True Crime Authors

Almost since the beginning of time, man has committed crimes that have defied our ability to explain. Among these are the most heinous crimes of all, murders. The taking of an innocent life goes against our most basic principles. Yet, murders continue to occur, and sometimes, they go unsolved. Following are some of the most famous and infamous cases that are still waiting. They are murders, unsolved, in audiobook form.

Back then, hot-headed gangsters, not-so-gentle dames and bullet-riddled corpses filled the newspaper headlines. And some of the stories below the headlines were even true. The 1920s was a period in American history when even the respectable were unwilling to stay sober. And not-so-fast cars carried assassins across Chicago, a city that for many captures the essence of the USA. In Tough Guys in the Room, the story of Al Capone and his rivals is told in separate and stand-alone topics that cover key figures and events.

The doorbell rings in the home of a prominent Palm Beach citizen, quickly followed by a shotgun blast that shatters a window, cracking the calm of a cool January night. Rodger Kriger falls to the floor, mortally wounded, leaving a wife and six children. Murder in Palm Beach: The Homicide That Never Died is closely based on a sensational, real murder that happened in the posh oceanside town in 1976. In the thin guise of fiction, the audiobook contains shocking new information never before made public.

Throughout John Mortimer's career, he established profound friendships with people accused of various crimes. He also indulged his passion for writing, penning Paradise Postponed and a series of stories about Rumpole, for whom he was often mistaken. With wit, wisdom and tenderness, he has written the story of his life.

Criminal exploits, secret agent intrigue, and clever disguises fill the pages of Francois Eugene Vidocq’s memoirs. A legendary figure in history, Vidocq is known as the first detective and an inspiration to great writers such as Honore de Balzac, Victor Hugo and Edgar Allen Poe. As a player in the criminal underworld, Vidocq is a master of disguises and an accomplished thief, eventually turning his unlawful talents toward catching criminals as the first French chief of secret police.

Bloodstains is the startling tale of one man’s search for the truth after inheriting the personal diaries belonging to his great-great-grandfather who, he discovers, was America’s first and most notorious serial killer Herman Webster Mudgett. Better known by his alias H.H. Holmes, Mudgett was the mass murderer who struck terror in the nation by being the proprietor of the infamous Murder Castle and stalking the streets of Chicago during the 1893 World’s Fair.

The Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary - and literary history. The making of the OED was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, was stunned to discover that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than 10,000.

Donna Freitas has lived two lives. In one life, she is a well-published author and respected scholar who has traveled around the country speaking about Title IX, consent, religion, and sex on college campuses. In the other, she is a victim, a woman who suffered and suffers still because she was stalked by her graduate professor for more than two years.

Studies in Forensic Psychiatry is the product of extensive research into the psychological motivations for criminal behavior. Bernard Glueck draws his conclusions from a huge wealth of experience with the criminally insane and with the public health care systems. He recognized the need for criminology to be expanded to reflect a deeper understanding of motive and inclination on the part of the criminal, rather than being considered solely in terms of the criminal act itself.

This gripping historical crime fiction novel, based on fact, is set in Bradford, England, 1888. It explores the horrific murder of Johnny Gill; a murder and mutilation so gruesome, it stuns a nation. Even hardened detectives are affected by its savagery, swiftly comparing it to the work of Jack the Ripper.

My name is Patrick Harrington, and they called me The Breeze. I trafficked drugs throughout the American southwest for fifteen years. I had the merchandise to take away people’s troubles, and then I was gone like a breeze. But no matter how many people I dealt oblivion to, I could never escape my demons. This is how a lifetime of trauma, dysfunction, bad choices, and addiction was healed and redeemed. With his characteristic wit, humor, and brutal honesty, Patrick brings you along for the roller coaster ride that was his life.

In her youth, amidst the throes of a reckless grief, aspiring Australian writer Marele Day is caught up in a shipwreck adventure and forges an unlikely bond with an international fugitive travelling under a pseudonym. For the next 30 years they correspond before reuniting, both older and wiser, in France.

Kelly Carlisle was three weeks old when her mother was strangled in downtown Los Angeles, leaving Kelly in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric Englishman who owned a porn store and lived on a boat in the harbor. It is here that Kelly finds a home among friendly alcoholics and the city's forgotten residents. But she can't help but wonder if she is destined to become a part of the dysfunction that surrounds her.

After a wealthy woman was brutally murdered in her Glasgow home in 1908, the police found a convenient suspect in Oscar Slater, an immigrant Jewish cardsharp. Though he was known to be innocent, Slater was tried, convicted, and consigned to life at hard labor. Outraged by this injustice, Arthur Conan Doyle, already world famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, used the methods of his most famous character to reinvestigate the case, ultimately winning Slater’s freedom.

Miriam Giles ran away to Colorado to bury her violent past - but this seductive, charismatic widow has a dark side that could never stay buried. After finding the "sugar daddy" she was looking for in Alan Helmick, her new marriage seemed happy. Then, two years later, Alan meets a gruesome fate. Returning home from errands, Miriam finds him lying in a pool of blood. Miriam shows police a cryptic note warning her to "run, run, run". But Miriam is no distraught housewife.

The long forgotten true story of two convict "assigned" servant girls, Sarah 18 y/o & Mary 20 y/o, tried in colonial Australia for the murder of their “master”. The witnesses except for the widow and her 12-year-old son saw no punches, allegedly the cause of death. The attending doctor did not arrive in time to give evidence. Hearsay evidence was admitted. There were no witnesses for the defense.

In Girls of Tender Age, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith fully articulates with great humor and tenderness the wild jubilance of an extended French-Italian family struggling to survive in a post-World War II housing project in Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1932, the city of Natchez, Mississippi, reckoned with an unexpected influx of journalists and tourists as the lurid story of a local murder was splashed across headlines nationwide. Two eccentrics, Richard Dana and Octavia Dockery, enlisted an African American man named George Pearls to rob their reclusive neighbor, Jennie Merrill, at her estate. During the attempted robbery, Merrill was shot and killed.

Based on exclusive new information, Submerged, a compelling true crime drama, exposes hidden angles of a case that captivated and divided an ordinary American community, tore apart two families, and tested the criminal justice system. Compelled by conscience and curiosity, former Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Janice (Morse) Hisle - who covered the saga of Ryan and Sarah Widmer from the start - returns 10 years later to dig deep to tell the untold story

A notorious white supremacist named Richard Barrett was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 2010 by a young Black man named Vincent McGee. At first the murder seemed a twist on old Deep South race crimes. But then new revelations and complications came to light. Maybe it was a dispute over money rather than race - or, maybe and intriguingly, over sex.