In this fascinating book, Peter Vronsky exposes and investigates the phenomenon of women who kill—and the political, economic, social and sexual implications buried with each victim. How many of us are even remotely prepared to imagine our mothers, daughters, sisters or grandmothers as fiendish killers? For centuries we have been conditioned to think of serial murderers and psychopathic predators as men—with women registering low on our paranoia radar. Perhaps that’s why so many trusting husbands, lovers, family friends, and children have fallen prey to “the female monster.” From history’s earliest recorded cases of homicidal females to Irma Grese, the Nazi Beast of Belsen, from Britain’s notorious child-slayer Myra Hindley to ‘Honeymoon Killer’ Martha Beck to the sensational cult of Aileen Wournos—the first female serial killer-as-celebrity—to cult killers, homicidal missionaries, and our pop-culture fascination with the sexy femme fatale, Vronsky not only challenges our ordinary standards of good and evil but also defies our basic accepted perceptions of gender role and identity. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS
From the author of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters comes an in-depth examination of sexual serial killers throughout human history, how they evolved, and why we are drawn to their horrifying crimes. Before the term was coined in 1981, there were no "serial killers." There were only "monsters"--killers society first understood as werewolves, vampires, ghouls and witches or, later, Hitchcockian psychos. In Sons of Cain--a book that fills the gap between dry academic studies and sensationalized true crime--investigative historian Peter Vronsky examines our understanding of serial killing from its prehistoric anthropological evolutionary dimensions in the pre-civilization era (c. 15,000 BC) to today. Delving further back into human history and deeper into the human psyche than Serial Killers--Vronsky's 2004 book, which has been called the definitive history of serial murder--he focuses strictly on sexual serial killers: thrill killers who engage in murder, rape, torture, cannibalism and necrophilia, as opposed to for-profit serial killers, including hit men, or "political" serial killers, like terrorists or genocidal murderers. These sexual serial killers differ from all other serial killers in their motives and their foundations. They are uniquely human and--as popular culture has demonstrated--uniquely fascinating.
Fans of Mindhunter and true crime podcasts will devour these chilling stories of serial killers from the American "Golden Age" (1950-2000). With books like Serial Killers, Female Serial Killers and Sons of Cain, Peter Vronsky has established himself as the foremost expert on the history of serial killers. In this first definitive history of the "Golden Age" of American serial murder, when the number and body count of serial killers exploded, Vronsky tells the stories of the most unusual and prominent serial killings from the 1950s to the early twenty-first century. From Ted Bundy to the Golden State Killer, our fascination with these classic serial killers seems to grow by the day. American Serial Killers gives true crime junkies what they crave, with both perennial favorites (Ed Kemper, Jeffrey Dahmer) and lesser-known cases (Melvin Rees, Harvey Glatman).
Some of the serial killers chosen for this first annual Serial Killers True Crime Anthology you might have heard of and we present their tales in new ways. Others have not graced every newspaper, tabloid or television screen and represent tales of true crime horror told in detail for the first time in these pages. Five of true crime's most prolific authors have come together in these pages to present their most compelling cases of serial homicide, famous and not so famous. WARNING: This book contains graphic forensic crime scene photos and statements that some may find disturbing. "The lambs may have stopped screaming, but Hannibal Lecter has nothing on the very 'real' monsters presented here." Serial killers; they cross the bounds of evil. They murder at random without logic or reason other than the one twisting in their sick and evil minds. They are diabolical vile creatures devoid of morality or pity. You will meet a chosen few of them in these pages. We will see that serial killers are roaming among us all, from small towns to big cities. They are not limited to a particular place, gene pool, culture, social class or religion. They are not restricted to any particular demographic, political propensity and they can be of any gender. "To cover such vast territory of the criminal mind is a credit to the dedication a small group of determined authors who possess a passion in true crime and it is evident in the pages of Serial Killers True Crime Anthology 2014, a book you will embrace and come back to repeatedly, I will. I am excitedly anticipating volume two next year."- ★★★★★ John Douglas, FBI Profiler bestseller author of Mind Hunter
In this groundbreaking narrative, historian, investigative journalist and filmmaker Peter Vronsky uncovers the hidden history of the Battle of Ridgeway and explores its significance to Canada’s nation-building myths and traditions. On June 1, 1866, more than 1,000 Fenian insurgents invaded Canada across the Niagara River from Buffalo, N.Y. The Fenians were mostly battle-hardened Civil War veterans; the Canadian troops sent to fight them came from a generation that had not seen combat at home for more than 30 years. Led by inexperienced upper-class officers, the volunteer soldiers were mostly young, some as young as 15 years old. They were farm boys, shopkeepers, apprentices, schoolteachers, store clerks and two rifle companies of University of Toronto students hastily called out from their final exams. Many had not fired live rounds from their rifles even once. When they fought the Fenians near the village of Ridgeway the next day, a single rifle company of 28 students took the brunt of a counter-attack by 800 insurgents and suffered the most killed and wounded. The events of June 2, 1866, were covered up by the Macdonald government. The story was falsified so thoroughly that most Canadians today have not heard of the first modern battle in which Canadians died.
