Mystery Biography

In the first major history of crime fiction in 50 years, The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators traces the evolution of the genre from the 18th century to the present, offering brand-new perspective on the world’s most popular form of fiction.

In his novels and short stories, Gabriel García Márquez has transformed the particulars of his own life and the lives of his fellow Colombians into wondrous fiction. While telling the story of the sloppily dressed, skinny young man who rose from obscurity as a provincial journalist to international fame as the progenitor of a new literature, Gerald Martin also considers the tensions in García Márquez's life between celebrity and the personal quest for literary quality, between politics and writing, and between the seductions of power, solitude, and love.

This story of a real-life Indiana Jones of the 1950s named John Keel contains everything but a trip to Venus in a flying saucer - a subject our newsman/explorer would become famous for a decade later. In Egypt, the fearless Keel was cursed by a mummy and befriended members of a strange snake-charming cult. In Iraq, he played Russian roulette with a notorious desert bandit and lived among the Yezidi devil-worshippers. Later, in India, he was buried alive and discovered the secret of the Indian rope trick, which he then performed for incredulous reporters in New Delhi.

In November 1912, popular and pretty 18-year-old Ella Barham was raped, murdered, and dismembered in broad daylight near her home in rural Boone County, Arkansas. The brutal crime sent shock waves through the Ozarks and made national news. Authorities swiftly charged a neighbor, Odus Davidson, with the crime. Locals were determined that he be convicted. This examination of the murder of Ella Barham and the trial of her alleged killer opens a window into the meaning of community and due process during a time when politicians and judges sought to professionalize justice.

Throughout history, there have been rare individuals who transcend what most of us believe to be possible: enlightened beings who have access to experience and knowledge most of us do not have. The Indian-born avatar Mother Meera is such an individual. Born Kamala Reddy to an illiterate family, she was, from a young age, observed to be different from other children - she would sit in the forest for hours on end without moving or uttering a word and soon began attracting a following of devotees who would arrive to sit in her presence.

Unravel the chilling true story of Jeffrey Epstein—a financier turned predator whose life of wealth, power, and perversion shocked the world. Dive into the definitive biography of Jeffrey Epstein, tracing his meteoric rise from a Brooklyn dropout to a Wall Street prodigy, and his descent into one of history’s most notorious sex trafficking scandals. The Enigma of Jeffrey Epstein: A Life of Power, Perversion, and Mystery exposes the untold secrets behind his empire—private islands, elite connections, and a black book brimming with names like Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Prince Andrew.

When Sergeant Charlie McCabe returns from fighting in Afghanistan, she hopes to leave the war behind. Instead, she comes home to a father whose gambling has put him in deep trouble with a violent loan shark. She finds work as a professional bodyguard, but to save her father, she needs to get serious cash together fast. However, her father isn’t the only one who needs saving. When Charlie’s first client - a wealthy executive with a shady past - narrowly escapes a bomb plot, Charlie’s investigation leads her into the heart of Boston’s criminal underworld.

Let’s face it, the last thing a nature lover expects to find in the beautiful deep woods is a human corpse. But if one mystery isn’t enough, nothing explains the awkward way bodies have been positioned, the mysterious carvings in their flesh, and sometimes, the eerie feeling of being watched.

Spurred on by Sir Walter Raleigh, John White leads 120 men, women, and children across the treacherous Atlantic to colonize the wilds of Virginia. Landing at Roanoke Island in July of 1587 - with hostile Indians afoot and little food for winter - the colonists persuade White to return to England for the supplies and help they need. After a terrifying ocean crossing, White finds every available British ship pressed into service against the looming threat of the Spanish Armada.

After Evan’s latest case ends in disaster, he’s at the end of his tether — until fate throws him headlong into Linda Clayton's desperate world and a long-dead investigation that everybody wants to stay that way. But Evan never does what everybody wants, and he vows to find answers for her that he can’t find for himself. As the suspense ratchets up, he’s caught in a desperate fight for his life with a stone-cold killer who will stop at nothing to protect his secrets....

Shadow on the Mountain recounts the adventures of a 14-year-old Norwegian boy named Espen during World War II. After Nazi Germany invades and occupies Norway, Espen and his friends are swept up in the Norwegian resistance movement. Espen gets his start by delivering illegal newspapers, then graduates to the role of courier, and finally becomes a spy, dodging the Gestapo along the way. During five years under the Nazi regime, he gains - and loses - friends, falls in love, and makes one small mistake that threatens to catch up with him as he sets out to escape on skis over the mountains to Sweden.

The girls yammer all the way to Colorado and Baer's ready for a change. Stinky Joe concurs. But a random Rocky Mountain storm combines with a slippy transmission to force Baer to the side of the road to be rescued by an unwitting cop with a secret. Sometimes good men contemplate evil out of love. Sometimes they need an accomplice with backwood skills...and a reputation that precedes him. Sometimes they're a day late.

In this addictive true-life whodunit, author Mardi Link details all the evidence to date in the case of the Robison family murders. She crafts her book around police and court documents and historical and present-day statements and interviews, in addition to exploring the impact of the case on the community of Good Hart and the stigma that surrounds the popular summer getaway. Adding to both the sense of tragic history and the suspense, Link laces her tale with fascinating bits of local and Indian lore.

An in-depth look into the creation of the post-WWII Healing Revival focusing on the historical perspective of William Marrion Branham, who has been credited by some as the evangelist who both initiated and led the movement. From his involvement with the Kardashian family in California to his politically-charged sermons supporting the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, William Branham lived a fascinating and unbelievable history connected to the collaboration, influence, and power of recognized public figures and events in American history.

Of all the colorful characters that inhabited the West during the 19th century, the most famous of them all is Wyatt Earp (1848-1929), who has long been regarded as the embodiment of the Wild West. Considered the "toughest and deadliest gunman of his day", Earp symbolized the swagger, the heroism, and even the lawlessness of the West.

In the closing days of 1799, the United States was still a young republic, its uncertain future contested by the two major political parties of the day: the well-moneyed Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the populist Republicans, led by Aaron Burr. The two finest lawyers in New York, Burr and Hamilton were bitter rivals both in and out of the courtroom, and as the next election approached - with Manhattan likely to be the swing district on which the presidency would hinge - their animosity reached a fever pitch.

Something unimaginable occurred from 1764 to 1767 in the remote highlands of south-central France. For three years, a real-life monster, or monsters, ravaged the region, slaughtering by some accounts more than 100 people, mostly women and children, and inflicting severe injuries upon many others.

Acclaimed scientist and author Bernd Heinrich has returned every year since boyhood to a beloved patch of western Maine woods. What is the biology in humans of this deep-in-the-bones pull toward a particular place, and how is it related to animal homing? Heinrich explores the fascinating science chipping away at the mysteries of animal migration: how geese imprint true visual landscape memory; how scent trails are used by many creatures, from fish to insects to amphibians, to pinpoint their home if they are displaced from it; and more.

It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men, machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air. When at last the wreckage had been sifted and the hospital triage units consulted, twenty-one people were declared dead and dozens more injured. But as it turned out, this was just a prelude to the devastation that was to come.

In The Crash of Flight 3804, Investigative Journalist Charlotte Dennett digs into her father’s counterintelligence work, which pitted him against America’s wartime allies - the British, the French, and the Russians - in a covert battle for geopolitical and economic influence in the Middle East. Through vivid storytelling, extensive research, and deep analysis of region-defining maps, she reveals how feverish competition among intelligence networks, military, and Big Oil interests have fueled indiscriminate attacks and targeted killings that continue to this day.