Murder In Matera

Author: Helene Stapinski
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062438441
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Book Description
“A murder mystery, a model of investigative reporting, a celebration of the fierce bonds that hold families together through tragedies…Murder in Matera is a gem.”— San Francisco Chronicle "Tantalizing" — NPR “A thrilling detective story… Stapinski pursues the study of her family’s criminal genealogy with unexpected emotional results.” — Library Journal A writer goes deep into the heart of Italy to unravel a century-old family mystery in this spellbinding memoir that blends the suspenseful twists of Making a Murderer and the emotional insight of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. Since childhood, Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy, she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one along the way. Helene’s youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight. Finding answers would take Helene ten years and numerous trips to Basilicata, the rural "instep" of Italy’s boot—a mountainous land rife with criminals, superstitions, old-world customs, and desperate poverty. Though false leads sent her down blind alleys, Helene’s dogged search, aided by a few lucky—even miraculous—breaks and a group of colorful local characters, led her to the truth. Yes, the family tales she’d heard were true: There had been a murder in Helene’s family, a killing that roiled 1870s Italy. But the identities of the killer and victim weren’t who she thought they were. In revisiting events that happened more than a century before, Helene came to another stunning realization—she wasn’t who she thought she was, either. Weaving Helene’s own story of discovery with the tragic tale of Vita’s life, Murder in Matera is a literary whodunit and a moving tale of self-discovery that brings into focus a long ago tragedy in a little-known region remarkable for its stunning sunny beauty and dark buried secrets.

Five-Finger Discount

Author: Helene Stapinski
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0375758704
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
Now a PBS documentary, this astonishing memoir of growing up in rough-and-tumble Jersey City “will steal your heart” (People) With deadpan humor and obvious affection, Five-Finger Discount recounts the story of an unforgettable New Jersey family of swindlers, bookies, embezzlers, and mobster-wannabes. In the memoir Mary Karr calls “a page-turner,” Helene Stapinski ingeniously weaves the checkered history of her hometown of Jersey City—a place known for its political corruption and industrial blight—with the tales that have swirled around her relatives for decades. Navigating a childhood of toxic waste and tough love, Stapinski tells an extraordinary tale at once heartbreaking and hysterically funny. Praise for Five-Finger Discount “By turns hilarious and alarming, [Helene Stapinski’s] book reads on the surface like something by Damon Runyon and Elmore Leonard, with a dark undertow of real-life pain and disillusion.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “It’s a brilliant book, a darling book. It is the blessedly modest chronicle of a magical consciousness that seems to have been born pulling diamonds out of the muck, hearing angels’ voices in the fiercest thunder. . . . I adored every word of this wondrous book. Get it. Read it.”—Michael Pakenham, The Baltimore Sun “In the tradition of . . . Rita Mae Brown and Amy Tan, Ms. Stapinski is an exciting writer, unabashedly candid, and at the same time unashamedly self-contained. Five-Finger Discount is a must-read.”—Victoria Gotti, The New York Observer “What [Frank] McCourt did for Limerick, Ireland, Helene Stapinski does for Jersey City.”—The Star-Ledger “Hugely entertaining.”—The Sunday Times (London)

A Radical Departure

Author: Lia Matera
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504066650
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Book Description
A California lawyer’s dream job becomes a nightmare when her boss is murdered in this mystery by the author of Where Lawyers Fear to Tread. Fresh out of law school, Willa Jansson nabs a first-year associate position at a family friend’s law firm. Famous progressive attorney Julian Warneke has gotten Willa’s hippie parents out of legal trouble on several occasions, though his reputation for grandstanding landed Willa in jail for two traumatic months after she was arrested during a protest march. Regardless, she’s happy to be working for such an influential firm, even if it pays less than any other outfit in town and she’s assigned to all the divorces, landlord-tenant cases, and drunk-driving defenses . . . Willa’s caseload is the least of her worries when Julian’s poisoned to death at a fancy work lunch. When the investigation begins, the authorities are drawn to Willa as a suspect in the “law school murders.” Then there’s the matter of her mother being listed to inherit Julian’s house. As Willa begins working to clear their names, she must dodge a terrible ex-boyfriend and a charming cop—not to mention a killer who’s drawing ever closer . . . Praise for the Willa Jansson Mysteries “Matera's wit, grace with language, irreverence toward the legal system, and wry dissection of being a child of the Sixties make this a standout.” —Kirkus Reviews “Intelligent and entertaining . . . Absorbing . . . With sharp descriptions and crisp dialogue . . . Admirably delivers the complex situations and memorable characters of a ‘real novel’ while still managing to let the detective story have its day in court.” —The Wall Street Journal

Mom, Apple Pie, and Murder

Author: Nancy Pickard
Publisher: Berkley Trade
ISBN: 9780425168905
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
Carolyn Wheat, Nancy Pickard, Linda Grant, and others balance motherhood with murder. Apple recipes make the anthology all the sweeter.

