An Organ Of Murder

Download or read book An Organ of Murder written by Courtney E. Thompson and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-12 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the 2022 Cheiron Book Prize​ An Organ of Murder explores the origins of both popular and elite theories of criminality in the nineteenth-century United States, focusing in particular on the influence of phrenology. In the United States, phrenology shaped the production of medico-legal knowledge around crime, the treatment of the criminal within prisons and in public discourse, and sociocultural expectations about the causes of crime. The criminal was phrenology’s ideal research and demonstration subject, and the courtroom and the prison were essential spaces for the staging of scientific expertise. In particular, phrenology constructed ways of looking as well as a language for identifying, understanding, and analyzing criminals and their actions. This work traces the long-lasting influence of phrenological visual culture and language in American culture, law, and medicine, as well as the practical uses of phrenology in courts, prisons, and daily life.

Download or read book Death in Soho written by Emily Organ and published by Emily Organ. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's the Roaring Twenties. London's bright young things are partying, Soho's nightlife is buzzing and Augusta Peel is hiding in her basement. She has a reason to hide there: it's home to her Bloomsbury workshop where she repairs old, neglected books. After a busy time during the war, all Augusta wants is peace and quiet - even if it is routinely disturbed by the tube trains beneath her feet. But events take a turn when Augusta agrees to chaperone 19-year-old Harriet Jones on a date. Failing to get her home on time, she ends up in a riotous nightclub. She can't imagine the evening getting much worse when the police raid it. But then the murder happens. Who shot Jean Taylor? An old acquaintance at Scotland Yard learns Augusta was near the murder scene and persuades her to help with his investigation. But how can a humble book repairer navigate Soho's world of actresses, gangsters and theatre impresarios to discover the truth?

Download or read book Cut written by Amy S. Peele and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the federal government is launching a national investigation on the “equity” of organ distribution, a female tech CEO flies across the country to get a liver transplant. Soon, well-respected transplant nurse Sarah Golden and her best friend, Jackie, find themselves tangled up in an intense plot to uncover the answer to the question on everyone’s mind: Can you buy your way up to the top of the waiting list? Their pursuit of justice brings them to Miami, San Francisco, and Chicago―a sometimes fun, sometimes dangerous roller coaster ride from which they barely escape with their lives.

Download or read book We Are Not Such Things written by Justine van der Leun and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-06-28 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Justine van der Leun reopens the murder of a young American woman in South Africa, an iconic case that calls into question our understanding of truth and reconciliation, loyalty, justice, race, and class—a gripping investigation in the vein of the podcast Serial “Timely . . . gripping, explosive . . . the kind of obsessive forensic investigation—of the clues, and into the soul of society—that is the legacy of highbrow sleuths from Truman Capote to Janet Malcolm.”—The New York Times Book Review The story of Amy Biehl is well known in South Africa: The twenty-six-year-old white American Fulbright scholar was brutally murdered on August 25, 1993, during the final, fiery days of apartheid by a mob of young black men in a township outside Cape Town. Her parents’ forgiveness of two of her killers became a symbol of the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa. Justine van der Leun decided to introduce the story to an American audience. But as she delved into the case, the prevailing narrative started to unravel. Why didn’t the eyewitness reports agree on who killed Amy Biehl? Were the men convicted of the murder actually responsible for her death? And then van der Leun stumbled upon another brutal crime committed on the same day, in the very same area. The true story of Amy Biehl’s death, it turned out, was not only a story of forgiveness but a reflection of the complicated history of a troubled country. We Are Not Such Things is the result of van der Leun’s four-year investigation into this strange, knotted tale of injustice, violence, and compassion. The bizarre twists and turns of this case and its aftermath—and the story that emerges of what happened on that fateful day in 1993 and in the decades that followed—come together in an unsparing account of life in South Africa today. Van der Leun immerses herself in the lives of her subjects and paints a stark, moving portrait of a township and its residents. We come to understand that the issues at the heart of her investigation are universal in scope and powerful in resonance. We Are Not Such Things reveals how reconciliation is impossible without an acknowledgment of the past, a lesson as relevant to America today as to a South Africa still struggling with the long shadow of its history. “A masterpiece of reported nonfiction . . . Justine van der Leun’s account of a South African murder is destined to be a classic.”—Newsday

