True Crime Fiction

In 1907, the revolutionary Joseph Djugashvili - who would later take the name Joseph Stalin - met with an old friend, a clerk at the Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire, for a glass of milk. Over talk of national pride, the spirit of the new century and Djugashvili's poetry, they agreed on the beginnings of a plan. With the aid of the Outfit, Djugashvili's hardened crew of 'expropriators', they would pull off the biggest, bloodiest and most daring robbery in Georgia's history, and ruthlessly change the direction of the Bolshevik revolution forever.

Why are we so intrigued whenever we hear something like “a serial killer is on the loose?” Why is there always a tinge of fascination enveloping the fear and the dread? Many believe serial killers are unique individuals, possessing traits we cannot ordinarily identify. Perhaps that is what sets them apart from the rest of us. After all, we want to believe that we are different—that there is a border between the makings of a man and the makings of a mass murderer.

If anything has become clear, it’s that our understanding of the Arab Islamic world remains shrouded and incomplete. The seeds of revolution, radicalism, and—possibly—reform are buried in the individual stories of millions of people whose lives determine the fates of their societies, people whose motivations are as common, and as strange, as our own. Here is one of those stories—and the story of how this world is being transformed, one life at a time.

On 3 May 1961, after a trial conducted largely in secret, a man named George Blake was sentenced to an unprecedented 42 years in jail. By his own confession he was a Soviet spy, but the reasons for such a severe punishment were never revealed. To the public, Blake was simply the greatest traitor of the Cold War. Yet his story touches not only the depths of treachery, but also the heights of heroism.

A rash of burglaries in the small town of Lark Point, California has a domino effect on a group of local residents; eight lives bound together by honor, betrayal and love. Tangled like Music rushes through the small town like a whirlwind and creates changes that none could have anticipated. Love, mystery, deception, murder, and relationships intertwine to tell the story of redemption and the unraveling of life's tangles. It's a recipe for a song.

Lady Bette, the 14-year-old heiress to the vast Northumberland estates, becomes the victim of a plot by her grandmother, the Countess Howard, to marry her to the dissident fortune-hunter Thomas Thynn, a man three times her age with an evil reputation. Revolted by her new husband, Lady Bette flees to Holland. Within weeks, Thynn is gunned down in the street by three hired assassins. Who is behind the contract killing? Is it the Swedish Count Coningsmark, young and glamorous with blond hair down to his waist?

The late William X. Kienzle is best known for his Father Koesler mysteries, starring priest/detective Father Robert Koesler. Here, we go back to Father Koesler's past, to a time when young Catholic men and women were encouraged, even expected to become priests and nuns. Kienzle follows a group of young men and women through the paths of their religious life, as they test their commitment, their faith, and their vocation against the high standards of the Catholic Church.

Forensic investigator Reilly Steel, California-born and bred, imagined Dublin to be a far cry from bustling San Francisco, but a brutal serial killer soon puts paid to that. When a young man and woman are found dead in an apartment, the evidence suggests a suicide pact. But Reilly's sure that something is seriously amiss, and as more bodies are discovered, Reilly realises she is facing a truly twisted murderer...

This book is an astounding compilation of 50 of the world's most notorious and ruthless serial killers, including: Serial Killers Who Were Captured, Serial Killings That Were Never Solved, Female Serial Killers, and Doctors Who Killed Their Patients. Some of the more infamous cases are: Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Son of Sam, Karla Homolka, Christine Fallings, the Green River Killer, Dr. H.H. Holmes and the Zodiac

On an average September day, Stephen's world was shattered when a Rhode Island state trooper arrested him for the murder of a drug dealer named Joe Viscido, Jr., in Florida four years earlier. Though Stephen could prove that he was 1,500 miles away at the time of the murder, Peter Dallas admitted to the crime and named Stephen as his accomplice. Like something out of Kafka, Stephen found himself imprisoned for a non-bailable offense and was whisked away to a Rhode Island jail.

Jack McCreesh. A high school student who feels a powerful calling to be a priest. Due to family circumstances, he decides to take time for discernment and join the military. Years as a Navy corpsman and working with the United States Marines have toughened Jack, but it may not be enough. He's heard the whispers, like everyone else. He's seen the news and it makes his blood boil to know evil has permeated the sanctuary. With good in his heart, he enters the seminary to battle dark forces and the Lavender Mafia. What Jack doesn't know is that he's in the minority.

Shane Hanson was set up for a double homicide when he was only 13-years-old. His relative did it because she blames him for the death of her one true love. After spending five years in juvie, he’s released on parole and determined to reveal the truth about his relative. In the meantime, he meets a girl he develops feelings for. Shane's relative is a psychopath so good at manipulating people that she has managed to get everyone to believe Shane killed two people that she’s killed.

Pursued by one demon into the clutches of another, the ordinary life of Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols is made extraordinary by horrible, inhuman circumstance. Jack the Ripper's first victim comes to life in this sensitive and intimate fictionalized portrait, from humble beginnings, to building a family with an abusive husband, her escape into poverty and the workhouse, alcoholism, and finally abandoned on the streets of London where the Whitechapel Murderer found her.

When Harriet Peters came to Boston in 1882, the Robinson family took her in as one of their own, and Harriet became closer to Lizzie Robinson than her own siblings. Now, four years later, Lizzie is deathly sick, failing quickly just like several others in her family have done over the past few years. How can so many in one family die from the same mysterious illness? Harriet doesn’t have answers, but she is determined to help the family, bringing in a new-to-the-neighborhood doctor, Michael Wheaton.

With trouble on the streets, DS Zander Ellery is under even more pressure to solve the case of the Prayer Slayer. His partner DC Isabel York is convinced she is being targeted, as all the postcards the Slayer sends are addressed only to her. With Zander and Isabel pulled in different directions, the body count escalates, until the case explodes in a direction no one could foresee — something that will test everyone to the limits of their experience and faith.

Western Australia, 1988. After betraying the Knights motorcycle gang, 17-year-old Lee Southern flees to the city with nothing left to lose. Working as a rogue tow-truck driver in Perth, he is captured by right-wing extremists whose combination of seduction and blackmail keeps him on the wrong side of the law and under their control. As the true nature of what drives his captors unfolds, Lee becomes an unwilling participant in a breathtakingly ambitious plot - and a cold-blooded crime that will show just how much he, and everyone else, still has to lose.

A riveting collection of true stories which are so strange as to be almost unbelievable.

The 1830 murder of wealthy slaver Joseph White shook all of Salem, Massachusetts. Soon the crime drew national attention when it was discovered that two of the conspirators came from Salem's influential Crowninshield family: a clan of millionaire shipowners, cabinet secretaries, and congressmen.

An ancient shaman and his granddaughter travel to Harvard to pick up 2,047 skeletons stolen from the ruins of their family pueblo. She wants their time together to heal their broken hearts. He hopes the road trip will make her appreciate family. He fashions a dreamcatcher which sometimes hurls Hollow-Woman into the past to experience her ancestors.

Carl, reeling from the death of his brother, is drowning in visions. Followed by shadow men through the crumbling outer regions of the city. Unable to trust those closest to him. Doubting his own reality. As a wave of brutal, ritualistic gangland killings sweeps through the underworld, Carl’s involvement with a life he thought he had left behind catches up with him, with terrifying results.