Ed Kemper: Conversations with a Killer

Author: Dary Matera
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
ISBN: 1454943165
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
The third title in our Conversations with a Killer series focuses on one of the most notorious serial killers of the 1970s, Ed Kemper, a key character in the hit Netflix series Mindhunter. If there ever was a human monster that walked this earth, it was the highly intelligent, psychotic, 6’9” killer Edward “Big Ed” Kemper. As a troubled 15-year-old, Kemper shot and killed his grandparents. Eight years later, he went on an 11-month reign of terror slaughtering and dismembering six college co-eds in California, brutally killing his mother with a hammer, and breaking her best friend’s neck. Kemper, 71, remains alive at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, more intimidating now than ever. Masterful crime writer Dary Matera tells Kemper’s full, shocking story, interweaving insights from the killer himself.

Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer

Author: Stephen G. Michaud
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
ISBN: 1454937696
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description
In a series of death row interviews done shortly before his execution, infamous serial killer Ted Bundy gave a third-person "confession" of his many murders. This definitive book on Bundy was recently made into a Netflix documentary. What goes on in the mind of a serial killer? Drawn from more than 150 hours of exclusive tape-recorded interviews with the handsome, charismastic Bundy, whose grisly killing spree left at least 30 young women dead across seven states between 1974 and 1978, this chilling exposé provides a shocking self-portrait of one of the most savage sex murderers in history. Speaking eerily in the third person, Bundy reveals appalling details about his crimes, discloses how he attracted his victims, explains how he methodically disguised his acts, and recounts his two daring jailbreaks. Bundy also offers his thoughts on other infamous serial killers, including John Wayne Gacy and Son of Sam.

Taming the Beast

Author: Edward George
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0312209703
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
Manson's prison counselor describes his interaction with the cult leader.

Those Who Knew

Author: Idra Novey
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525560440
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Named a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by * NPR * Esquire * O, The Oprah Magazine * Real Simple * BBC * PopSugar * Bustle * Kirkus Reviews * Lit Hub “A gripping, astute, and deeply humane political thriller.” —The Boston Globe “Mesmerizing [and] uncannily prescient.”—Los Angeles Times A taut, timely novel about what a powerful politician thinks he can get away with and the group of misfits who finally bring him down, from the award-winning author of Ways to Disappear. On an unnamed island country ten years after the collapse of a U.S.-supported regime, Lena suspects the powerful senator she was involved with back in her student activist days is taking advantage of a young woman who's been introducing him at rallies. When the young woman ends up dead, Lena revisits her own fraught history with the senator and the violent incident that ended their relationship. Why didn't Lena speak up then, and will her family's support of the former regime still impact her credibility? What if her hunch about this young woman's death is wrong? What follows is a riveting exploration of the cost of staying silent and the mixed rewards of speaking up in a profoundly divided country. Those Who Knew confirms Novey's place as an essential new voice in American fiction.

Murder on the Run

Author: Gloria White
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780727843173
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
Running is supposed to be the path to health, but for Veronica "Ronnie" Ventana it's suddenly a direct route to danger. At six A.M. jogging on the edge of San Francisco Bay, she stumbles onto the scene of a crime. The killer has seen her face, and she's ID'd him as a political honcho with enough clout to cover up anything, even murder.

Insomniac City

Author: Bill Hayes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1620404958
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
Amazon's Best Biographies and Memoirs of the Year List A moving celebration of what Bill Hayes calls "the evanescent, the eavesdropped, the unexpected" of life in New York City, and an intimate glimpse of his relationship with the late Oliver Sacks. "A beautifully written once-in-a-lifetime book, about love, about life, soul, and the wonderful loving genius Oliver Sacks, and New York, and laughter and all of creation."--Anne Lamott Bill Hayes came to New York City in 2009 with a one-way ticket and only the vaguest idea of how he would get by. But, at forty-eight years old, having spent decades in San Francisco, he craved change. Grieving over the death of his partner, he quickly discovered the profound consolations of the city's incessant rhythms, the sight of the Empire State Building against the night sky, and New Yorkers themselves, kindred souls that Hayes, a lifelong insomniac, encountered on late-night strolls with his camera. And he unexpectedly fell in love again, with his friend and neighbor, the writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose exuberance--"I don't so much fear death as I do wasting life," he tells Hayes early on--is captured in funny and touching vignettes throughout. What emerges is a portrait of Sacks at his most personal and endearing, from falling in love for the first time at age seventy-five to facing illness and death (Sacks died of cancer in August 2015). Insomniac City is both a meditation on grief and a celebration of life. Filled with Hayes's distinctive street photos of everyday New Yorkers, the book is a love song to the city and to all who have felt the particular magic and solace it offers.