WITH 15 PHOTOS Chris Dorner was a cop with the LAPD who was fired after reporting that his training officer beat up a handcuffed, non-resisting suspect. He appealed. Lost. Then snapped. In his manifesto that he posted on Facebook, he vowed to kill those associated with him being fired as well as their families. His first victims were the daughter of the LAPD lawyer who represented him and her fiance. This recent case from 2013 includes several pictures, some of which are quite graphic, including the all-out manhunt for Dorner and his controversial death. Did the LAPD blow the whole scenario way out of proportion. Keeping in mind the fact that the LAPD is one of the most militarized police forces in America, one man's attempts to clear his name should not have sent the whole LAPD into the frenzy that it went into after Dorner's manifesto and statement came to light. Los Angeles has its share of some of the world's most ruthless and well-armed crime rings. These include, The Crips, Bloods, Mexican Mafia, Yakuza, Armenian Mob,Aryan Brotherhood, Skinheads, and Russian mobs as well as the local drug cartels. These gangs are not only real, they are openly hostile towards the LAPD and have killed numerous police officers on numerous occasions. Some of these gangs have even murdered entire families with the LAPD unable to catch them. Yet when an ex-cop, wanting to clear his name, tried to speak out against the LAPD, the police goes all out, 'balls to the wall', and embarked on one of the most organized and widespread manhunts in recent history. Additionally, newer reports regarding Monica Quan have arisen that render an even greater air of speculation to the whole ordeal. Monica Quan and her fiancé, both with law enforcement backgrounds, were found in a car that was parked in a parking garage in a million-dollar predominantly white neighborhood. The parking garage was being guarded by a police officer who did not see Dorner, a large black man, break in. The garages are monitored 24/7 and yet there is no footage of Dorner either breaking in, killing anyone, being there or leaving. Nothing. But that's what the LAPD wants people to believe.
WARNING - This book contains police and court transcripts of audio and descriptions of extremely graphic sexual violence contained in videotapes made by the perpetrators." Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka were so perfectly iconic as a newlywed couple that they were dubbed "Ken and Barbie." But their marriage had a dark side involving sex, death, and videotape. The 'perfect couple' first raped and murdered Karla's little sister and then kidnapped teenage schoolgirls whom they enslaved, raped, tortured and killed while gleefully recording themselves on video doing it. Vronsky will take you on the journey from the Scarborough Rapist (Bernardo) to Bordelais (Homolka's current last name) and her return to Canada in October, 2014 from the island of Gaudeloupe where she lived for several years with her husband and three children. WITH (21) PHOTOS This is the third book in Crimes Canada: True Crimes That Shocked The Nation collection. Crimes Canada: True Crimes That Shocked The Nation is a collection of 24 books being produced by VP (Vronsky Parker) Publications, an imprint of RJ Parker Publishing, Inc. Peter Vronsky is a Canadian author of one of the most sold serial killer books worldwide; "Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters" RJ Parker is also a Canadian author/publisher and has written 18 true crime books including bestsellers; "Serial Killers Abridged: An Encyclopedia of 100 Serial Killers," and "Parents Who Killed Their Children: Filicide.
