Last November, I found a dead body inside the freezer that my roommate keeps inside the garage. My first thought was to call the police, but Jignesh hadn't paid his share of the rent just yet. It wasn't due until the thirtieth, and you know how difficult it is to find people who pay on time. Jignesh always does. Also, he had season tickets for the LA Opera, and well . . . Madame Butterfly. Tosca. The Flying Dutchman . . . at the Dorothy Chandler . . . you cannot say no to that, can you? Well, it's been a few good months now--Madame Butterfly was just superb, thank you. However, last Friday, I found a second body inside that stupid freezer in the garage. This time I'm evicting Jignesh. My house isn't a mortuary . . . alas, I need to come up with some money first. You'll understand, therefore, that I desperately need to sell this novel. Just enough copies to help me survive until I find a job . . . what could I do that doesn't demand too much effort? We have a real treasure here, anyhow. Some chapters are almost but not quite pornographic. You could safely lend this to nana afterward!

"Gripping . . . Cutter Wood subverts all our expectations for the true crime genre.” —Leslie Jamison, author of The Recovering When a stolen car is recovered on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it sets off a search for a missing woman, local motel owner Sabine Musil-Buehler. Three men are named persons of interest—her husband, her boyfriend, and the man who stole the car. Then the motel is set on fire; her boyfriend flees the county; and detectives begin digging on the beach of Anna Maria Island. Author Cutter Wood was a guest at Musil-Buehler’s motel as the search for her gained momentum. Driven by his own need to understand how a relationship could spin to pieces in such a fatal fashion, he began to talk with many of the people living on Anna Maria, and then with the detectives, and finally with the man presumed to be the murderer. But there was only so much that interviews and transcripts could reveal. In trying to understand how we treat those we love, this book, like Truman Capote’s classic In Cold Blood, tells a story that exists outside documentary evidence. Wood carries the investigation of Sabine’s murder beyond the facts of the case and into his own life, crafting a tale about the dark conflicts at the heart of every relationship.

A collection of 16 original stories from today's foremost fiction writers--including Ed McBain, Jonathan Kellerman, Sara Paretsky, Mary Higgins Clark, Elmore Leonard, James Crumley, John Gardner, Anne Perry, Donna Tartt, Shel Silverstein, Bobbie Ann Mason, Carol Higgins Clark, William J. Caunitz, Michael Malone, and Faye Kellerman--each a brilliant mystery exploring that peculiar area that lies between love and death.

With the inside eight-page photo section published in black and white, the story of the 2015 capital murder of 96-year-old WW II vet Marty Knell in Texas's semi-tropical Rio Grande Valley just to rob him of the sizeable estate he and his deceased wife had spent decades building, underscores two polar opposites of the human spectrum: total depravity and unbridled heroism. For most of their lives, people like Monica Melissa Palacios Patterson, who was 47 when she committed the dirty deed, have proven to be failures once they move into their adult years after living a relatively pampered existence during their formative years. Their family members may flourish - business, politics -- but they never seem able to match their success. Instead, they leave in their wake failed business ventures, failed personal relationships. Ironically, in the end, Patterson did turn out to be successful at something. It's just that her two talents were illegal, not to mention immoral - murder and theft. As a side gig, the killer was stealing from the McAllen-based "hospice" where she served as its administrator caring for the dying, using some of the stolen money for some fun adventures. Like the time she flew to Vegas with her mother-in-law and married lover aboard the same flight, albeit seated in different rows. With two rooms booked at Caesars, life could be a blast. Then someone had to go to the Texas Rangers and blab about the murder, just because she couldn't keep her mouth shut, and Patterson could only watch as her world began to crumble. Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

As an FBI profiler, it’s Lilah Love’s job to think like a killer. And she is very good at her job. When a series of murders surface—the victims all stripped naked and shot in the head—Lilah’s instincts tell her it’s the work of an assassin, not a serial killer. But when the case takes her back to her hometown in the Hamptons and a mysterious but unmistakable connection to her own life, all her assumptions are shaken to the core. ​Thrust into a troubled past she’s tried to shut the door on, Lilah’s back in the town where her father is mayor, her brother is police chief, and she has an intimate history with the local crime lord’s son, Kane Mendez. The two share a devastating secret, and only Kane understands Lilah’s own darkest impulses. As more corpses surface, so does a series of anonymous notes to Lilah, threatening to expose her. Is the killer someone in her own circle? And is she the next target? The Lilah Love Series: Murder Notes Murder Girl Love Me Dead Love Kills Bloody Vows Bloody Love Happy Death Day

This book offers a unique framework for examining the various types of family murder-delving into the commonalities, the differences, and society's misconceptions and providing readers with a comprehensive guide to begin to understand these tragedies.

When a neighbor murders her sister-in-law and two nephews, the author's life changes forever. Seeking a way of dealing with the sudden loss, full of grief, the author turns to Zen. After many years, she's ready to forgive the killer, but it is too late. He's dead at his own hand. So she calls his mother and they cry together. This true account of how that one night changed her life is the focus of this work.--Source other than Library of Congress.

What would you do if your best friend died? What if she'd betrayed you hours earlier?Emma's nights are haunted by the twisted sight of her friend's body in Stone Lake. Others in the sleepy town of Camber slap an accident label on the death and call it a day. Emma can't. It hurts too much to leave it alone.Proving the drowning was murder isn't easy. The sheriff stonewalls her, her friends want her to leave it alone, and her parents are too busy bickering to worry over much else.Cole's mistrust for corporations and government hasn't made him many friends in town, but his willingness to believe Emma makes him her strongest ally. Together they'll dig into the town's past-and their own-to get to the truth.Even if it brings more danger to their doorsteps.

The Psychology of Lust Murder systematically examines the phenomenon of paraphilia (i.e., aberrant sexuality) in relationship to the crime of lust murder. By synthesizing the relevant theories on sexual homicide and serial killing, the authors develop an original, timely, sensible model that accounts for the emergence and progression of paraphilias expressed through increasingly violent erotic fantasies. Over time, these disturbing paraphilic images that, among other things, involve rape, body mutilation and dismemberment, torture, post-mortem sexual intercourse, and cannibalism, are all actualized. Thus, it is the sustained presence of deviant sexuality that contributes to and serves as underlying motive for the phenomenon of lust murder (a.k.a. erotophonophilia). Going well beyond theoretical speculation, the authors (Dr. Catherine Purcell, a forensic psychologist and Dr. Bruce Arrigo, a criminologist) apply their integrated model to the gruesome and chilling case of Jeffrey Dahmer. They convincingly demonstrate where and how their conceptual framework provides a more complete explanation of lust homicide than any other model available in the field today. The book concludes with a number of practical suggestions linked to clinical prevention, diagnosis, and treatment strategies; police training, profiling, and apprehension efforts; as well as legal and public policy responses to sexually violent and predatory assailants. Comprehensive in its coverage, accessible in its prose, and thoughtful in its analysis, The Psychology of Lust Murder is a must read for any person interested in the crime of erotophonophilia and those offenders responsible for its serial commission. - Contributes, in a thoughtful and scholarly way, to the audiences' existing library of books on crimes and criminals - Provides new and insightful information on the criminal behavior of Jeffrey Dahmer - Enables readers to compare and contrast different models/theories on sexual homicide and serial murder - Assists researchers, educators, public officials, and the lay public determine how best to respond to the phenomenon of lust murder