With the author as detective, each of Goodman’s essays examines a particularly notorious murder and subsequent trial. He introduces the readers to the 1923 shooting at the Savoy Hotel in London of Prince Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey at the hands of his wife, Madame Marie-Marguerite Fahmy; he revisits the “Crime of the Century,” the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in March 1932 allegedly by Bruno Richard Hauptmann, and his subsequent execution for this crime, even though this case against Hauptmann has come under scrutiny; and he explores the 1980 serial killings committed by Michele de Marco Lupo, a gay man who coaxed other homosexuals to meet with him, then strangled and savagely bit them.

As a true crime book, Tracks to Murder is witty and informative and enriches these classic American murder cases by placing them within their original settings. Goodman also plays them against their locations as they are today, resulting in a series of character sketches both contemporary and historical. As a travel book, it presents the seasoned reflections of a cultivated English writer on American manners and morals observed during his serendipitous transcontinental journey.

An updated and enlarged edition of an annotated collection originally published more than 20 years ago, Bloody Versicles serves as two books in one: an anthology of ribald, moralistic, sad, yet amusing and entertaining verse relating to specific crimes; and a small encyclopedia of select criminals and their wrongdoings.

Nicknamed “the Blonde Borgia,” Anna Marie Hahn was a cold-blooded serial killer who preyed on the elderly in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine district in the 1930s. When the State of Ohio strapped its first woman into the electric chair, Hahn gained a place in the annals of crime as the nation’s first female serial killer to be executed in the chair.

Sure to place this case among the classics of crime literature, The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories features two reprinted accounts of Caswell’s death, both fictional and originally printed in the 1850s, as well as an introduction that places these salacious accounts in a historical context. This book serves not simply as true crime but, rather, presents a seamy side of rapid industrial growth and the public anxiety over the emerging economic roles of women.

Dr. Sam Sheppard on Trial presents a comprehensive and final analysis of this controversial case from the perspective of the prosecutors. Jack P. DeSario, together with co-author William D. Mason, chief attorney for Cuyahoga County, Ohio, provides all the facts, evidence, expert testimony, both old and new, and sworn statements of the principals in this case, which concluded in April 2000. The jury unanimously found that Dr. Sheppard was not innocent.

Author Thomas Crowl, using newspaper and magazine accounts, interviews, and other primary source material (some previously unavailable), follows the investigation into the Mellett murder by a private detective who was hired by the Stark County prosecutor. The arrest of the prime suspect and the sensational trial of the cocky hitman received nationwide media coverage. The murder investigation also netted the two local hoodlums who hired McDermott. Additionally, a former police detective was arrested and convicted as the originator of the plot, and he in turn implicated police chief Lengel in the murder conspiracy. Nearly a year and a half later, however, Lengel was ultimately acquitted of the charges.

The study of terrorism requires interdisciplinary inquiry. Proving that terrorism cannot be the exclusive focus of a single field of scholarship, Borowitz presents this complex subject using sources based in religion, philosophy, history, Greek mythology, and world literature, including works of Chaucer, Cervantes, Mark Twain, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Terrorism for Self-Glorification, written in clear and direct prose, is original, thorough, and thought provoking. Scholars, specialists, and general readers will find their understanding of terrorism greatly enhanced by this book.

Albert Borowitz provides a guide to “fact-based crime literature” focusing on two principal groups of works: non-fictional accounts of crimes and criminal trials, including essays, monographs, journalism, editions of court transcripts, prison histories, and criminal and police biographies and memoirs; and works of imaginative literature, such as novels, stories, or stage works, based on or inspired by actual crimes or criminals. Blood and Ink, with forewords by Jacques Barzun and true-crime writer/historian Jonathan Goodman, will prove to be an invaluable resource to true-crime aficionados as well as to students and scholars of literature, cultural studies, and social history.

Ripperology—a sometimes obsessive interest in studying the crimes of Jack the Ripper—is a subject of timeless interest that has suffered from confusion, exaggeration, and hyperbole for over a century. Jack the Ripper was probably the first serial killer to appear in a large metropolis at a time when the general populace was literate and the press was a force for social change. The press was also partly responsible for creating many myths surrounding the Ripper.