Books for the Armchair Detective in Your Life

Inside some of the mildest people we know is a penchant for reading dark stories of small-town murders, or chilling serial killers. Why not arm the armchair detective in your life with true crime books from every dark corner of the American dream? Here are fascinating stories of unsolved cases, organized crime, historical murders, detective memoirs, epic manhunts, and everyday small-town murder. For the true crime fan in your life, we offer these gripping cases served hot, cold, strange, and straight – so go ahead, throw the book at them!
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16 products
The Boston Mob Guide
The Boston Mob Guide
$19.99
The Cape Cod Murder of 1899: Edwin Ray Snow's Punishment & Redemption
The Cape Cod Murder of 1899: Edwin Ray Snow's Punishment & Redemption
$21.99
Last Rites:
Last Rites:
$21.99
Murder at Breakheart Hill Farm
Murder at Breakheart Hill Farm
$21.99
Wicked Victorian Boston
Wicked Victorian Boston
$21.99
Boston Organized Crime
Boston Organized Crime
$24.99
Murder & Mayhem in MetroWest Boston
Murder & Mayhem in MetroWest Boston
$21.99
Boston Gentlemen's Mob, The
Boston Gentlemen's Mob, The
$21.99
Boston Police
Boston Police
$24.99
Boston Police Department
Boston Police Department
$24.99
Lawrence Police Department
Lawrence Police Department
$24.99
Cambridge Police Department
Cambridge Police Department
$24.99
Murder & Mayhem in Central Massachusetts
Murder & Mayhem in Central Massachusetts
$21.99
Pittsfield's Fosburgh Murder Mystery
Pittsfield's Fosburgh Murder Mystery
$21.99
Crime, Corruption & Politics in Hull
Crime, Corruption & Politics in Hull
$21.99
Mystery on the Vineyard:
Mystery on the Vineyard:
$21.99

The Boston Mob Guide

9781609494209

$19.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%

Boston journalists Beverly Ford and Stephanie Schorow navigate the backrooms and seedy hangouts throughout the real story of Boston's gangster past.


The capture of notorious mobster James "Whitey" Bulger closed an infamous chapter in Boston history, yet the city's criminal underworld has a long and bloody rap sheet that stretches back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Ford and Schorow reveal the underbelly of Boston through profiles of ruthless gangsters like Charles "King" Solomon, the Angiulo brothers, Joseph "The Animal" Barboza, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi and many more who carried out deadly hits and lucrative heists.

The Boston Mob Guide

The Cape Cod Murder of 1899: Edwin Ray Snow's Punishment & Redemption

9781596292277

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
On a crisp September evening in 1899, a seventeen-year-old petty thief named Edwin Ray Snow shot and killed a bakery deliveryman named Jimmy Whittemore outside Yarmouth. The gunshots rang out for only a moment, but the effects resounded on Cape Cod for half a century. The idyllic atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Cape Cod was shattered in a flash. Soon after the crime, Snow pleaded guilty to murder in the first degree, and was the first person ever to be sentenced to death by electric chair in Massachusetts history. But his compelling story didn't end there, and his redemption--earned through decades of hard time--was as dramatic and uplifting as his crime was heinous. Drawing upon town records, historical documents, correspondence and newspapers of the day, The Cape Cod Murder of 1899 recreates the towns of Dennis and Yarmouth at the turn of the century and examines the details of a murder that shook Cape Cod to its core.
The Cape Cod Murder of 1899: Edwin Ray Snow's Punishment & Redemption

Last Rites:

9781596298347

$21.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Last Rites chronicles one man's dramatic descent into the seedy world of New England mobster Raymond Patriarca and his underboss, Gennaro Jerry" Angiulo. In the early 1980s, Gigi Portalla, a well-liked student, athlete and Revere prom king, transformed into a mafia hit man after discovering that his biological father was "Big Eddy" Marino. Portalla rose through the ranks within the Angiulo organization, joining famous Boston wise guys like Sean Cote, Joseph "J.R." Russo and Bobby Carrozza. Drawing on wiretaps, court testimonies and interviews through personal relationships with the criminals in question, Revere writer William J. Craig uncovers the depths of criminality. Portalla clung to a self-imposed moral code, striving to find honor within thievery, even as the lure of his family's past eclipsed his promising future."
Last Rites:

