Murder has a long and distinguished history in San Francisco. The city and its Bay Area can stand proudly with Paris, London, and New York in the splendour of its misdeeds -- murders that have suspense, horror, audacity, and flair. The homicides chronicled in Murder by the Bay have been selected because a convergence of personality, circumstance, character, and geography makes them peculiarly San Franciscan. Each of these crimes illustrates an historic importance, each has impacted its times -- either in the course or application of the law or in the manner in which the affair revealed a shortcoming in society. They range from the Montgomery Street killing of James King of William, editor of the Daily Evening Bulletin, in 1856 to the sensational trial of early movie comedian Fatty Arbuckle who was accused of killing a showgirl at a party in the St. Francis Hotel to the shocking "City Hall Murders" in which former city supervisor Dan White killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Most were solved, some were not. They are murders that fascinated the city and frequently the country, sometimes for weeks, often for years and even decades.

San Francisco, a city founded in part by criminals, was once one of the most dangerous cities in America. Its Barbary coast was called "a unique criminal district that was the scene of more viciousness and depravity, but it possessed more glamour, than any other area on the American continent." "San Francisco Notorious" brings back the glamorous depravity and noir atmosphere that made it the premier location for murder thrillers like "The Maltese Falcon," "Vertigo," and "Zodiac." This book contains more than 20 compelling tales of serial killers, deadly women, con-men, masters of escape, and unsolved mysteries. San Franciscan criminals were as colorful as the city they inhabited. Take William Thoreson, a murderous millionaire who hid the nation's largest private armory in his Pacific Heights mansion. Then there's Isabella Martin, the murderous "Queen of Grudges" who tried to poison an entire town, or Ethan McNabb and Lloyd Sampsell, the "Yacht Bandits," who used a luxurious sloop as a getaway vehicle for their dozens of bank robberies. Most of these unusual cases are largely unknown and have never appeared in book form. Included are cases that are still mysteries today, including the mysterious tale of the Zodiac Killer, complete with a new analysis and a startling new theory on the murder.

The 170-year history of the San Francisco Bay Area told through its crimes and how they intertwine with the city’s art, music, and politics In The Murders That Made Us, the story of the San Francisco Bay Area unfolds through its most violent and depraved acts. From its earliest days when vigilantes hung perps from downtown buildings to the Zodiac Killer and the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, murder and mayhem have shaped the city into the political and economic force that she is today. The Great 1906 Earthquake shook a city that was already teetering on the brink of a massive prostitution scandal. The Summer of Love ended with a pair of ghastly drug dealer slayings that sent Charles Manson packing for Los Angeles. The 1970s come crashing down with the double tragedy of Jonestown and the assassination of Gay icon Harvey Milk by an ex-cop. And the 21st Century rise of California Governor Gavin Newsom, Trump insider Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Vice President Kamala Harris is told through a brutal dog-mauling case and the absurdity called Fajitagate. It’s a 170-year saga of madness, corruption, and death revealed here one crime at a time.

Young, overworked, overtired, overstressed medical intern Sarah James has no time for sleuthing. Her elderly neighbors, the spunky Fog Ladies, have nothing but time. When, one by one, old ladies die in their elegant apartment building in San Francisco, Sarah assumes it is the natural consequence of growing old. The Fog Ladies assume murder. Mrs. Bridge falls off a stool cleaning bugs out of her kitchen light. Mrs. Talwin hits her head in the bathtub and drowns. Suddenly, the Pacific Heights building is turning over tenants faster than the fog rolls in on a cool San Francisco evening. Sarah resists the Fog Ladies' perseverations. But when one of them falls down the stairs and tells Sarah she was pushed, even Sarah believes evil lurks in their building. Can they find the killer before they fall victim themselves?

Long after the gold rush had faded into history, San Francisco was still earning its title as the capital of the Wild, Wild West. Beneath its cosmopolitan, urbane veneer, the city at the dawn of the twentieth century still seethed with crime. Raucous crowds still gathered at the Old Barbary Coast dives and dance halls, hangouts for thieves and prostitutes, and by 1906, San Francisco’s elected officials had embarked on a spree of corruption that would eventually result in grand jury indictments, a kidnapping, bombings, and at least one murder. With over 200 high-quality images, Historic Photos of San Francisco Crime sifts through the city’s misdeeds, murder, and mayhem, from the tongs and hatchet men of Old Chinatown to civil disobedience and protests at City Hall in the 1960s. The Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916, the trials of Roscoe "Fatty” Arbuckle for murder of Hollywood starlet Virginia Rappe, the lynching of the Howard Street Gang, the lethal Longshoremen’s strike and street riots of 1934, and the 1946 "Battle of Alcatraz” are just a few of the stops along the route of this riveting tour of San Francisco’s underworld.

