Tag: #TrueCrime

Posted in #non-fiction

Unraveling the 1937 Alice Parsons Kidnapping Mystery

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

A new look at the 1937 abduction of a wealthy wife and mother, based on previously classified FBI documents—includes photos.

In 1937, Alice McDonell Parsons was kidnapped from Long Meadow Farm in Stony Brook, New York. She was the heir to a vast fortune among Long Island’s wealthy elite. The crime shocked the nation and was front-page news for several months.

J. Edgar Hoover personally assigned his best FBI agents to the case. Within a short time, Parsons’s husband and their live-in housekeeper, Anna Kupryanova, became prime suspects. Botched ransom attempts, clashes between authorities, and romantic intrigue kept the investigation mired in drama. The crime remained unsolved. Now, in this book, former Suffolk County detective Steven C. Drielak reveals previously classified FBI documents—and pieces together the mystery of the Alice Parsons kidnapping.

About the Author

Matt Weisgerber is the narrator of over a dozen audiobooks, including YA, children’s, horror, western, sci-fi, and comedy titles. His voice has been described as friendly, smooth, unique, and conversational, and he has a knack for character voices. Matt is easy to work with, and loves creating engaging and believable performances.

Steven C. Drielak is an internationally recognized expert in the area of Hot Zone Forensic Attribution. He received his master’s degrees from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He has more than thirty years of law enforcement experience. Steven established the Suffolk County Environmental Crime Unit in New York. He commanded that unit for sixteen years. Steven has directed within the EPA’s Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training. His role spanned both the Homeland Security and Criminal Enforcement national programs. As the director of the EPA’s National Criminal Enforcement Response Team, he led the effort. He deployed environmental forensic evidence collection teams. These teams responded to BP Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oil pipeline failures. They also addressed the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. Steven has served as a senior forensic attribution instructor. He worked at the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia. There, he was a program developer. He served for seventeen years as a National Academy Instructor for the EPA’s criminal enforcement program. He has also provided environmental forensic attribution training for the FBI’s Hazardous Materials Response Unit. He has provided international training to numerous countries within the European Union. He has authored and coauthored six textbooks in the areas of environmental crimes, weapons of mass destruction and forensic attribution. He has also authored two historical fiction novels. He was an appointed member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police Environmental Crimes Committee. He served on the President’s Interagency Microbial Forensics Advisory Board.

Posted in #History

The Day Lincoln Was Shot

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

“This classic of popular history vividly dramatizes a pivotal moment in the life of our country . . . a happy blend of good scholarship and good storytelling.” —AudioFile

The Day Lincoln Was Shot is a gripping, hour-by-hour account of April fourteen, 1865: the day President Abraham Lincoln was tragically assassinated.

It chronicles the movements of Lincoln and his assassin John Wilkes Booth during every movement of that fateful day. Author and journalist Jim Bishop has fashioned an unforgettable tale of tragedy, more gripping than fiction, more alive than any newspaper account.First published in 1955, The Day Lincoln Was Shot was a huge bestseller, and in 1998 it was made into a TNT movie, with Rob Morrow as Booth.

“Everything that concerned Lincoln’s assassination from 7:00 A.M. Friday until 7:22 A.M. Saturday, the moment of his death. A new kind of Lincoln book.” —The New York Times

“Startling, tabloid immediacy . . . police-blotter facts.” —Time

“A great news story brilliantly recaptured.” —New York Herald Tribune

“Reads like a novel—holds you in suspense like a detective story!” —Pittsburgh Press

“History with the impact of a Page One news story.” —Syracuse Herald American

“Terror and suspense.” —Cleveland News

Posted in #History

Ride the Devil’s Herd

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Wyatt Earp’s Epic Battle Against the West’s Biggest Outlaw Gang