Murder at Breakheart Hill Farm

9781467143691

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On a dark, rainy night in October 1900, George E. Bailey, caretaker of Breakheart Hill farm, disappeared. He no longer made his daily milk runs to town or stopped at the tavern for his favorite cherry rum. Some suspected foul play right away, as Bailey's "wife" had recently gone to Maine, leaving Bailey alone with his farmhand, John C. Best, who was known to be a drunk and a potentially violent man. Nine days later, when Bailey's dismembered body was fished out of a local pond, all eyes quickly focused on Best. Crowds descended on the farm, and the sensational murder captured headlines in Boston's newspapers. Using official records and newspaper archives, authors Douglas L. Heath and Alison C. Simcox uncover the facts and bizarre circumstances of this shocking tale.
Murder at Breakheart Hill Farm

Wicked Victorian Boston

9781467137508

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Victorian Boston was more than just stately brownstones and elite society that graced neighborhoods like Beacon Hill. As the population grew, the city developed a seedy underbelly just below its surface. Illegal saloons, prostitution and sports gambling challenged the image of the Puritan City. Daughters of the Boston Brahmins posed for nude photographs. The grandson of President John Adams was roped into an elaborate confidence game. Reverend William Downs, a local Baptist pastor, was caught in bed with a married parishioner. Author Robert Wilhelm reveals the sinful history behind Boston's Victorian grandeur.
Wicked Victorian Boston

Boston Organized Crime

9780738576732

$24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
Boston has had its share of bookies and loan sharks, gangsters and wiseguys, hoodlums and hit men. From the Great Brink's Robbery, which was hailed as the crime of the century; to the long-forgotten Cotton Club in Roxbury, where the legendary nightlife kingpin Charlie "King" Solomon was gunned down; to the infamous Blackfriars Massacre, a brutal gangland slaying that left five men dead, slumped over a backgammon game in a cramped basement office--all of these dark moments in time are a part of Boston's history that is rarely spoken about. Boston Organized Crime explores the region's shadier side and takes a closer look at the mobsters and racketeers who once operated in the Greater Boston area. Drawing upon an eclectic collection of crime scene photographs, mug shots, and police documents, author Emily Sweeney takes readers on an eye-opening journey through Boston's underworld, from the bootlegging days of Prohibition to the bloody gangland wars of the 1960s.
Boston Organized Crime

Murder & Mayhem in MetroWest Boston

9781467148122

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MetroWest is known for its rolling farmland, winding rivers and quaint white churches facing green town commons. But looks can be deceiving. Tales from these small towns captured headlines and shocked readers across the state with lurid details of betrayal, cruelty, greed and murder. Nina Danforth, spurred on by love and jealousy, made a midnight call to the home of Andrew Emery in Framingham seeking revenge. The murder of spinster Mabel Page in Weston sent a man to the electric chair, and forty years before Lizzie Borden, the grisly axe murder of a husband and wife sent shock waves through the terrified town of Natick. Authors James L. Parr and Kevin A. Swope reveal the stories behind these crimes and the motives of the desperate criminals who perpetrated them.
Murder & Mayhem in MetroWest Boston

Boston Gentlemen's Mob, The

9781467150910

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Violent mobs, racial unrest, attacks on the press--it's the fall of 1835 and the streets of Boston are filled with bankers, merchants and other "gentlemen of property and standing" angered by an emergent antislavery movement. They break up a women's abolitionist meeting and seize newspaper publisher William Lloyd Garrison. While city leaders stand by silently, a small group of women had the courage to speak out. Author Josh Cutler tells the story of the Gentlemen's Mob through the eyes of four key participants: antislavery reformer Maria Chapman; pioneering schoolteacher Susan Paul; the city's establishment mayor, Theodore Lyman; and Wendell Phillips, a young attorney who wanders out of his office to watch the spectacle. The day's events forever changed the course of the abolitionist movement.
Boston Gentlemen's Mob, The

Boston Police

9780738598048

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Recognized as the oldest police department in the country, the Boston Police Department has bravely protected and served the Boston community since 1838. Over the years, the department's efforts to keep the public safe have been supported by the many divisions and special units that are prepared to respond to a wide range of public safety issues. Photographs of the harbor patrol unit, mounted unit, K-9 unit, homicide unit, and motorcycle unit take readers "behind the badge" to witness the exciting and sometimes dangerous situations that officers encounter when protecting the Hub. Honoring this great department and the men and women who have served it, Boston Police: Behind the Badge celebrates the long and noteworthy history of the city and department from days long gone by.
Boston Police

