Summary Of Harold Schechter S Hell S Princess

"The shocking true story of one of the twentieth century's most prolific female serial killers."--Book jacket.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The city of Chicago was rebuilt after the Great Conflagration of 1871. It drew immigrants from all over the world, and among them were many Norwegians. They were widely regarded as a frugal, industrious, and upstanding people. #2 The Norwegians in Chicago were very successful, and many emigrated to help build America. They were very proud of their heritage, and would celebrate Norway’s Independence Day, the Viking Mayflower, and the sailing of the dragon-prowed longship Viking across the Atlantic. #3 The Norwegian population in Chicago was very peaceful and law-abiding, and they were known for their deference to law and order. Brynhild Paulsdatter was one of the most unlovely women in her twenties, but she was still a notable exception to the rule. #4 Brynhild was a peasant girl in Norway who was extremely malicious and capricious. She had unpretty habits, and was a liar already as a child. She was hired out as a dairymaid at age 14, and her neighbors remembered her as a very bad human being.

"The shocking true story of one of the twentieth century's most prolific female serial killers."--Book jacket.

The unputdownable true crime story about a killer who preyed on children but was not much older than his victims. When fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874, Boston’s nightmarish reign of terror came to an end. Called the “Boston Boy Fiend,” he was finally safely behind bars. But questions remained about how and why a teenager could commit such heinous crimes. Acclaimed true crime writer Harold Schechter brings his brilliant insight and fascinating historical documentation to this unforgettable exploration of one of America’s youngest serial killers.

Relates how respected local farmer and school board treasurer Andrew P. Kehoe blew up the new primary school in Bath, Michigan in 1927, an act of vengeance that killed thirty-eight children and six adults in one of the first and worst mass murders in American history.

From renowned true-crime historian Harold Schechter, whom The Boston Book Review hails as “America’s principal chronicler of its greatest psychopathic killers,” comes the riveting exploration of a notorious, sensational New York City murder in the 1890s, the fascinating forensic science of an earlier age, and the explosively dramatic trial that became a tabloid sensation at the turn of the century. Death was by poison and came in the mail: A package of Bromo Seltzer had been anonymously sent to Harry Cornish, the popular athletic director of Manhattan’s elite Knickerbocker Athletic Club. Cornish barely survived swallowing a small dose; his cousin Mrs. Katherine Adams died in agony after ingesting the toxic brew. Scandal sheets owned by Hearst and Pulitzer eagerly jumped on this story of fatal high-society intrigue, speculating that the devious killer was a chemist, a woman, or “an effeminate man.” Forensic studies suggested cyanide as the cause of death; handwriting on the deadly package and the vestige of a label glued to the bottle pointed to a handsome, athletic society scamp, Roland Molineux. The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Molineux had clashed bitterly with Cornish before. He had even furiously denounced Cornish when penning his resignation from the Knickerbocker Club, a letter that later proved a major clue. Bon vivant Molineux had recently wed the sensuous Blanche Chesebrough, an opera singer whose former lover, Henry Barnet, had also recently died . . . after taking medicine sent to him through the mail. Molineux’s subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials, a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation, and a lurid print-media circus that ended in madness and a proud family’s disgrace. In bold, brilliant strokes, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal case, gathering his own evidence and tackling subjects no one dared address at the time–all in hopes of answering the tantalizing question: What powerfully dark motives could drive the wealthy scion of an eminent New York family to foul murder? Schechter vividly portrays the case’s fascinating cast of characters, including Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, a prolific yellow journalist who covered the story, and proud General Edward Leslie Molineux, whose son’s ignoble deeds besmirched a dignified national hero’s final years. All the while Schechter brings alive Manhattan’s Gilded Age: a gaslit world of elegant town houses and hidden bordellos, chic restaurants and shabby opium dens, a city peopled by men and women fighting and losing the battle against urges an upright era had ordered suppressed. Superbly researched and powerfully written, The Devil’s Gentleman is an insightful, gripping work, a true-crime historian’s crowning achievement.

Beverly Holland lives it up with her older businessman beau, Eric Fox. He gives her everything she craves—except satisfaction between the sheets. Frustrated, she picks up sexy stranger Dante at a hotel bar, who shows her what she's been missing! But he's also about to shake up her life. Beverly has no idea that Eric is really a hitman or that Dante has a vendetta: Eric killed his brother and now he wants Eric dead. Beverly also doesn't know that while she's carrying on with her man's potential killer, her man's carrying on with her best friend, Marilyn—who will do anything to make Eric hers. . .. When the forces of lust, lies, betrayal and revenge collide, who's going to survive—and who will ultimately be the hitman's woman?

The truth behind the twisted crimes that inspired the films Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs... From “America’s principal chronicler of its greatest psychopathic killers” (The Boston Book Review) comes the definitive account of Ed Gein, a mild-mannered Wisconsin farmhand who stunned an unsuspecting nation—and redefined the meaning of the word “psycho.” The year was 1957. The place was an ordinary farmhouse in America’s heartland, filled with extraordinary evidence of unthinkable depravity. The man behind the massacre was a slight, unassuming Midwesterner with a strange smile—and even stranger attachment to his domineering mother. After her death and a failed attempt to dig up his mother’s body from the local cemetery, Gein turned to other grave robberies and, ultimately, multiple murders. Driven to commit gruesome and bizarre acts beyond all imagining, Ed Gein remains one of the most deranged minds in the annals of American homicide. This is his story—recounted in fascinating and chilling detail by Harold Schechter, one of the most acclaimed true-crime storytellers of our time.