True Historical Mysteries

Karen Hollander is a celebrated attorney who recently removed herself from consideration for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her reasons have their roots in 1968 - an episode she’s managed to keep secret for more than 40 years. Now, with the imminent publication of her memoir, she’s about to let the world in on that shocking secret - as soon as she can track down the answers to a few crucial last questions. A resonant coming-of-age story and a thrilling political mystery, True Believers is Kurt Andersen’s most ambitious novel to date, introducing a brilliant, funny, and irresistible new heroine to contemporary fiction.

When 28-year-old San Francisco Daily Morning Call reporter Mark Twain met Tom Sawyer at a local bathhouse in 1863, he was seeking a subject for his first novel. As Twain steamed, played cards, and drank beer with Sawyer (a volunteer firefighter, customs inspector, and local hero responsible for having saved 90 lives at sea), he had second thoughts about Shirley Tempest, his proposed book about a local girl firefighter, and began to envision a novel of wider scope.

As compelling as fiction, The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey tells the dramatic story of the disappearance of nineteen-year-old Nell Cropsey from her riverside home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in November 1901. Bloodhounds, detectives, divers, and even a psychic were brought in to search for her, and the case immediately became a national sensation. Bland Simpson, who first heard the tale as an Elizabeth City schoolboy, weaves this true story into a colorful nonfiction account, told in three first-person voices.

In the village of Great Wyrley near Birmingham, someone is mutilating horses. Someone is also sending threatening letters to the vicarage, where the vicar, Shahpur Edalji, is a Parsi convert to Christianity and the first Indian to have a parish in England. His son George - quiet, socially awkward and the only boy at school with distinctly Indian features - grows up into a successful barrister, till he is improbably linked to and then prosecuted for the above crimes in a case that left many convinced that justice hadn’t been served.

A tale of terrorism, espionage, and an epic struggle for justice in an America on the verge, sparked by a massive and mysterious explosion in New York Harbor in 1916.

That year, while the Allied and Central forces waged war in Europe, a group of German saboteurs blew up Black Tom Island, a spit of land in New York Harbor within earshot of downtown Manhattan. The subsequent hail of missiles and gunpowder devastated much of lower New York City.

In 1920's Kansas, the mangled body of champion buggy racer Tommy Donnan has been discovered beneath his carriage, dragged to his death by his own horse. His twelve-year-old sister, Millie, does not believe his death was an accident. She wants to know the truth behind the night Tommy died. But with her mother given over to grief, her father to fate, and her only surviving brother, Junior, a shell of himself since returning from The Great War, Millie will have to seek this truth alone.

Wahres Verbrechen aus Argentinien: Die Geschichte, die Rodolfo Walsh in diesem Hörbuch erzählt, ereignete sich in einem Land, das in weiterer Ferne zu liegen scheint als das Jahr 1966, in dem sich die Ereignisse tatsächlich zugetragen haben. Deshalb kann man ohne Schwierigkeit den Vorschlag des Autors akzeptieren und seinen Text als einfachen Kriminalroman betrachten. Im Vordergrund des Hörbuches steht der Tod eines sympathischen Schlägers und Glücksspiel-Unternehmers mit dem Namen Rosendo García.

Eden Chase is head over heels in love with her husband, Tom. He's the sort of man who doesn't give much away, but Eden doesn't mind that - Tom is worth the effort. So when he's accused of a years-old robbery and murder, Eden won't believe it. No, not her Tom - he's not capable of the things they're saying he did. With Tom in prison, it's up to Eden to clear his name. But the closer she gets to the truth, the more she uncovers about her husband's past. Does she really know him after all?

When a beautiful young prom queen becomes the latest victim of a deadly bombing campaign, detectives Marty Sinclair and Al Alvarez must battle to find the killer before he can strike again. But when a rare documents dealer becomes the seriously injured next victim, is he really an innocent victim or something far more deadly?

Maxwell Smart tenía solo once años cuando toda su familia fue asesinada. Pudo haber muerto también, pero su madre le ordenó salvarse. Huyó al bosque, cavó un hoyo para refugiarse y buscó comida en las granjas cercanas. Con la ropa hecha harapos y al borde de la inanición, escapó repetidamente de la muerte a manos de los nazis. Después de meses en soledad, Maxwell se encontró con otro niño que deambulaba por el bosque en busca de comida. Janek, al igual que Maxwell, era huérfano y los dos se hicieron amigos.