Boston Police Department

9780738513027

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The Boston Police Department was formally organized in 1854, but the department traces its origins to the establishment of a night watch of six men and an officer in 1631. At a town meeting in 1701, watchmen were instructed to be "on duty from ten o'clock till broad daylight. . . . They are to go about silently with watch bills, not using any bell, and no watchman to smoke tobacco while walking their rounds; and when they see occasion, to call to persons to take care of their light." Today, the duties of the Boston police officer are supported by advanced forensic technologies and modern equipment. Officers walk neighborhood beats, control local crime, and are ready at a moment's notice to respond to acts of terrorism. Boston Police Department, the first comprehensive photographic history of the department, details one hundred fifty years of crime fighting in Boston. The collection includes images of the 1919 Boston Police Strike; an overview of specialized units, vehicles, uniforms, and equipment; and an honor roll of officers who have fallen in the line of duty.
Boston Police Department

Lawrence Police Department

9780738501536

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Lawrence Police Department: Heroes Wear Blue pictorially chronicles the history of the department from its inception through its first century to the present day. A compelling visual tour, not only for police and local historians, this collection offers a glimpse of society and how it has changed. Featuring the first known police officer in Lawrence,

Massachusetts, as well as the Lawrence police officers who served in the Civil War in uniform, this volume also provides a rare glimpse of vintage police equipment that is now unlawful to use.
Lawrence Police Department

Cambridge Police Department

9780738562018

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Formally organized in 1859 with the appointment of John C. Willey as the first chief of police, the Cambridge Police Department was then manned by only 16 officers. The department has grown dramatically from its humble beginnings and today employs 277 sworn officers and a civilian staff of 37. Cambridge Police Department, the first comprehensive photographic history of the department, contains over 100 years of historical photographs, including images of specialized traffic and K-9 units, auxiliary police officers, uniforms, and equipment. Many of the vintage photographs in the collection have come from the department archives or were donated by family members of Cambridge officers.
Cambridge Police Department

Murder & Mayhem in Central Massachusetts

9781467119276

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The bucolic image of central Massachusetts belies a dark and sometimes deadly past. Grisly crimes and grim misdeeds reach back to colonial settlement in Worcester County, from an escaped slave hanged for rape in 1768 at the Worcester jail to the Sutton choir singer convicted of drowning his wife in 1935. Henry Hammond's 1899 suicide and the others that followed shook Spencer residents to their cores. Some crimes still grip the imaginations of residents, while others have faded from collective memory. Author Rachel Faugno investigates this sinister history.
Murder & Mayhem in Central Massachusetts

Pittsfield's Fosburgh Murder Mystery

9781467118279

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Shots rang out in a prominent Pittsfield family home on the morning of August 20, 1900, ending the life of young socialite May Fosburgh. Who pulled the trigger was unclear, and the scandal captivated attention well beyond the Berkshires. Her brother was a top suspect, but the distraught family claimed an intruder was to blame. Investigators, media and the public struggled to make sense of conflicting details, including suspicious gunpowder residue, as the mystery remained unsolved. Author Frank J. Leskovitz unravels the tale that still lingers in the hills generations later.
Pittsfield's Fosburgh Murder Mystery

Crime, Corruption & Politics in Hull

9781596291263

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If you lived in Hull, Massachusetts, during the first four decades of the twentieth century, you were susceptible to two forces: the political machinations of Boss John Smith and the vitriolic editorial columns of Hull Beacon publisher Floretta Vining. Smith ran the town with an iron fist through fixed elections, padlocked town meetings, kickbacks, graft and bribes. Vining reported on it all and fought it like no other Progressive Era woman could, using newsprint space to lash out at girls who chewed gum in public and small boys who made too much noise at night, and calling for old men over sixty years of age to simply be put to sleep. Hull Times contributor and local historian John Galluzzo brings back the days of Vining and Smith, of steamboats and trains, of Paragon Park and the grand hotels of Nantasket Beach. In this accessible history, the reader gets a ringside seat to some of the most heated political battles in the history of the South Shore, fought in town halls and occasionally spilling into the streets of the once quiet and peaceful Hull Village.
Crime, Corruption & Politics in Hull

Mystery on the Vineyard:

9781596294233

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In the pre, World War II innocence of small-town America, a dapper off-Islander impresses the locals. Drawn to the prettiest girl, he is upset when an elderly woman tries to break off their romance. In a drunken stupor he murders the troublesome woman. Through an amazing confluence of circumstances, he avoids prosecution. The reclusive, paranoid teacher of the victim attracts the attention of a distracted district attorney who is eager for a sensational trial to promote himself in an impending election. The teacher is arrested and charged with the murder. The looming shadows of war on the international stage capture the people of Martha's Vineyard, and the local murder fades into the murky memoirs of history.
Mystery on the Vineyard: