The lives of notorious bad guys, perpetrators of mischief, visionary--if misunderstood--thinkers, and other colorful antiheroes, jerks, and evil doers from history all get their due in the short essays featured in these enlightening, informative books. Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Chicago History features 15 short biographies of nefarious characters.

Discover the fascinating history of Chicago, home to President Obama, Al Capone, the Chicago Cubs, politicians, mobsters, and more, told through twenty-four dramatic true stories. Known as an expert on Chicago's folklore and crime stories, Adam Selzer takes readers through Chicago's history from the 1800s to the present with tales of the politicians, eccentrics, and the famous and infamous who shaped the city. Essays explore historic events from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 to the beginnings of the film era (Chicago was home to film long before Hollywood); speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama; the historical contributions to the birth of rock 'n roll of Chess Records, who signed Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Etta James, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon; and baseball legends and curses. Learn about the city's legendary ghosts and haunted hotels. Also included are guided walking tours around many of the sites mentioned, illustrated with color photographs and maps.

From Chicago historian Adam Selzer, expert on all of the Windy City's quirks and oddities, comes a compelling heavily researched anthology of the stories behind its most fascinating unsolved mysteries. To create this unique volume, Selzer has collected forty unsolved mysteries from the 1800s to modern day. He has poured through all newspaper, magazine, and book references to them, and consulted expert historians. Topics covered include who really started the great Chicago fire, who was the first "automobile murderer," and even if there was actually a vampire slaying at Rose Hill cemetery. The result is both a colorful read to get lost in, a window to a world of curiosity and wonder, as well as a volume that separates fact from fiction true crime from urban legend. Complementing the gripping stories Selzer presents are original images of the crime and its suspects as developed by its original investigators. Readers will marvel at how each character and crime were presented, and happily journey with Selzer as he presents all facts and theories presented at the time of the "crime" and uses modern hindsight to assemble the pieces.

The most sensational and intriguing murders from across the USA are re-examined in this disquieting volume, which introduces readers to the most lethal killers from every state. Spanning the period from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the Second World War, these are homicides from a seminal period of American criminal history, an era that saw the formation of the first state police agency, the first murderer convicted using fingerprints and the birth of the FBI laboratory. Every murder case is accompanied by an elegant contemporary map or bespoke floorplan on which the precise movements of both killer and victim are meticulously plotted, offering unrivalled insight into the vital components of the crime. The macabre picture is completed with early mugshots and unnerving crime scene photographs, bringing to life bloodsoaked Wild West saloons, inner city ganglands and the deadly machinations behind famous assassinations. The killers featured range from the 'Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run', who attacked and dismembered his victims in Cleveland's most unsavoury suburb, to the black widow Belle Gunness, who lured numerous victims to her Illinois farm, and from the infamous Texan bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde to the devious Petrillo cousins in Philadelphia and their contract killing service. Crime expert Adam Selzer illuminates the details of each case, recounting both the outrageous details of the crimes themselves and the ingenious detective work and breakthrough forensics that solved them. His bloodthirsty tour of America's criminal underworld uncovers the ruthless scheming of murderers both infamous and little-known, providing a hair-raising anthology to appeal to anyone with a taste for murder. With 764 illustrations in colour

Flickering Empire tells the fascinating yet little-known story of how Chicago served as the unlikely capital of American film production in the years before the rise of Hollywood (1907-1913). As entertaining as it is informative, Flickering Empire straddles the worlds of academic and popular nonfiction in its vivid illustration of the rise and fall of the major Chicago movie studios in the mid-silent era (principally Essanay and Selig Polyscope). Colorful, larger-than-life historical figures, including Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Oscar Micheaux, and Orson Welles, are major players in the narrative-in addition to important though forgotten industry titans, such as "Colonel" William Selig, George Spoor, and Gilbert "Broncho Billy" Anderson.

Flickering Empire tells the fascinating yet little-known story of how Chicago served as the unlikely capital of American film production in the years before the rise of Hollywood (1907-1913). As entertaining as it is informative, Flickering Empire straddles the worlds of academic and popular nonfiction in its vivid illustration of the rise and fall of the major Chicago movie studios in the mid-silent era (principally Essanay and Selig Polyscope). Colorful, larger-than-life historical figures, including Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Oscar Micheaux, and Orson Welles, are major players in the narrative-in addition to important though forgotten industry titans, such as "Colonel" William Selig, George Spoor, and Gilbert "Broncho Billy" Anderson.

The city of Chicago is unquestionably the weirdest and most haunted city in America With a history dating back to the early 1800s that is filled with violent events, mysterious happenings and a lot of very strange characters, there is no other place like it in the country. Now, in the most complete book ever written on Chicago ghosts and strange history, the creators of the Weird Chicago Tours reveal just how that homegrown weirdness has shaped the city that we know today - and shows that Chicago iw weirder than any city should legally be allowed to be With notebooks and cameras in hand, the Weird Chicago crew has scoured the city in search of the haunted, the odd and the offbeat. They have tracked down bizarre history, unusual people, weird roadside attractions, forgotten remnants of the past, unexplained happenings and more ghost stories than have appeared in any other book before, plus the truth behind many Chicago hauntings that you only thought you knew From Hull House to Resurrection Mary, to Dillinger to Al Capone, this book showcases the most unusual aspects of Chicago - and just what makes it so haunted, weird & unique Packed full of stuff that you aren't going to find anywhere else, this is a journey that you're never going to forget