Three gripping true crime classics in one volume, from the New York Times–bestselling author. From the acclaimed journalist and author, three chilling tales of depravity, death, and detective work including: NO ANGELS Late one night in 1997, fourteen-year-old Brandy DuVall waited at a bus stop in the Denver area when, for reasons that are still a mystery, she got into a car with several young men. The consequence was an unimaginable nightmare of torture, rape, and murder at the hands of a vicious Denver street gang. The crime, investigation, and subsequent court cases—including four murder trials and two death penalty hearings—tore apart families, and affected all who were caught up in the brutal crime and its aftermath. SMOOTH TALKER As seen on Investigation Discovery’s Epic Mysteries series Anita Andrews was found in her own bar, stabbed to death in a bloody frenzy. She'd last been seen alive talking to a customer, a drifter playing cards and flirting with her. A month later, Michele Wallace was driving near Crested Butte, Colorado, when she gave two stranded motorists a ride. She was never seen alive again. Fourteen years later, Charlotte Sauerwin, engaged to be married, met a smooth-talking man at a Laundromat in Livingston Parish, Louisiana. The next evening, her body was found in the woods. The three murders would remain unsolved until a rookie Gunnison County sheriff’s investigator named Kathy Young began investigating . . . ROUGH TRADE On a morning in May 1997, a couple on their way to work spotted a man dragging a woman’s body up a trail. The subsequent investigation into the death of young streetwalker Anita Paley would lead from that idyllic spot to the seamy underbelly of Denver and a world of prostitution, drug dealers, and violent criminals. This is the story of two people from that world whose paths crossed first on the streets and then at a murder trial: Robert Riggan, a violent sexual predator, and Joanne Cordova, a former cop-turned-prostitute, who risked her life to testify.

"True Crime: An American Anthology" offers a comprehensive look at the many ways in which American writers have explored crime in a multitude of aspects: the dark motives that spur it, the shock of its impact on society, and the effort to make sense of the violent extremes of human behavior.

It is no secret that true crime murder stories are not for the faint of heart. They can lead you to double-check your windows and doors at night, and question everything you thought or believed about human nature. Yet they are intriguing and fascinating at the same time. What is it that makes us different from those who take the lives of others? That is a question that many ask themselves, and these true crime stories help to identify the method and psychology behind some of the most terrifying killers in modern history. This set includes three true crime books, volumes 1-3, and each is filled with a variety of true crime murder cases, including spree killers and massacres, some of which are yet to be solved. You are taken through the background of the story, the murders, and the criminal investigations that took place. Some pages will be difficult to read, due to the emotion behind them. Yet you will be unable to stop reading, turning page after page. Each true crime anthology in this collection will leave you to ponder whether the perpetrators of these crimes were really monsters. When you learn of the background of these killers, the age-old question of whether a serial killer is born to kill will be at the forefront of your mind. Explore the stories behind the murders in these True Crime volumes, the anger, the horror, and the sadism, inflicted by each killer. Feel for the victims, their families, and the investigators who had to deal with each case. And don't be surprised if you have to sleep with the light on.

Night falls and the rivers of blood flow forth once more. For what are murderers if not creatures of the dark? Hiding in plain sight as the average neighbor, co-worker or even employer, just waiting for the moment to unleash their murderous urges. Whether they are sadistic in their methods or not does not change the common trait that they all share: the presence of evil. These crimes shock us to the core, leading us to wonder just what is going on in their minds that leads them to take lives without any feeling of remorse...yet deep down we're actually intrigued by their crimes. Fascinated, even. In truth, these killers bring forth a dark curiosity that keeps us reading chapter after chapter, book after book, and once we're done we begin to reflect on how interesting the psychology behind these characters can be. It is precisely because of this wondrous fascination that we have compiled a fresh set of three True Crime Stories books, following the success of our first collection, this time with the bestselling volumes 4-6. 36 tales of bloodshed and terror, police investigation and the background of each and every killer await you, with each subject varying from serial killer to mass murderer, ruthless monster to seemingly harmless member of the community. No two killers are the same and no two murders are committed for the same reason - this much you are about to find out. Reader, you are about to embark on a road of horror, death and cruelty...are you ready to walk the blood-chilling path into the mind of a killer?

A brilliant anthology of modern true-crime writing that illustrates the appeal of this powerful and popular genre, edited and curated by Sarah Weinman, the award-winning author of The Real Lolita The appeal of true-crime stories has never been higher. With podcasts like My Favorite Murder and In the Dark, bestsellers like I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and Furious Hours, and TV hits like American Crime Story and Wild Wild Country, the cultural appetite for stories of real people doing terrible things is insatiable. Acclaimed author ofThe Real Lolitaand editor of Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s (Library of America) and Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (Penguin), Sarah Weinman brings together an exemplary collection of recent true crime tales. She culls together some of the most refreshing and exciting contemporary journalists and chroniclers of crime working today. Michelle Dean’s “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick” went viral when it first published and is the basis for the TV showThe Act and Pamela Colloff’s “The Reckoning,” is the gold standard for forensic journalism. There are 13 pieces in all and as a collection, they showcase writing about true crime across the broadest possible spectrum, while also reflecting what makes crime stories so transfixing and irresistible to the modern reader.

