“Heroes and rogues fill the pages of this book. The stories will hold your attention and chill you to the bone.â€â€” Crime Shadow News
Cleveland's master of historical crime and disaster returns with 15 more true tales in this sixth volume of his popular series, including . . .
• West Park sisters Helen, 11, and Marguerite, 10, who died after eating Rough-on-Rats brand poison in their grandmother’s basement— victims of a genetic “suicide mania,†or driven to death by the cruelest caretaker since Hansel and Gretel’s stepmom?
• Joseph “Specs†Russell, who vaulted to fame in the summer of 1927 by staging as many as 52 stick-ups and making fools of Cleveland lawmen with his “impossible†escapes from their dragnets;
• Jeanette McAdams—just unlucky, or the Lucretia Borgia of Ashtabula County? After the suspiciously similar deaths of her five siblings, neighbors began to take note of the crowded family graveyard;
• Salty and ageless George Wallace, who served the city as a fireman for 62 years, 30 of them as chief, and endured to become the oldest fire chief in the world—with a mastery of incessant profanity that could be heard for four city blocks and made mule skinners blush;
And more true stories of courage, fear, deception, and villainy—including a disaster caused by the author himself!
Sometimes gruesome, often surprising, John Stark Bellamy’s tales are meticulously researched and delivered in a literate and entertaining style.