The story of how a young Wyatt Earp and his brothers defeated the Old West’s biggest outlaw gang, by the New York Times–bestselling author of Texas Ranger.
Wyatt Earp is regarded as the most famous lawman of the Old West, best known for his role in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. But the story of his two-year war with a band of outlaws known as the Cowboys has never been told in full.
The Cowboys were the largest outlaw gang in the history of the American West. After battles with the law in Texas and New Mexico, they shifted their operations to Arizona. There, led by Curly Bill Brocius, they ruled the border, robbing, rustling, smuggling and killing with impunity until they made the fatal mistake of tangling with the Earp brothers.
Drawing on groundbreaking research into territorial and federal government records, John Boessenecker’s Ride the Devil’s Herd reveals a time and place in which homicide rates were fifty times higher than those today. The story still bears surprising relevance for contemporary America, involving hot-button issues such as gang violence, border security, unlawful immigration, the dangers of political propagandists parading as journalists, and the prosecution of police officers for carrying out their official duties. Wyatt Earp saw it all in Tombstone.
Praise for Ride the Devil’s Herd
A Pim County Public Library Southwest Books of the Year 2021
A True West Reader’s Choice for Best 2020 Western Nonfiction
Winner of the Best Book Award by the Wild West History Association
“A marvelous book. By means of meticulous research and splendid writing John Boessenecker has managed to do something never before attempted or accomplished, tying together the many violent clashes between lawmen and outlaws in the American southwest of the 1870-1890 period and showing how depredations by loosely organized gangs of outlaws actually threatened “Manifest Destiny” and the successful taming of the Wild West.” —Robert K. DeArment, author and historian
“A ripsnortin’ ramble across the bloodstained Arizona desert with Wyatt Earp and company. . . . Boessenecker displays a fine eye for period detail. . . . A pleasure for thoughtful fans of Old West history, revisionist without being iconoclastic.” —Kirkus Reviews

Posted in #BookTours

“I”: The Creation of a Serial Killer

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

The prize-winning, bestselling journalist provides a fascinating glimpse into the mind of “The Happy Face Killer” in the serial murderer’s own words . . .

In February 1990, Oregon State Police arrested John Sosnovke and Laverne Pavlinac for the vicious rape and murder of Taunja Bennet, a troubled twenty-three-year-old barfly who had a mild intellectual disability since birth. There was just one problem. They had the wrong people.


And the real killer wasn’t about to let anyone take credit for his kill. Keith Hunter Jesperson was a long-haul truck driver and the murderer of eight women, including Taunja Bennet. As the case wound through police precincts and courts—ending in life sentences for both Sosnovke and Pavlinac—Jesperson began a twisted one-man campaign to win their release. To the editors of newspapers and on the walls of highway rest stops, Jesperson scribbled out a series of taunting confessions. At the end of each admission, Jesperson drew a happy face, earning for himself the grisly sobriquet “The Happy Face Killer.”


Based on access to interviews, diaries, court records, and the criminal himself, I: The Creation of a Serial Killer is Jesperson’s chilling story. It chronicles his evolution from angry child to sociopathic murderer, from tormentor of animals to torturer of women. It is also the story of the fate that befell him after two innocent citizens were imprisoned four years for one of his killings.


In I: The Creation of a Serial Killer, Edgar Award winner Jack Olsen lets Jesperson tell his story in his own words, offering unprecedented insight into the twisted thought process of a serial murderer.

Posted in #BookTours

Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

The gunfight at the OK Corral lasted less than a minute—yet it became the basis for countless stories about the Wild West. At the time of the event, however, Wyatt Earp was not universally acclaimed as a hero. Among the people who knew him best in Tombstone, Arizona, many considered him a renegade and murderer.

This book tells the nearly unknown story of the prosecution of Wyatt Earp, his brothers, and Doc Holiday following the famous gunfight. To the prosecutors, the Earps and Holiday were wanton killers. According to the defense, the Earps were steadfast heroes—willing to risk their lives on the mean streets of Tombstone for the sake of order.

The case against the Earps, with its dueling narratives of brutality and justification, played out themes of betrayal, revenge, and even adultery. Attorney Thomas Fitch, one of the era’s finest advocates, ultimately managed, against considerable odds, to save Earp from the gallows. But the case could easily have ended in a conviction—and Wyatt Earp would have been hanged or imprisoned instead of celebrated as an American icon.

Continue reading “Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp” →