Frank Carlson Library

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then in 1986 he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area. Three decades later, true crime journalist Michelle McNamara was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored...

Hollywood chronicler William J. Mann draws on a rich host of sources, including recently released FBI files, to unpack the story of the enigmatic William Desmond Taylor, the popular president of the Motion Picture Directors Association, and the diverse cast that surrounded him before he was murdered in 1922-- including three beautiful, ambitious actresses, the ruthless founder of Paramount locked in a struggle for control of the film industry, a grasping...

"Private investigator Jessica Shaw is leading a quiet life in a Californian desert community, where she spends her days working low-level cases. But when a former resident asks Jessica to help her sister, Rue Hunter, a convicted murderer whose execution is days away, Jessica can't resist the offer. Rue doesn't remember what happened the night two high school students were killed thirty years ago, but everybody in town is certain she's guilty. As Jessica...

"Film detective Valentino is summoned to the estate of Ignacio Bozel to collect a prized donation to the university's movie library: Bleak Street, a film from the classic noir period, thought lost for more than sixty years. Bleak Street was never released. Its star, Van Oliver, a gifted and charismatic actor with alleged ties to the mob, disappeared while the project was in post-production, presumably murdered by gangland rivals: another one of Hollywood's...

"The amateur DNA sleuth who solved one of the most infamous cold cases in American history--the Golden State Killer crime spree--tells the incredible true story of how she did it, and explains how her methods have forever changed criminal investigations. In the span of just a few years, Barbara Rae-Venter went from researching her family history as a retiree to finding a serial killer who had baffled law enforcement for decades. I Know Who You Are...