When billionaire Francis Reboul finds himself on the wrong side of a Russian tycoon, he’s fortunate to have vacationing friends Sam Levitt and Elena Morales on hand to help him out. Now it’s up to Sam—who’s saved Reboul’s neck before—to negotiate with an underworld of mercenaries, hit men, and Mafioso, to prevent his friend from becoming a victim of “Russian diplomacy.” As usual, Sam and Elena still find time to enjoy the good life, but as Sam’s sleuthing draws him closer to the truth, he realizes Reboul might not be the only one in trouble. Rich with clever twists, sparkling scenery, and mouthwatering gustatory interludes as only Peter Mayle can write them, The Corsican Caper is an adventure par excellence.
This is the second volume of the bestselling annual, Serial Killers True Crime Anthology, a collection of some of the best true crime writing on serial killers over the year. Several of these authors who appeared in Volume 1 of the Anthology, return this year to Volume 2 with new stories. 2015 Serial Killers True Crime Anthology Volume 2: Peter Vronsky in the chilling story "Zebra! The Hunting Humans 'Ninja' Truck Driver Serial Killer" describes the carnage perpetrated in 2007 by Adam Leroy Lane, a long haul truck driving serial killer who after repeatedly watching in his truck cab a serial killer DVD movie he was obsessed with, forayed out in the night from Interstate highway truck-stops dressed in Ninja black to re-enact the movie scenes by killing and mutilating unsuspecting women in their homes until he was captured by a fifteen-year old girl and her parents when he attempted to kill her as she slept in her bedroom.RJ Parker in "Demons" introduces us to the little known story of Canada's serial killer Michael Wayne McGray who murdered men, women and children indiscriminately and whom even prison could not stop from continuing his killing. In the "Grim Sleeper" Parker describes the brutal crimes of Lonnie Franklin, Jr. who over a 23-year killing career, took a fourteen-year hiatus (thus his nickname) before resuming his murders of women in Los Angeles.Katherine Ramsland in "The Babysitter" brings us up to date on the still unsolved horrific1976 mutilation child murders in Detroit that inspired Bill Connington's one-man Broadway play and Joyce Carol Oates 1995 novella Zombie. In "Really! The Other Guy Did It." Ramsland explores the bizarre case of serial killer Douglas Perry who after killing several women underwent a transsexual change into a woman, Donna Perry, who when apprehended, claimed the murders were perpetrated by his former male self who no longer existed. Ramsland asks, "Is guilt in the body or the soul?" Michael Newton in "Bad Medicine" and "Angel of Death" describes two serial killers where we least expect them: health care workers. Physician Dr. Harold Shipman who murdered 250 victims in Britain and might be history's most prolific serial killer, and the smiling mild mannered Ohio medical orderly 'Angel of Death' Donald Harvey, who confessed to murdering 87 helpless patients, stating, "So I played God."Sylvia Perrini, Britain's true crime chronicler of female serial killers in "The House of Horrors" revisits the notorious case of Rosemary West who teamed up with her husband Fred in the rape, torture and murder of ten young women in their rooming house, including her own daughter. In "The Mum Who Killed for Kicks" Perrini looks at the recent case of Joanne Dennehy, a mother of a thirteen-year old who inexplicably went on a thrill kill serial killing spree in which she tortured and murdered three men with a knife and attempted to kill two others.Kelly Banaski, a newcomer to true crime writing, brings us "Stripped of his medals and female panties", the strange case of a Canadian air force base commander, a colonel who piloted senior government officials and even the Queen of England, who suddenly began to commit a series of panty fetish burglaries that eventually escalated to horrific rape-torture murders of women. Enjoy and be horrified!!
This novel, "Mama's Boy," is about a pathologically shy, pigeon-toed boy, Peter Macaulay, who everybody, including his parents, considers mentally retarded and incredibly awkward physically. He has no friends and relates only to his mother, Elizabeth, even though when drunk she abuses him verbally and often slaps him. On the eve of high school, a gifted teacher and tutor, Ellen Marie Gaffney, is brought into Peter's life by his father, Jack, who is embarrassed by his son known at school as "The Geek." Jack hopes Miss Gaffney can prepare Peter academically for high school. The father also bribes the school principal with a $10,000 check to have Peter placed on the all-black basketball team. Two blacks, Fred "Sweetie" Davis and James "Big Daddy" Winkfield, take Peter under their wings, although other blacks bully him physically and verbally, often threatening his life. The female protagonist of the novel, 21-year-old Nora Quindt, a senior at the University of California at Berkeley, becomes Peter's second tutor, and through her growing emotional attachment to this 16-year-old "child" becomes part of the black basketball world of Castlemont High School in Oakland, California. The overall theme of this novel revolves around black-white relations in America. The author, Peter Clark, went to Castlemont, an inner-city school that was 60 percent black in 1958-1961, and was personal friends with Fred Davis and James Winkfield.
