooling the government of Spain. From the 1843 media frenzy that ensued after an aristocrat abducted a young girl to a churchyard transformed into a brothel (complete with a carousel), local author Thomas H. Keels unearths Philadelphia's most scintillating scandals and corrupt characters in his rollicking history.

Blazing from the West Side, the Great Chicago Fire left nothing but ashy remnants of the developing city leveling its landscape but certainly not its spirit. While the West Side was home to the infamous O'Leary Barn, it was also where the news of some of the city's most gruesome and horrific crime reverberated throughout the state and across the country. Read about the bloody end of Robert 'the Terrible' Toughy, who undoubtedly lived up to his name, met an ill-deserved fate. Troy Taylor also delves into the life of John Wayne Gacy the depraved man masked by the clown costume and yet again proves to be a master storyteller and historian of Chicago's criminal underworld.

As Atlanta finished rebuilding after the Civil War, a new horror arose from the ashes to roam the night streets. Beginning in 1911, a killer whose methods mimicked the famed Jack the Ripper, murdered at least twenty black women, from prostitutes to working class women and mothers. Each murder attributed to the killer occurred on a Saturday night, and for one terrifying spring in 1911, a fresh body turned up every Sunday morning. Amid a stifling investigation slayings continued until 1915. As many as six men were arrested for the crimes, but investigators never discovered the identity of the killer or killers despite having several suspects in custody. Join local historian Jeffrey Wells as he reveals the story of the Atlanta Ripper, unsolved to this day.

Prepare to be surprised and unnerved as the dark side of Charlotte is brought to life by native and longtime writer David Aaron Moore. Learn about Nellie Freeman, who nearly decapitated her husband with a straight razor in 1926. Discover how the ghosts of Camp Green infantrymen, the doughboys of World War I, still scream in the Southern night. Read about the seventy-one passengers who lost their lives as Eastern Airlines Flight 212 fell to the earth one foggy night in 1974. Come along and experience the grisly past of the City of Churches.

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.

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 finds Hicks at the state prison in Thomaston, where he remains silent and remorseless as he lives out his days behind bars. Thoroughly researched and carefully documented, "Tragedy in the North Woods" is the definitive history of one of Maine's most ruthless killers.

Thoughts of Alabama invite images of Confederate jasmine and fertile cotton fields, sweet iced tea and southern hospitality. But even in paradise, evil sometimes creeps in. Some of the stories captured within the pages of this book are well known to the good folks of North Alabama; others are less familiar. The scandals of Lincoln's brother- in-law, the reign of terror created by Huntsville's Southwest Molester, the Decatur man who buried his wife's dismembered body under the fishpond and the beautiful Black Widow of Hazel Green- all of these stories and more are well researched and masterfully written by Huntsville author Jacquelyn Procter Reeves. True-crime fans will appreciate this treasury of stories spanning nearly two hundred years of North Alabama history.

In the swamps and juke joints of Holmes County, Mississippi, Edward Tillman Branch built his empire. Tillman's clubs were legendary. Moonshine flowed as patrons enjoyed craps games and well-know blues acts. Across from his Goodman establishment, prostitutes in a trysting trailer entertained men, including the married Tillman himself. A threat to law enforcement and anyone who crossed his path, Branch rose from modest beginnings to become the ruler of a treacherous kingdom in the hills that became his own end. Author Janice Branch Tracy reveals the man behind the story and the path that led him to become what Honeyboy Edwards referred to in his autobiography as the "baddest white man in Mississippi."

At the close of the nineteenth century in the Ozark Plateau, lawlessness ruled. Lawmakers, in bed with moonshiners and bootleggers, fueled local crime and turned a blind eye to egregious wrongdoing. In response, a vigilante force emerged from the Ozark hills: the Bald Knobbers. They formed their own laws and alliances; local ministers donned the Knobber mask and brought "justice" to the hills, lynching suspected bootleggers. As community support and interest grew, reporters wrote curious articles about Knobber exploits. Join Vincent S. Anderson as he uncovers these peculiar reports including trials, lovers' spats ending in coldblooded murder and Ozark vigilante history that inspired a folk legend.

In 1907, a young girl was found dead in the Lyric Theatre, leaving behind an unwanted pregnancy and an abusive lover. On an otherwise quiet morning in 1891, a cartful of nitroglycerin exploded. The remains of the driver had to be gathered in a peck basket. The Cannonball Express lived up to its name in 1888, when an open switch caused it to shoot off the track, sending two cars flying. Local journalist A. Parker Burroughs resurrects these and other stories from southwestern Pennsylvania's shadowy past. From foul play at the Burgettstown Fair to the tragic murder of North Franklin's Thelma Young, follow the trail with Burroughs as he uncovers the crimes and intrigues of Washington County.

