Frank Carlson Library

"After 30 years, Detective Jim Scharf arrested a teenage couple's murderer-and exposed a looming battle between the pursuit of justice and the right to privacy. When Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook were murdered during a trip to Seattle in the 1980s, detectives had few leads. The murder weapon was missing. No one witnessed any suspicious activity. And there was only a single handprint on the outside of the young couple's van. The detectives assumed...

"In December 2003, Luke Ryder, the stepfather of acclaimed filmmaker Guy Howard, was found dead in the garden of their suburban family home. Guy was only a child, asleep upstairs at the time of the murder. His mother and two half sisters were also in the house that night -- but all swear they saw nothing. Despite a high-profile police investigation and endless media attention, no suspect was ever charged, and Guy's family has been haunted ever since....

A New York Times–bestselling author and former Los Angeles Times reporter chronicles the marriage between a Christian woman and an ex-con that ends in murder. When Carol Montecalvo began writing to a man in prison through a program at her church, she considered it her Christian duty. But the letters soon became her lifeline, something she actually looked forward to sending and receiving. She fell in love with the man behind the letters and just...

"The true story of the world's most prolific art thief--a spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, from the bestselling author of The Stranger in the Woods. For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly ten years--in museums and cathedrals all over Europe--Breitwieser,...

Acclaimed true-crime journalist Linda Wolfe presents the bizarre and riveting true story of how the chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals was brought down by sexual obsession He was the top justice of New York's highest court. She was a stunning socialite and his wife's step-cousin. In 1993 Sol Wachtler was convicted of blackmail and extortion against Joy Silverman, his former mistress. How did a respected jurist and one of the most prominent...

Mark Shaw is the foremost analyst of organised crime in SA.' – Jonny Steinberg At the dawn of the country's brave new democracy, Cape Town was at war. Pagad, which began as a community protest action against crime, had mutated into a sinister vigilante group wreaking death and destruction across the city. Between 1996 and 2001, there were hundreds of bomb blasts – most infamously at the Planet Hollywood restaurant at the V&A Waterfront – and...

"Best friends Daryl Barber and James Boucher were responsible, and their parents trusted them to spend Spring Break at Daytona Beach unchaperoned. When the boys missed their agreed-upon daily check-ins, their parents were disappointed. When they failed to come home on their planned return date, their parents were terrified. They could not have known that their innocent sons would encounter two violent men on the Florida coast. They could not have...

London's most exclusive neighborhoods sit on sites of the some of the most sinister and scandalous crimes in British history. Stories of violent death will always hold us in a grim but thrilling grip. The dreadful crimes related in Foul Deeds in Kensington & Chelsea are shocking examples of murder cases that readers will never forget. Crimes of passion, opportunistic killings, political assassinations-the full spectrum of extreme criminality is recounted...

A history of juvenile crime, punishment, and reform in England in the years before, during, and after the era of Charles Dickens. How were juvenile delinquents dealt with in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? What dire circumstances led to their behavior? Were the efforts to curb their criminal tendencies successful? From 1820–1920, ideas about youth and transgression changed dramatically in the United Kingdom. Criminal Children delves...

Two centuries of true crime-the murders, the scandals, and the vice-all of which stain the history of this world-famous seaside British resort city. While renowned as a place of culture, fun, and tourism, the town of Brighton, England has a dark side-and a shockingly well-deserved reputation as a hotbed of crime. Robbery, violence, murder, and every type of vice have flourished in this seaside town. And in this compelling book, the author records...