Download or read book The Elements of Murder written by John Emsley and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006-07-13 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about elements that kill. Mercury, arsenic, antimony, lead, and thallium can be lethal, as many a poisoner knew too well. Emsley explores the gruesome history of these elements and those who have succumbed to them in a fascinating narrative that weaves together stories of true crime, enduring historical mysteries, tragic accidents, and the science behind it all. The colourful cast includes ancient alchemists, kings, leaders, a pope, several great musicians, and amotley crew of murderers. Among the intriguing accounts is that of the 17th century poet Sir Thomas Overbury, who survived four attempts to poison him with mercury but died when given the poison in enema form - under whose direction remains uncertain. Here, too, is detailed the celebrated case of FlorenceMaybrick, convicted of poisoning her violent husband James with arsenic, but widely believed at the time to be innocent. The question of her guilt is still disputed.Threaded through the book alongside the history is the growing understanding of chemistry, and the effects of different chemical substances on the human body. Thousands suffered the ill effects of poisonous vapours from mercury, lead, and arsenic before the dangers were realized. Hatters went mad because of mercury poisoning, and hundreds of young girls working in factories manufacturing wallpaper in the 19th century were poisoned by the arsenic-based green pigments used for the leaves of thepopular floral designs. Even in the middle of the 20th century, accidental mercury poisoning caused many deaths in Minamata Bay, while leaded petrol poisoned the whole planet, and arsenic still continues to poison millions is Asia.Through vividly told stories of innocent blunders, industrial accidents, poisoners of various hues - cold, cunning, desperate - and deaths that remain a mystery, Emsley here uncovers the dark side of the Periodic Table.

Download or read book Murder Me Now written by Annette Meyers and published by Speaking Volumes. This book was released on with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Free Love, the debut novel in her wickedly diverting new mystery series Annette Meyers wowed readers as she deftly brought the sights and sounds or Prohibition Era Greenwich Village to exhilarating life. Now this accomplished author returns to the roaring twenties, as snow blankets the narrow Village streets and her irrepressible heroine, poet-cum-sleuth Olivia Brown, finds the gaiety of her days eclipsed by the shadow of a ghastly crime that hits much too close to home. MURDER ME NOW Happily ensconced in her Bedford Street brownstone, Olivia Brown is having the time of her life: writing sonnets and downing martinis, making conquests and making love. Indeed, she doubts that anything could tempt her away from her Village home until she succumbs to the lure of a house party in Croton that promises sparkling conversation, bucolic views and plenty of free-flowing gin. Yet Olivia has barely arrived at the rustic farmhouse of Fordy and Kate Vaude when the convivial atmosphere takes a decidedly nasty turn. Between the petty squabbles and the jarring silences, the backbiting and the broad hints of marital discord, Olivia can't shake the feeling that something is terribly wrong here. And then she finds the frozen corpse of the Vaudes' nanny, hanging from a tree. Clearly, the young woman was murdered, and yet as Olivia and her friend, private investigator Harry Melville, join forces to learn why and by whom, they uncover more questions than answers. And when it turns out that the mysterious nanny was not whom she pretended to be, Olivia finds herself rushing headlong into a mystery that will take her from the swank and sophisticated Yale Club to the smoke-filled lair of a bootlegger and into the menacing clutches of the gang known as the Black Hand. The deeper Olivia probes, the darker the threats. Surrounded by bold-faced danger and ominous smiles, she can't help but wonder: Is the murderer one of the thugs—or one of her friends?

Download or read book Match written by Amy S. Peele and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do politics, living donor kidney transplants, and the current opioid crisis all have in common? Sarah Golden and Jackie Larsen, best friends since nursing school, could never have imagined that they’d end up as amateur sleuths searching to find a killer—for the second time! Jackie, a stay-at-home mom with marriage troubles, is racing the clock to get her young son, Wyatt, a living kidney donor to avoid the ravages of dialysis. Sarah, who has been living her career in the fast-paced world of organ transplantation, is helping expedite Wyatt’s kidney transplant. Then a much-despised hospital colleague turns up dead of an opiate overdose—despite the fact that she’d never used drugs—and Sarah smells foul play. Her curiosity and tenacity pull Jackie, once again, into a life-and-death adventure that neither woman could have expected. Armed with smarts, tenacity, big hearts, and their raucous senses of humor, the pair gets the help of a few colorful friends to pursue the killer and take on the mission in the only style they both know how: straight on and arm-in-arm as the friends they’ve always been.