In the rough and tumble days of the nineteenth century Shreveport was on the very edge of the country's western frontier. It was a city struggling to tame lawlessness, and its streets were rocked by duels, lynchings, and shootouts. A new century and Prohibition only brought a fresh wave of crime and scandal. The port city became a haunt for the likes of notorious bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde and home to the influential socialite and madam, Annie McCune. From Fred Lockhart, aka "Butterfly Man," to serial killers Nathanial Code and Danny Rolling, Shreveport played reluctant host to an even deadlier cast of characters. Their tales and more make up the devilish history of the Deep South in Wicked Shreveport.

Although regional crimes hardly ever make it to the national circuit, they will always remain with the families and communities of the victims and a part of the area's history. After working with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division as special agent/forensic photographer for twenty-four years, Rita Shuler has a passion for remembering the victims. In "Small-town Slayings," Shuler takes us back in time, showing differences and similarities of crime solving in the past and present and some surprising twists of court proceedings, verdicts and sentences. From an unsolved case that has haunted her for thirty years to a cold case that was solved after fifteen years by advanced DNA technology, Shuler blends her own memories with extensive research, resulting in a fast-paced, factual and fascinating look at crime in South Carolina.

Rita Y. Shuler is also author of "Carolina Crimes" and "Murder in the Midlands,"

In September 2005 one of South Africa's most eminent mining magnates and businessmen Brett Kebble was killed on a quiet suburban street in Johannesburg. The investigation into the case was a tipping point for democratic South Africa. The top-level investigation that followed exposed the corrupt relationship between the country's Chief of Police and Interpol President Jackie Selebi and suave Mafioso Glenn Agliotti. A lawless Johannesburg underbelly was exposed - dominated by drug lords, steroid-reliant bouncers, an international smuggling syndicate, a shady security unit moonlighting for the police and sinister self-serving sleuths abusing state agencies.

Local prosecution associations were a method of controlling crime which was devised in the second half of the eighteenth century, fifty years before the introduction of police forces. They were a national phenomenon, and it is estimated that by the end of the 1700s around 4000 of them existed in England, but this book tells the story of one particular society: the Hathersage Association for the Prosecution of Felons and Other Offenders. Hathersage is a Peak District village which recently came top in a Country Living poll to determine the '20 best hidden gems in the UK'. The tourists who now visit the village in their thousands each year come as walkers, climbers, and cyclists. Its grimy history of wire and needle manufacturing is almost forgotten. In addition to telling the story of its ancient prosecution organisation, this book seeks to illuminate some of the less conspicuous aspects of Hathersage's social history by shining a light from the unusual direction of minor crime and antisocial behaviour. It also describes the lives of some of the residents of the village: minor gentry; industrialists; clergy; and farmers, in addition to the mill workers and labourers. With access to hand-written records going back to 1784 which had never been studied before, the author has drawn on contemporary newspaper articles and census returns to assemble a montage which depicts the life of the village, particularly during the 19th century. Many of these original records have been reproduced in order to offer reader an opportunity to interpret the old documents themselves. While striving for historical accuracy throughout, the author has produced a book which is both entertaining and informative. Any profits from the sale of this book will go to the Hathersage Association and will, in turn, be donated to the local charities which the Association supports. Those charities include Edale Mountain Rescue, the Air Ambulance, Helen's Trust, Bakewell & Eyam Community Transport, and Cardiac Risk in the Young.

Local prosecution associations were a method of controlling crime which was devised in the second half of the eighteenth century, fifty years before the introduction of police forces. They were a national phenomenon, and it is estimated that by the end of the 1700s around 4000 of them existed in England, but this book tells the story of one particular society: the Hathersage Association for the Prosecution of Felons and Other Offenders. Hathersage is a Peak District village which recently came top in a Country Living poll to determine the '20 best hidden gems in the UK'. The tourists who now visit the village in their thousands each year come as walkers, climbers, and cyclists. Its grimy history of wire and needle manufacturing is almost forgotten. In addition to telling the story of its ancient prosecution organisation, this book seeks to illuminate some of the less conspicuous aspects of Hathersage's social history by shining a light from the unusual direction of minor crime and antisocial behaviour. It also describes the lives of some of the residents of the village: minor gentry; industrialists; clergy; and farmers, in addition to the mill workers and labourers. With access to hand-written records going back to 1784 which had never been studied before, the author has drawn on contemporary newspaper articles and census returns to assemble a montage which depicts the life of the village, particularly during the 19th century. Many of these original records have been reproduced in order to offer reader an opportunity to interpret the old documents themselves. While striving for historical accuracy throughout, the author has produced a book which is both entertaining and informative. Any profits from the sale of this book will go to the Hathersage Association and will, in turn, be donated to the local charities which the Association supports. Those charities include Edale Mountain Rescue, the Air Ambulance, Helen's Trust, Bakewell & Eyam Community Transport, and Cardiac Risk in the Young.