"True crime devotees won't want to miss this one "
---"Publishers Weekly"

"Very engrossing . . . in the finest you can't put it down tradition."
---"Hartford Courant"

"This factual account of each murder, through the conviction of the killer, has all the excitement of a first-rate work of fiction, and is told straight, without the usual sociological jargon. Keyes collaborated with Robin Moore on "The French Connection"; "The Michigan Murders" is his first solo effort, and it is a good one."
--"-Miami Herald"

""The Michigan Murders" is the ultimate True Crime classic, unfolding like great mystery fiction while still delivering the powerful charge of real life."
---Jamie Agnew, Aunt Agatha's Mystery Bookshop

With a new prologue by Mardi Link and a new epilogue by Laura James

The true story of the savage coed killings---by the boy who could have lived next door

Southeastern Michigan was rocked in the late 1960s by the terrifying serial murders of young women, whose bodies were dumped in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. In each case, few clues were left at the scene, and six separate police agencies were unable to end the horror. Then, almost by accident, a break came. The suspect: John Norman Collins, a young, quiet, all-American boy.

Collins was caught, went to trial, and, on August 19, 1970, was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. He is now in his sixties and is serving his sentence in Marquette, Michigan.

Collins was one of the first serial killers exposed in the region, and his crimes had many in the area locking their doors for the first time. Edward Keyes's harrowing "The Michigan Murders" covers every step of the case. It fell out of print for more than a decade before being revived for this special edition.

Mardi Link, author of the new prologue, is the author of two regionally best-selling true crime books based in northern Michigan, "When Evil Came to Good Hart" and "Isadore's Secret."

Laura James, author of the new epilogue, is a trial lawyer, crime historian, and true crime author who blogs about the true crime genre at her Web site CLEWS (www.laurajames.com).

Edward Keyes, now deceased, spent several years in the early 1970s investigating the Michigan murders. He also authored the works "Double Dare" and "Cocoanut Grove." "The Michigan Murders" was a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime in 1977.

On August 23, 1907, Sister Janina waved good-bye to her priest, who was headed out for an afternoon of fishing, and retired to her convent cell to take a nap. She was never seen again. The young Felician nun lived in Isadore, Michigan, a tiny town in the state's sparsely populated Leelenau Peninsula. But that didn't stop her case from making national waves.

More than 400 people from the area searched for her, but for more than a decade her disappearance remained a mystery. Her fellow nuns listed her as "lost" in their book of records, and so she remained until an ambitious priest launched a campaign to build a new church at Isadore. That's when her skeleton was found buried in the dirt-floored basement of the old church, causing an uproar that scandalized the small farming town.

Mardi Link's previous true-crime novel, "When Evil Came to Good Hart, " focused on the 1968 murder of a wealthy Detroit area family in their northern Michigan cabin. It was an instant success, topping area best-seller lists and generating rave reviews nationwide. This time Link turns her journalistic and detective skills to a shocking story that remained buried for years.

"Isadore's Secret" has all the ingredients of a terrific whodunit: a young woman murdered, the Catholic confessional, the Michigan Supreme Court, bishops, doctors, priests, detectives, lumbermen, a spy, and one diminutive Polish housekeeper. Many details of the case have been kept secret even into the present day, more than a century later . . . until now. The book gives readers a historic and compelling yarn of sin, murder, and confession, and its sometimes macabre and far-fetched nature makes it all the more shocking that it is a true story, a work of nonfiction.

Mardi Link is a freelance journalist and a founder of Michigan Writers, a nonprofit support group for working writers. She is cofounder and former executive editor of "ForeWord Magazine." In 2007, she was named Antioch's Betty Crumrine Scholar for Creative Nonfiction and was a finalist for the Annie Dillard Creative Nonfiction Award. This is her second book; her first, "When Evil Came to Good Hart, " also published by the University of Michigan Press, spent four months on the Heartland Indie Bestseller List.