Author William H. Hildebrand takes readers on an exhilarating and illuminating ride through Kent State University’s ten decades: from its beginning under its visionary founder John Edward McGilvrey to the hardships of the Great Depression; through the post–World War II boom years and the tumultuous sixties culminating in the May 4, 1970, tragedy; from the university’s struggle to regain its bearings during the decade-long aftermath, to its restoration and academic resurgence in the eighties and nineties; and into the emerging opportunities and challenges of the new millennium.

Like Susan Griffin’s A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War, Alex Vernon’s most succinctly bred explores war by exploring around war, by operating in the margins. Vernon records his ongoing relationship with war and soldiering—from growing up in late Cold War 1980s middle America to attending West Point, going to and returning from the first Gulf War, and watching, as a writer and academic, the coming of the second Iraq war. Not merely a collection of essays, this book has a trajectory, and the chapters, appearing in rough chronological order, loop in and out of one another. It is not a narrow autobiography that attempts to account only for the writer’s life; it uses that life to illuminate the lives of its readers, to tell us about the time and place in which we find ourselves.

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 were helping the enemy—the United States—pry secrets from them. One of these turncoats, Werner Drechsler, was betrayed and murdered by those he spied on.

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.

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.

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.

Captain J. N. Sumner from Springfield, Massachusetts, hires Pinkerton to help solve a crime involving his sisters and the deed to a family farm. His younger sister Annie falls under the charms of a married man, Mr. Pattmore, who promises to marry Annie once his wife and her brother are out of the way. Captain Sumner possesses an opal ring with a stone that appears to foretell events. After suddenly falling violently ill, he becomes convinced his sister is trying to poison him to get his fortune and, more importantly, his ring.

Music in Ohio offers a comprehensive and ambitious look at music as it has been practiced throughout the state during the last two centuries—from folk to jazz to rock to polka. Author William N. Osborne also examines the music of the Moravians, Mormons, and Welsh, as well as other religious music and choral music. He discusses the state’s two major symphony orchestras, the Cincinnati Opera, and the May Festival. He also includes an overview of public school music-education programs and those of the principal collegiate institutions.

Spotting a trend in the early 1950s of staging summer theater in the round under tents, Clevelander John L. Price Jr. decided to give it a try. Consulting a local statistician to determine the geographical center of the culturally inclined population, the bull’s-eye fell in Warrensville Heights, a Cleveland suburb that was also the home to Thistledown Race Track. Price opened his Musicarnival there, on the grounds of the race track, with a production of Oklahoma! in the summer of 1954. The Music Went ’Round and Around tells the story of this unique summer theater and of its ebullient founder, John L. Price Jr.

Crime has formed the basis of countless plots in music theater and opera. Several famous composers were murder victims or believed to be murdered, and one of the greatest Renaissance composers slaughtered his wife and her lover. In Musical Mysteries, renowned true crime historian Albert Borowitz turns his attention to the long and complex history of music and crime. The book is divided into two parts. The first addresses three aspects of musical crime: the clashes between envious and competitive musicians, the recurrent question of whether genius and criminality can coexist in the same soul, and the jarring contrast between the creative artist and the violent melodrama of everyday life. Borowitz explores eight infamous crimes and crime legends, including the suspected killing of Robert Cambert by his rival, opera composer Jean-Baptiste Lully; the lurid slaying by sixteenth-century madrigal composer Carlo Gesualdo of his unfaithful wife; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s supposed murder at the hands of Antonio Salieri; and the stalking and murder of John Lennon by Mark Chapman. The second part examines crimes in music, looking at such diverse examples as the “Song of Lamech”, the second biblical killer; the preoccupation of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas with corporate law and fraud; and the violent character of Jud Fry in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!