Fred and Rose West were your almost-typical English couple: quiet, attractive to each other if no one else, happy as clams and fond of killing hapless young women—including Fred’s stepdaughter, his first wife and the nanny—and then burying them in the cellar, the back garden, underneath the bathroom floor and in handy fields nearby. For over 20 years the Wests stayed busy, committing at least nine murders together, often sexually torturing the victims before dismembering and decapitating them. Sounes, who broke the case in the British press and gained exclusive interviews with the living participants, writes clearly if without inspiration; but the story of the Wests is remarkable enough to hold a reader’s interest even if Sounes had seemingly grown a little bored with it by the time he wrote the book. JW

Publisher: Warner
Paperback: 362 pages
Illustrated

An exercise in psychological analysis of many of our century’s most infamous murderers. The authors examine the cases of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the “Moors Murderers,” as well as these others: Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins—who one day realized he could have sex with anyone—so long as he killed them afterward; Aileen Wournos—who claimed that all of her killings were made in self-defense; six-foot-nine-inch Ed Kemper, who wanted to have sex with headless bodies. JB

Publisher: Warner
Paperback: 390 pages
Illustrated

“On an early May morning in 1988, 30-year-old Laurie Dann, a profoundly unhappy product of Chicago’s North Shore suburbs, loaded her father’s car with handguns, incendiary chemicals and arsenic-laced food. Before the end of the day, Dann had blazed a trail of fire, poison and bullets through the area, murdering an eight-year-old boy and critically wounding five other children in an elementary school, until a massed force of armed police ended the killings… Murder of Innocence is the searing portrait of a young woman of beauty and privilege who was allowed to go slowly berserk, and of the fatally complacent community that became an unwitting accomplice to the final rampage of Laurie Dann.”

Publisher: Warner
Paperback: 335 pages
Illustrated

Ethnobotanist Davis traveled into the Haitian countryside to research reports of men drugged, buried alive and resurrected from their graves. He learned the secrets of voodoo potions, powders and poisons, and discovered the herb which creates the zombie.

Publisher: Warner
Paperback: 371 pages
Illustrated

“At his peak, he was the highest-paid solo performer in the world-bigger than Elvis, Paul McCartney and Elton John. He was the star of one of the most successful shows in television history, took everything he recorded to the top of the charts, and was overwhelmed by money, fame—and especially women—while still in his early 20s.” Result? “… nights of desolation after the fans went home… the singing career that sold over 20 million albums—and brought him a grand total in royalties of less than $15,000… the endless cavalcade of groupies that invaded his bed… his passionate, often stormy relationships with fellow stars Susan Dey and Meredith Baxter.” Happy? C’mon! GR

Publisher: Warner
Paperback: 256 pages
Illustrated

A copiously illustrated, well-researched look at some of the most bizarre “acts” ever to grace a stage before TV came along and wrecked everything. Among the astonishing variety of performers observed is Willard, “The Man Who Grows,” who added six inches to his height onstage; Arthur Lloyd, who could produce virtually anything printed on paper from the 15,000 items concealed in his suit; and Blind Tom, the most amazing musical prodigy in history. But the ultimate is France’s legendary Le Petomane, whose act was based on his incredible ability to mimic animals, play a flute, and blow out a candle from two feet away, all using his most unlikely orifice. Now, that’s entertainment! JM

Publisher: Warner
Paperback: 343 pages
Illustrated

From the toot-filled Studio 54 era to Andy’s demise, day by day by Dictaphone… in his own inimitable words. Here are some reflections from a day in 1978, “The big news from the past two days is the mass suicide in Guyana of a cult led by somebody named Jim Jones. It’s costing the U.S. government $8 million to remove all the bodies and bring them back. They put cyanide in grape-flavored Kool-Aid. [laughs] Just think, if they’d used Campbell’s Soups I’d be so famous, I’d be on every news show, everyone would be asking about me. But Kool-Aid was always a hippie thing.”

Publisher: Warner
Paperback: 807 pages
Illustrated