Praise for OPPOSABLE LIVES, Volume One of an Autobiography “I found it fascinating. . . . There are very few people who could write an interesting and entertaining autobiography.” Mary Arntfield “A wonderful read!. . . tender and insightful, straight-forward and honest.” Bill Guest “What a wonderful gift!. . . it’s extremely well written, flows lucidly—an easy while highly perceptive read.” John Davis “I love your witty title. Opposable thumbs led to curiosity, experimentation, imagining, growth in intellect. ‘Opposable Lives’ generates these, and much, much more.” Thomas Whitbread “I thoroughly enjoyed it.” Brian Carnahan
When Constance Garnett's translations (1910–20) made Dostoevsky's novels accessible in England for the first time they introduced a disruptive and liberating literary force, and English novelists had to confront a new model and rival. The writers who are the focus of this study - Lawrence, Woolf, Bennett, Conrad, Forster, Galsworthy and James - either admired or feared Dostoevsky as a monster who might dissolve all literary and cultural distinctions. Though their responses differed greatly, these writers were unanimous in their inability to recognize Dostoevsky as a literary artist. They viewed him instead as a psychologist, a mystic, a prophet and, in the cases of Lawrence and Conrad, a hated rival who compelled creative response. This study constructs a map of English modernist novelists' misreadings of Dostoevsky, and in so doing it illuminates their aesthetic and cultural values and the nature of the modern English novel.
Completely revised and updated to include the most up-to-date selections, this is a bold and bright reference book to the novels and the writers that have excited the world's imagination. This authoritative selection of novels, reviewed by an international team of writers, critics, academics, and journalists, provides a new take on world classics and a reliable guide to what's hot in contemporary fiction. Featuring more than 700 illustrations and photographs, presenting quotes from individual novels and authors, and completely revised for 2012, this is the ideal book for everybody who loves reading.
Management theory is vague about the experience of leading. Success, power, achievement are discussed but less focus is given to negative experiences leaders faced such as loneliness or disappointment. This book addresses difficult-to-explore aspects of leadership through well-known works of literature drawing lessons from fictional leaders.
It is 1995. Milan Zorec, an aspiring yet rejected novelist, travels from England to Bosnia to join the Serbian forces as a sniper in Sarajevo, in the final months of the longest siege in history. He's determined to find a story that no publisher will be able to damn with the words, 'I feel I've seen this before.' In doing so Milan journeys from innocence into the slow burning grip of darkness. Among his fellow snipers, the lost souls who make up Ratko Mladic's army, Milan gains the ammunition to write his masterpiece - the novel that hasn't been written before. Alternating between London and Sarajevo, I Hate Martin Amis et al is a chilling, blackly humorous novel that will appeal to both lovers of the word and anyone who's fallen short of their ambitions. Peter Barry's stunningly original, award winning debut isn't just about literary failure, though. It's a compelling portrait of the dreamer, and bores down into the very centre of things - why we write, why we read, how we might live in these, the strangest of times.
What mysteries lie at the heart of fiction's power to enchant and engage the mind? Empty Revelations considers a number of philosophical problems that fiction raises, including the primary issue of how we can think and talk about things that do not exist. Peter Alward covers thought-provoking terrain, exploring fictional truth, the experience of being "caught up" in a story, and the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. At the centre of Alward's argument is a figure known as the "narrative informant" who mediates the reader's encounter with fictional events through - sometimes unreliable - reporting. Developing a theory in which the author is a sculptor who constructs works of fiction out of words, Alward demonstrates that much of the confusion about fiction stems from a failure to properly distinguish between writing fiction and telling stories. Combining clarity, philosophical sophistication, ingenuity, and originality, Empty Revelations is a rewarding read for both scholars of philosophy and anyone interested in the complex ways that fiction works.
