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True Crime History

Send proposals via mail or e-mail to:
Joyce Harrison, Acquiring Editor
The Kent State University Press
1125 Risman Drive
Kent, OH 44242-0001 USA
jharri18@kent.edu
The True Crime History Series, aimed at both a general readership and a scholarly audience, features effectively written, well-documented studies of notable criminal cases from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, primarily American. Books in the series will often focus on once-sensational crimes that, at the time of their occurrence, captivated the public and will explore the social and cultural factors that help explain their significance. The series also includes studies of real-life crimes that served as the inspiration for important works of American fiction.

Nameless Indignities

Susan Elmore | Filed under: New Releases, True Crime, True Crime History
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Upon discovering that her great-great aunt was the victim and central figure in one of Illinois’s most notorious crimes, author Susan Elmore set out to learn more. She uncovered a perplexing case that resulted in multiple suspects, a lynch mob, charges of perjury and…

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Guilty by Popular Demand

Bill Osinski | Filed under: New Releases, True Crime History
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The townsfolk of Logan, Ohio, a mined-out area of the Appalachian foothills, cheered as an innocent man was convicted and sent to death row. The occasion was the conviction of Dale N. Johnston. His trial ended nothing; the tragedies had just begun. What really happened…

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The Supernatural Murders

Jonathan Goodman | Filed under: New Releases, True Crime, True Crime History
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This anthology of thirteen true crime stories includes the mysterious slaying of Charles Walton, who was found slashed and pierced to death in an area notorious for its associations with black magic; the murder of Eric Tombe, whose body was located because of a recurring…

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The Christmas Murders

Jonathan Goodman | Filed under: New Releases, True Crime, True Crime History
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Here are ten murder cases of “the old-fashioned sort”—evoking a nostalgia more obviously associated with fiction—that all took place during the festive period from mid-December to Twelfth Night between 1811 and 1933. In The Christmas Murders, Jonathan Goodman has collected stories as fascinating and…

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Born to Lose

James G. Hollock | Filed under: New Releases, True Crime, True Crime History
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Stanley Barton Hoss was a burglar, thief, and local thug from the Pittsburgh area. In eight short months in 1969, however, he became a rapist, prison escapee, murderer, and kidnapper; the subject of an intense nationwide manhunt; and one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted….

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Queen Victoria’s Stalker

Jan Bondeson | Filed under: New Releases, True Crime, True Crime History
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Queen Victoria’s Stalker is the first full-length account of the Boy Jones’s persistent stalking of Queen Victoria and the journalism and literature inspired by his intrusions. By comparing this case to other instances of celebrity stalking and discussing various theories of stalking mentality, Jan Bondeson…

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Murder and Martial Justice

Meredith Lentz Adams | Filed under: New Releases, True Crime, True Crime History
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During World War II, the United States maintained two secret interrogation camps in violation of the Geneva Convention—one just south of Washington, D.C., and the other near San Francisco. German POWs who passed through these camps briefed their fellow prisoners, warning them of turncoats who…

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