Laura lived in room 518 in Hill Hall dormitory, a single room at Eastern Michigan University. When she walked into her door after the secret Santa Christmas party, she called her boyfriend Travis Scott, who worked at an engineering firm, Covanta Energy, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Scott was working late, and the two spoke for a few minutes before Laura stated that she was turning in for the night. Laura had exams the next day, and when she failed to show up, her friends increasingly grew concerned. They began frantically calling her phone, but she was not picking up. In Hastings, Michigan, Robert and Debra Dickinson, Laura's parents, were also growing concerned. They were a tight-knit family, and the phone calls were frequent. Laura always picked up her phone, and in the rare occasions that she didn't, she always returned the calls soon after. They reached out to Scott, who was having the same problems. By December 15, 2006, two days after anyone last heard from Laura, Robert and Scott began making plans to drive down to the school. After discussing the plan, Scott decided that he would take the day off work and check on Laura, promising to call back with news as soon as he found out what was going on.What happened to Laura Dickinson?

This is the second volume of the bestselling annual, Serial Killers True Crime Anthology, a collection of some of the best true crime writing on serial killers over the year. Several of these authors who appeared in Volume 1 of the Anthology, return this year to Volume 2 with new stories. 2015 Serial Killers True Crime Anthology Volume 2: Peter Vronsky in the chilling story "Zebra! The Hunting Humans 'Ninja' Truck Driver Serial Killer" describes the carnage perpetrated in 2007 by Adam Leroy Lane, a long haul truck driving serial killer who after repeatedly watching in his truck cab a serial killer DVD movie he was obsessed with, forayed out in the night from Interstate highway truck-stops dressed in Ninja black to re-enact the movie scenes by killing and mutilating unsuspecting women in their homes until he was captured by a fifteen-year old girl and her parents when he attempted to kill her as she slept in her bedroom.RJ Parker in "Demons" introduces us to the little known story of Canada's serial killer Michael Wayne McGray who murdered men, women and children indiscriminately and whom even prison could not stop from continuing his killing. In the "Grim Sleeper" Parker describes the brutal crimes of Lonnie Franklin, Jr. who over a 23-year killing career, took a fourteen-year hiatus (thus his nickname) before resuming his murders of women in Los Angeles.Katherine Ramsland in "The Babysitter" brings us up to date on the still unsolved horrific1976 mutilation child murders in Detroit that inspired Bill Connington's one-man Broadway play and Joyce Carol Oates 1995 novella Zombie. In "Really! The Other Guy Did It." Ramsland explores the bizarre case of serial killer Douglas Perry who after killing several women underwent a transsexual change into a woman, Donna Perry, who when apprehended, claimed the murders were perpetrated by his former male self who no longer existed. Ramsland asks, "Is guilt in the body or the soul?" Michael Newton in "Bad Medicine" and "Angel of Death" describes two serial killers where we least expect them: health care workers. Physician Dr. Harold Shipman who murdered 250 victims in Britain and might be history's most prolific serial killer, and the smiling mild mannered Ohio medical orderly 'Angel of Death' Donald Harvey, who confessed to murdering 87 helpless patients, stating, "So I played God."Sylvia Perrini, Britain's true crime chronicler of female serial killers in "The House of Horrors" revisits the notorious case of Rosemary West who teamed up with her husband Fred in the rape, torture and murder of ten young women in their rooming house, including her own daughter. In "The Mum Who Killed for Kicks" Perrini looks at the recent case of Joanne Dennehy, a mother of a thirteen-year old who inexplicably went on a thrill kill serial killing spree in which she tortured and murdered three men with a knife and attempted to kill two others.Kelly Banaski, a newcomer to true crime writing, brings us "Stripped of his medals and female panties", the strange case of a Canadian air force base commander, a colonel who piloted senior government officials and even the Queen of England, who suddenly began to commit a series of panty fetish burglaries that eventually escalated to horrific rape-torture murders of women. Enjoy and be horrified!!

A 2006 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime. With intimate access to the families, award-winning journalist Diane Fanning's Written in Blood spins a heart-wrenching true crime tale that's been the subject of an acclaimed documentary, "The Staircase", and an HBO TV miniseries starring Colin Firth. An army brat-turned-marine, Michael Peterson saw combat in Vietnam, and returned a decorated soldier. An avid reader, his dreams of being an acclaimed novelist came true. His desire to find love was fulfilled when he married brilliant executive Kathleen Atwater, the first female student accepted at Duke University's School of Engineering. The Petersons seemed the ideal academic couple- well-respected, prosperous, and happy. All that came crashing down in December of 2001, when Kathleen apparently fell to her death in their secluded home in an exclusive area of Durham, North Carolina. But blood-spattered evidence and a missing fireplace poker suggested calculated, cold-blooded murder. Her trusted husband stood accused. Prosecutors introduced evidence at trial that sixteen years earlier, Peterson was one of the last people to see his neighbor alive before she was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her home in Germany. A dramatic trial followed in the explosive final chapter of a life that no novelist could ever have conceived...

‘An exciting new voice in thriller fiction. Little Bones is a gripping read!’ Sarah Pinborough, author of Behind Her Eyes I have three names: I was born Leigh-Ann. I became Cherrie. When I was a child, they called me Little Bones...

'Bad Choices' that End in Murder'I'd kill for my child.' It's a bit of a cliché, one that rolls off the tongue glibly enough but also with a touch of traction. We would do anything for our kids; they become central to all that we do, everything we are.But the point is that most of us wouldn't, or would need the most impossibly extreme circumstances, kill or be killed, to carry out the threat. Where that impossibly extreme point falls is, of course, a matter of personal interpretation - something made up of many contributing factors. Kimberly Cargill is headed for the gurney. At some point the State of Texas will execute her. Something it does with more frequency than many other states in the US, although less often for women than for men. But had Kimberly not lost the justice system's zip code lottery, she might be anywhere now from death row, to prison without the chance of parole, through to being in receipt of psychological support, most probably (but not definitely) in a secure environment.Cargill's case is one with many facets. Are her claims of what happened a touch over ten years ago actually correct? Did she carry out the crime for which she was convicted?