A gorgeously unique, fully illustrated exploration into the phenomenology of reading—how we visualize images from reading works of literature, from one of our very best book jacket designers, himself a passionate reader. “A playful, illustrated treatise on how words give rise to mental images.” —The New York Times What do we see when we read? Did Tolstoy really describe Anna Karenina? Did Melville ever really tell us what, exactly, Ishmael looked like? The collection of fragmented images on a page—a graceful ear there, a stray curl, a hat positioned just so—and other clues and signifiers helps us to create an image of a character. But in fact our sense that we know a character intimately has little to do with our ability to concretely picture our beloved—or reviled—literary figures. In this remarkable work of nonfiction, Knopf's Associate Art Director Peter Mendelsund combines his profession, as an award-winning designer; his first career, as a classically trained pianist; and his first love, literature—he considers himself first and foremost as a reader—into what is sure to be one of the most provocative and unusual investigations into how we understand the act of reading.
A thrilling, true-life detective story about the search for the missing members of the Romanov royal family, murdered by Bolsheviks in 1918, and one family's involvement in the hundred-year-old forensic investigation into their deaths, clandestine burials, and the recovery and authentication of the remains.
Perspective taking is a critical component of approaches to literature and narrative, but there is no coherent, broadly applicable, and process-based account of what it is and how it occurs. This book provides a multidisciplinary coverage of the topic, weaving together key insights from different disciplines into a comprehensive theory of perspective taking in literature and in life. The essential insight is that taking a perspective requires constructing an analogy between one's own personal knowledge and experience and that of the perspective taking target. This analysis is used to reassess a broad swath of research in mind reading and literary studies. It develops the dynamics of how analogy is used in perspective taking and the challenges that must be overcome under some circumstances. New empirical evidence is provided in support of the theory, and numerous examples from popular and literary fiction are used to illustrate the concepts. This title is part of the Flip it Open programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
In recent decades, a growing body of educational scholarship has called into question deeply embedded assumptions about the nature, value and consequences of reason. Education and the Limits of Reason extends this critical conversation, arguing that in seeking to investigate the meaning and significance of reason in human lives, sources other than non-fiction educational or philosophical texts can be helpful. Drawing on the work of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Nabokov, the authors demonstrate that literature can allow us to see how reason is understood and expressed, contested and compromised – by distinctive individuals, under particular circumstances, in complex and varied relations with others. Novels, plays and short stories can take us into the workings of a rational or irrational mind and show how the inner world of cognitive activity is shaped by external events. Perhaps most importantly, literature can prompt us to ask searching questions of ourselves; it can unsettle and disturb, and in so doing can make an important contribution to our educational formation. An original and thought provoking work, Education and the Limits of Reason offers a fresh perspective on classic texts by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Nabokov, and encourages readers to reconsider conventional views of teaching and learning. This book will appeal to a wide range of academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education, literature and philosophy.
Some of the serial killers chosen for this first annual Serial Killers True Crime Anthology you might have heard of and we present their tales in new ways. Others have not graced every newspaper, tabloid or television screen and represent tales of true crime horror told in detail for the first time in these pages. Five of true crime's most prolific authors have come together in these pages to present their most compelling cases of serial homicide, famous and not so famous. WARNING: This book contains graphic forensic crime scene photos and statements that some may find disturbing. "The lambs may have stopped screaming, but Hannibal Lecter has nothing on the very 'real' monsters presented here." Serial killers; they cross the bounds of evil. They murder at random without logic or reason other than the one twisting in their sick and evil minds. They are diabolical vile creatures devoid of morality or pity. You will meet a chosen few of them in these pages. We will see that serial killers are roaming among us all, from small towns to big cities. They are not limited to a particular place, gene pool, culture, social class or religion. They are not restricted to any particular demographic, political propensity and they can be of any gender. "To cover such vast territory of the criminal mind is a credit to the dedication a small group of determined authors who possess a passion in true crime and it is evident in the pages of Serial Killers True Crime Anthology 2014, a book you will embrace and come back to repeatedly, I will. I am excitedly anticipating volume two next year."- ★★★★★ John Douglas, FBI Profiler bestseller author of Mind Hunter
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