The infamous criminal history of Iowa’s oldest county takes center stage in this true crime account of murder, robbery, and mayhem. Scott County, Iowa has a rich and venerable history. It is where the Blackhawk Treaty was signed. It’s where the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River was built. But Scott County has a dark and history as well. Travel down Utica Ridge Road, where young Grace Reed paid the ultimate price for spurning the affections of a local farmer. Enter the bedroom of Margaretha Nehlsen, who poisoned her children with chocolate candies. Hear the tale of Harry Hamilton, a former policeman turned career criminal who played a key part in the most notorious bank robbery in Scott County history . . . Learn about these stories and more as Murder & Mayhem in Scott County, Iowa explores the darker side of this midwestern County and its shocking, unlawful history.

It's not the usual boring history read. It's a fast-paced, easy to read, behind the scenes look at the making of Iowa and Illinois focusing on Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois.

Like the mighty Mississippi River that cleaves the Quad Cities, the region's history can trap the unwary in some unexpected eddies. Peer through the fog of the past to catch a glimpse of the Tinsmith Ghost of Rock Island or the river serpent with a price on its head. Get the back story on the Banshee of Brady Street, read the 1869 report on a Bigfoot sighting near East Davenport and run the numbers on local UFO activity. From phantom footsteps in the Renwick Mansion to a mausoleum heist in Chippiannock Cemetery, Michael McCarty and John Brassard Jr. trace a path through the shadowy heritage of the Quad Cities. Show Less

Divided by state lines and the Mississippi River, the Quad Cities share a common haunted heritage. If anything, the seam that runs through the region is especially rife with spirits, from the Black Angel of Moline's Riverside Cemetery to the spectral Confederate POWs of Arsenal Island. Of course, the city centers have their own illustrious supernatural residents - the Hanging Ghost occupies Davenport's City Hall, while the Phantom Washwoman wanders Bettendorf's Central Avenue. At Igor's Bistro in Rock Island, every day is Halloween. Michael McCarty and Mark McLaughlin hunt down the haunted lore of this vibrant midwestern community.

Native Americans inhabited the gentle sloping bluffs along the Mississippi River on which Davenport now sits. The peoples who lived on the fertile soil of eastern Iowa were forced into selling their land for pennies to white settlers. From the original survey of the town in 1836 throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, progress was steady as steamboats navigated the dangerous rapids of the Mississippi River, and settlers came to battle extreme Midwest winters and plow the unbroken prairie. In 1856, the first bridge to span the river was completed here, heralding the locomotive from the east and becoming of major importance to the movement west. German and other immigrant families came in droves and with them the development of major national industrial centers for agriculture and its implements, lumber and building material, alcohol and tobacco, and numerous other products. Davenport has been a town of unusual and fascinating history.

After the Blackhawk Purchase of 1832, settlement of eastern Iowa was opened up to white settlers the next year. Antoine LeClaire, who served as the translator at the purchase, received large tracts of land from grateful members of the Sauk tribe. With this land, he and others founded the city of Davenport, named after Col. George Davenport, a successful fur trader. Other towns cropped up throughout Scott County, newly formed in 1837. Over the next several decades, Davenport and these other towns throughout the county grew and gave rise to successful, interesting citizens of their own. Some were inventors like William Bettendorf, who created the Bettendorf Truck. Others were lawyers and mayors, such as Ebenezer Cook and Ernst Claussen. Whatever their profession or the path they took in life, many left their mark on Scott County. They now lay in their final resting spot in the cemeteries of Scott County.

Learn the story behind one of Detroit's most infamous mobs with rare photographs documenting their rise and fall. Motor City Mafia: A Century of Organized Crime in Detroit chronicles the storied and hallowed gangland history of the notorious Detroit underworld. Scott M. Burnstein takes the reader inside the belly of the beast, tracking the bloodshed, exploits, and leadership of the southeast Michigan crime syndicate as never before seen in print. Through a stunning array of rare archival photographs and images, Motor City Mafia captures Detroit's most infamous past, from its inception in the early part of the 20th century, through the years when the iconic Purple Gang ruled the city's streets during Prohibition, through the 1930s and the formation of the local Italian mafia, and the Detroit crime family's glory days in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, all the way to the downfall of the area's mob reign in the 1980s and 1990s.

Sweet Revenge Zoë Archer When Jack Dalton escapes from Dunmoor Prison, he has only one thing in mind—finding the nobleman who murdered his sister and making him pay. But when he reaches the inn where the Lord Rockley is rumored to be staying, three well-dressed strangers are there to meet him instead. And the pretty blonde is aiming a pistol right at his head ... Joining Nemesis, Unlimited has made Eva Warrick much more than the well-mannered lady she appears to be—one who can shoot, fight, and outsmart any man in the quest to right the injustices so often suffered by the innocent. She's not afraid of the burly escaped convict, but she is startled by their shared attraction. She and her partners need Jack's help to get to Rockley, but Eva finds she wants Jack for scandalous reasons all her own...

An Edgar Award finalist for Best Fact Crime, this “impressive…open-eyed investigative inquiry wrapped within a cultural history of rural America” (The Wall Street Journal) shows legendary statistician and baseball writer Bill James applying his analytical acumen to crack an unsolved century-old mystery surrounding one of the deadliest serial killers in American history. Between 1898 and 1912, families across the country were bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. Some of these cases—like the infamous Villisca, Iowa, murders—received national attention. But most incidents went almost unnoticed outside the communities in which they occurred. Few people believed the crimes were related. And fewer still would realize that all of these families lived within walking distance to a train station. When celebrated true crime expert Bill James first learned about these horrors, he began to investigate others that might fit the same pattern. Applying the same know-how he brings to his legendary baseball analysis, he empirically determined which crimes were committed by the same person. Then after sifting through thousands of local newspapers, court transcripts, and public records, he and his daughter Rachel made an astonishing discovery: they learned the true identity of this monstrous criminal and uncovered one of the deadliest serial killers in America. “A suspenseful historical account” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), The Man from the Train paints a vivid, psychologically perceptive portrait of America at the dawn of the twentieth century, when crime was regarded as a local problem, and opportunistic private detectives exploited a dysfunctional judicial system. James shows how these cultural factors enabled such an unspeakable series of crimes to occur, and his groundbreaking approach to true crime will convince skeptics, amaze aficionados, and change the way we view criminal history. “A beautifully written and extraordinarily researched narrative…This is no pure whodunit, but rather a how-many-did-he-do” (Buffalo News).

An all-American girl next door is murdered by her skinhead boyfriend in this true crime tale of a tragic walk on the wild side. Twenty-year-old Katrina Montgomery was blessed with beauty, brains, and a loving family. Yet something drew her to the dark side. As a teen, she snuck off to party with a Neo-Nazi gang and developed a relationship with a drug-addicted skinhead named Justin Merriman. On Thanksgiving weekend, 1992, Katrina went to a gang party and wound up in the townhouse where Merriman lived with his mother. There, Merriman raped and murdered Katrina in front of two of his skinhead buddies. Though her body wasn't found, Merriman continued his orgy of brutality, terrorizing his victims into silence. Merriman eluded justice for six years, until January 30, 1998, when a minor traffic violation led to a wild chase. After a seven-hour standoff and a bomb threat, Merriman was arrested. After police dug into Katrina’s cold case, Merriman was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death in California's San Quentin Prison. Included sixteen pages of shocking photos.