First published in 1924, Charles E. Pearce’s account of some of the most gruesome and intriguing unsolved murders of the 19th century continues to captivate amateur sleuths to this day. Pearce guides us through a fascinating world of wicked assassinations, missed clues, ingenious stratagems, and cunning deceits in one last attempt to track down historical villains who evaded justice. It is impossible to establish the truth beyond reasonable doubt in any of the cases at this distance, but the light which Pearce sheds on the investigations and contemporary testimony, encourages us to evaluate the evidence anew.

From award winning criminologist R. Barri Flowers and the best-selling author of The Sex Slave Murders 1 & 2, Serial Killer Couples, and Murder of the Banker's Daughter comes Murder Chronicles, a gripping collection of true crime tales. Includes ten compelling stories of murder, madness, and mayhem that span nearly a century of American history and homicidal criminality that will keep you reading from beginning to end, while staying with long after.

A dark and riveting thriller that reimagines the life and mission of the Spanish nationalist enlisted to murder Leon Trotsky: Based on a true chapter of world history and ten years of research, here is the story of the real-life reluctant soldier and killer, Ramn Mercader—the obedient assassin. Ramn Mercader was plucked from the front of the Spanish Civil War by the Soviets and conscripted to murder the great intellectual Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Bolshevik Revolution who was exiled in the 1920s for opposing Joseph Stalin.

Albert Jarvis is an unusually bright boy - a tragic temperament for the jailor's son in a gritty 1840s town at the edge of the American frontier. Desperate to belong, he fails repeatedly to prove himself worth his salt, until a captivating stranger offers an enchanting vision - a world where the path to heroism lies in words. The place is New York City. The stranger: Edward Rulloff, an accomplished physician, lawyer, professor, inventor, linguist fluent in 27 languages - and serial killer.

Nicholas Nicastro revisits a haunting mystery that still fascinates a nation a century later. His masterly re-imagining of these tragic events sees beyond the prejudices that destroys families and taints small communities but corrodes civilization itself. Nicastro’s simple storytelling style with its kaleidoscopic perspectives is moving, beautiful, and profound.

This gripping historical crime fiction novel, based on fact, is set in Bradford, England, 1888. It explores the horrific murder of Johnny Gill; a murder and mutilation so gruesome, it stuns a nation. Even hardened detectives are affected by its savagery, swiftly comparing it to the work of Jack the Ripper.

In the gold mining town of Greymouth, where drunks fell asleep smoking and burned down their houses, the town was constantly inundated with floods, and 57 hotels had sprung up in a year to accommodate the hordes of miners and gold thieves, Inspector William Henry James was tasked with keeping the town safe with a small force of troopers. In 1888, forced into retirement by government cuts, James walks home beside the Whanganui River remembering his association with a series of murders by the notorious Burgess gang: back in 1866 he had forced the gang to leave Greymouth.

A woman’s search to find her son uncovers the shocking truth about one of Britain’s darkest periods. Struggling with the demons of her past, Emily is a children’s author, with a dark secret, and a guilt that threatens to consume her. For 20 years she has lived in Brighton, England, trying to forget the day they took her baby from her, just hours after he was born. But now, in the summer of 1987, she decides to begin the search for her son.

When Charles S. Stratton was born in 1838, he seemed perfect in every way. But then he stopped growing. At age four, though a happy and mischievous child, he was just over two feet tall and weighed 15 pounds - the exact size he had been as a seven-month-old baby. It was then that P. T. Barnum persuaded Charley’s family to allow him to exhibit their son in his museum and tour him around the world as a curiosity. Tom Thumb, as Barnum dubbed him, was a natural performer.

Australia has always been a land of mysteries. Some are ancient, some are historical and many continue to perplex us today—and will probably continue to do so tomorrow. More often than most of us would like to think, things simply vanish and people disappear without explanation, leaving a trail of heartbreak across generations. Australia also has its fair share of buried loot and fabulous riches gone missing—somewhere. Master storyteller Graham Seal has gathered mysteries from around Australia.