Details the 1895 arrest and trial of a medical student for the grisly murder of two young women inside San Francisco's Emmanuel Baptist Church in what the press of the day characterized as a reenactment of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

This first book in an irresistible new series introduces librarian and reluctant sleuth Raymond Ambler, a doggedly curious fellow who uncovers murderous secrets hidden behind the majestic marble façade of New York City’s landmark 42nd Street Library. Murder at the 42nd Street Library follows Ambler and his partners in crime-solving as they track down a killer, shining a light on the dark deeds and secret relationships that are hidden deep inside the famous flagship building at the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. In their search for the reasons behind the murder, Ambler and his crew uncover sinister, and profoundly disturbing, relationships among the scholars studying in the iconic library. Included among the players are a celebrated mystery writer who has donated his papers to the library’s crime fiction collection; that writer’s long-missing daughter, a prominent New York society woman with a hidden past, and more than one of Ambler’s colleagues at the library. Shocking revelations lead inexorably to the traumatic events that follow—the reading room will never be the same.

In the 1980s, the San Francisco Bay Area was heaven for hardcore headbangers. Shunning Hollywood hairspray and image in favor of a more dangerous street appeal, the Bay Area thrash metal scene was home toExodus,Metallica,Testament,Possessed,Death Angel,Heathen,Vio-Lence,Attitude Adjustment, Forbidden, andBlind Illusion -- and served as a second home to like-minded similar bands likeSlayer,Mercyful Fate,Anthrax,Megadeth, and more. Beginning as teenagers taking snapshots of visiting heavy metal bands during the 1970s, Brian "Umlaut" Lew and Harald "O." Oimoen documented the birth and growth of the local metal scene. Featuring hundreds of unseen live and candid color and black-and-white photographs,Murder in the Front Row captures the wild-eyed zeal and drive that madeMetallica,Slayer, andMegadeth into legends, with over 100 million combined records sold.

Edgar Award Finalist: The true story of a string of brutal crimes committed in the name of religious fanaticism and racial hatred in 1970s San Francisco. In the early 1970s, a small band of well-dressed, clean-cut African American men began terrorizing the residents of San Francisco with guns and machetes. Their victims ranged from a teenage Salvation Army cadet to a middle-aged Jordanian grocer to an eighty-one-year-old janitor. The streets became deserted and tourism plunged. It took months before the culprits could be identified, with the help of an informer. They were members of a Black Muslim cult aspiring to earn the title “Death Angel” by slaughtering white victims. Combining history and dramatic recreations, this is the “repellent but riveting” in-depth story of a horrifying killing spree and the fanatical hatred that drove it—and the SFPD’s desperate quest to take the culprits down (Kirkus Reviews). “[Clark Howard’s] pounding narrative meticulously describes the so-called Zebra killings of 1973–74, when 23 white San Franciscans were murdered or maimed by a group of Black Muslim extremists. In the retelling, the cold jargon of police files leaps starkly to life.” —Time

The city of San Francisco and, to a lesser extent, the nation were throttled in November 1978 when a former city supervisor named Dan White opened fire and killed Mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk. Author Mike Weiss' book is one of the few that ticks down the seconds to the double killing and, though no one knew it at the time, to a social uprising that left much of the city in ruin. That Harvey Milk was the city's first openly gay official sparked a fury in the city's dense homosexual population and ignited speculation that White's motive, in part, was his acknowledged anti-gay position. For many, that two men were gunned down for such a hallow reason was perhaps only a small part of the complete story, and Weiss' book mercifully does not blame White's crime solely on homophobia. Instead, we get a picture of a professionally and financially desperate man whose act may have been largely to avenge his not being reinstated to his job after he resigned. Weiss' vivid reconstruction of the personalities and politics that were on a collision course emerges as an informative commentary on a major event in the city's rich history.