In 1853 Lexington, Virginia, Mary Evelyn Anderson, one of the most beautiful women in the Commonwealth, spurned the advances of a young law student named Charles Burks Christian. Humiliated and heartbroken, Christian confronted, stabbed and killed the man he believed responsible for Anderson's decision. The man was her cousin, Thomas Blackburn, a VMI cadet and student of Stonewall Jackson. What followed was a circus of inept and brilliant lawyers dragging members of the most prominent fami...

Security and development matter: they often involve issues of life and death and they determine the allocation of truly staggering amounts of the world’s resources. Particularly since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been momentum in policy circles to merge the issues of security and development to attempt to end conflicts, create durable peace, strengthen failing states, and promote the conditions necessary for people to lead healthier and more prosperous lives.

COVID-19 had a global impact on health, communities, and the economy. As a result of COVID-19, music festivals, gigs, and events were canceled or postponed across the world. This directly affected the incomes and practices of many artists and the revenue for many entities in the music business. Despite this crisis, however, there are pre-existing trends in the music business – the rise of the streaming economy, technological change (virtual and augmented reality, blockchain, etc.), and new...

A road trip becomes a dead end for a schoolteacher in this haunting cold case of murder that became a fifty-year fight for justice.In June of 1968, Irene Izak, a young French teacher from Scranton, Pennsylvania, was pulling an all-nighter on the road toward the promise of a new life in Quebec. The last time she was seen alive was at 2:09 a.m. by a toll collector at Thousand Island Bridge who claimed Irene was visibly afraid. Less than a half-hour later, Irene was f...

The mentalist, mindbinder, and author of Haunted Providence delves into the 19th-century murder of Sarah Maria Cornell."If I should be missing, enquire of the Rev. Mr. Avery of Bristol, he will know where I am."This scribbled note belonged to Sarah M. Cornell, written the day her body was found hanged in a rural pasture in Tiverton, Rhode Island. An unmarried young woman of limited means, Sarah was four months pregnant, and a married Metho...

MURDER IN THE FAST LANEDavid Mahler, a 43-year-old east coast lawyer, came to Hollywood for the celebrity lifestyle, the movie industry, and the women. At his seven-level home in the Hollywood Hills, Mahler rubbed elbows with the seedy elements of the entertainment world: wannabe rock stars, drug lords, and porn stars—one of whom introduced him to Kristin Baldwin, a pretty, upbeat blonde. One night, during a violent argument in his bedroom, a vicious, drug-crazed Mahler gr...

The Edgar Award–winning true crime story of the 1994 murder of a two-year-old Texas girl and her grandmother's pursuit of justice."Carlton Stowers has always been in the top rank of crime journalists. This is his best." —Jack Olsen, author of Hastened to the Grave and I: The Creation of a Serial KillerOn January 22, 1994, two-year old Renee Goode played happily with her...

The double life of a hardworking wife and mother leads to murder in this true-crime story by the New York Times bestselling author of I'll Be Watching You.In the lovely town of Pleasant Valley in upstate New York, the maple trees were ablaze with fall's blood-red color. The air was crisp. And a woman named Susan Fassett left her weekly choir practice at a church—when a killer emerged from the shadows and mercilessly gunned her down . . .St...

The New York Times bestselling author of Obsessed examines the lives of a South Carolina serial killer and his victims in this true-crime story.Heather Catterton was a beautiful, beloved seventeen-year-old when her body was found in the brush by a country road in South Carolina. Sweet-natured Randi Saldana's remains were then discovered, charred and unrecognizable, in a wooded area nearby. Bestselling investigative journalist M. William Phelps del...

The true-crime story of a Massachusetts nurse with a dark secret, by the New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Left Behind.At the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northampton, Massachusetts, Kristen Gilbert was known as a hardworking, dedicated nurse. Yet so many emergencies and sudden deaths occurred under Kristen's watch that others jokingly called her the “Angel of Death.” No one suspected the horrifying truth: that over the course of...

This New York Times bestseller—from “America’s best true-crime writer” (Kirkus Reviews) and the author of The Stranger Beside Me—is a shocking tale of greed, sex, scandal, and murder on an isolated and eerie island in the Pacific Northwest. The basis for the Lifetime movie event Circle of Deception.With more than 50 million copies of her books in print—from her chilling personal account of knowing Ted Bundy to sixteen collections...

Notorious Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and ConnecticutNew England is best known for its covered bridges, immaculate town greens and Revolutionary War history. Yet an evil presence has hidden behind the 17th-century stone walls and clap-boarded homes of CT, Mass. and Rhode Island for centuries. New York Times bestselling author M. William Phelps takes a look at some of the most terrifyingly true stories in New England history.