Gilded Age Murder & Mayhem in the Berkshires

Gilded Age Murder & Mayhem in the Berkshires
Author: Andrew K. Amelinckx
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2015-10-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 162585305X

This criminal history of the Berkshires is brimming with unforgettable stories of greed, jealousy, and madness from the turn of the twentieth century. The Berkshires of Western Massachusetts are known for their picturesque beauty, but this history offers a fascinating look at the region’s dark side. This chronicle includes true tales of greed, betrayal and violence in The Bay State. In the summer of 1893, a tall and well-dressed burglar plundered the massive summer mansions of the upper crust . . . A visit from President Teddy Roosevelt in 1902 ended in tragedy when a trolley car smashed into the presidential carriage, killing a Secret Service agent . . . A psychotic millworker opened fire on a packed streetcar, leaving three dead and five wounded, shocking the nation . . . These and many more stories—from axe murders to botched bank jobs—paint a stark portrait of the inequities that shadowed the extravagance of the Gilded Age.

Satellite Boy

Satellite Boy
Author: Andrew Amelinckx
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2024-09-03
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1640096361

"Mr. Amelinckx is an adroit storyteller and thorough researcher, and in Satellite Boy he has written a good, engrossing yarn." —The Wall Street Journal Spanning the underworld haunts of Montreal to Havana and Miami in the early days of the Cold War, Satellite Boy reveals the unlikely connection between an audacious bank heist and the “other Space Race” that gave birth to the modern communication age On April 6, 1965, Georges Lemay was relaxing on his yacht in a south Florida marina following one of the largest and most daring bank heists in Canadian history. For four years, the roguishly handsome criminal mastermind hid in plain sight, eluding capture and the combined efforts of the FBI, Interpol, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His future appeared secure. What Lemay didn’t know was that less than two hundred miles away at Cape Canaveral, a brilliant engineer named Harold Rosen was about to usher in the age of global live television with the launch of the world’s first twenty-four-hour commercial communications satellite. Rosen’s extraordinary accomplishment would not only derail Lemay’s cushy life but change the world forever. Brimming with criminal panache and technological intrigue, and set against a turbulent and iconic period that includes the moon landing and the civil rights movement, Satellite Boy tells the largely forgotten, high-stakes story of the two equally driven men who inadvertently launched the modern era.

Midlothian Mayhem

Midlothian Mayhem
Author: Malcolm Archibald
Publisher: Next Chapter
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2021-12-22
Genre: History
ISBN:

Murders, riots, strikes and runaway horses. Midlothian in the 18th and 19th centuries was an interesting place to live. This book introduces the reader to the hard lives of the colliers, the birth of the rural police force and the impact the army had on life in the county south of Scotland's capital city. Highwaymen and grave robbers, footpads and murderers, illicit distillers and murderous poachers; all lived or worked in Midlothian at a time when Scotland was changing from a rural to an industrial nation. Midlothian Mayhem opens the door to this time and place, giving you a view of this fascinating area through different eyes.

Ghosts of the Berkshires

Ghosts of the Berkshires
Author: Robert Oakes
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 1
Release: 2020
Genre: History
ISBN: 1467142794

"Before it became a haven for arts and culture, the Berkshires was a rugged, sparsely populated frontier. From the early days of Revolutionary fervor and industrial enterprise to today's tourism, many chilling stories remain. A lost girl haunts a cemetery in Washington, and mysterious spirits still perform at Tanglewood. From the ghostly halls of the Houghton Mansion to the eerie events at the Hoosac Tunnel, residents and visitors alike have felt fear and awe in these hills, telling tales of shadow figures, disembodied voices and spectral trains. Author Robert Oakes, who has given ghost tours at The Mount in Lenox for more than a decade, leads this spirited journey through history."--Page 4 of cover.

Hudson Valley Murder & Mayhem

Hudson Valley Murder & Mayhem
Author: Andrew K. Amelinckx
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2017
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1467136433

Visit the long ago crime and dire deeds in the Hudson Valley of New York. The Hudson Valley is drenched in history, culture and blood. In the fall of 1893, Lizzie Halliday left a trail of bodies in her wake, slaughtering two strangers and her husband before stabbing a nurse to death at the asylum housing her. A Jazz Age politician, tired of fighting with his overbearing wife, murdered her and buried the body under the front porch. In 1882, a cantankerous old miner, dubbed the Austerlitz Cannibal by the press, chopped up his partner before he himself swung from the end of a rope. Author Andrew Amelinckx dredges up the Hudson Valley's dark past, from Prohibition-era shootouts to unsolved murders, in eleven heart-pounding true stories.

Deadly Hero

Deadly Hero
Author: Jason Morrow
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2015-05-05
Genre:
ISBN: 9781511991711

On the night of Thanksgiving, 1934, the son of a prominent Tulsa doctor was shot to death in his car in the wealthiest neighborhood of the oil-rich city. Two days later, the son of one of the most powerful men in the state walked into the sheriff's office with his lawyer and surrendered. The killer's name, and who his father was, would shock the entire nation and make news around the world. In a convoluted story, the mentally unstable genius claimed he killed in self-defense and to protect wealthy debutante Virginia Wilcox-the object of his unrequited love. But prosecutors claimed their star prisoner was actually the mastermind of a diabolical plot in which he would emerge as the hero, win Virginia's heart, and gain acceptance into the Wilcox family by her mega-rich father. Tulsa's high-society murder scandalized the Oil Capitol of the World when the investigation churned up unsubstantiated reports of rich kids wildly out of control. Looking out over their Christian, conservative city, adults imagined sex-mad teens driving dangerously over their streets to get to hole-in-the-wall gambling joints and breast-bouncing dance parties where they would plan big crimes-all while high on marijuana and drunk on 3.2 beer. A tornado of rumors and gossip tore through town, stirring up mass hysteria and igniting a moral crusade to save the souls of Tulsa's youth. When a key witness was found dead in his car under similar circumstances, it only confirmed their worst fears. In a notable year for famous criminals, this case from the Oklahoma heartland received nationwide coverage each step of the way. This true story is not a "whodunit," but rather, a "will he get away with it?" The answer to that question is still up for debate after the killer did something only the bravest of men would ever do.

The Pirate Devlin

The Pirate Devlin
Author: Mark Keating
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2010-07-27
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0446571733

A wry, swashbuckling tale of greed and deceit that traverses the excitement—and fury—​of the 18th-century's golden age of piracy. An injured French officer struggles along a desolate stretch of West African coastline, desperate to hold on to a secret. His tale soon ends—violently—but a young pirate recruit, Patrick Devlin, leaves that same beach unscathed, with a new pair of boots and a treasure map in his possession. Now, the adventures of the pirate Devlin, his shipmates, and those who wish them all dead move forward without restraint, through broadside barrages and subterfuge and brutal encounters on land and at sea, where nothing is as it seems. In these pages, readers will meet Blackbeard and his cohorts, Portuguese colonial governors and French commandants, officials of the East India Company and Royal Naval officers, fresh-faced midshipmen and gnarly, scarred, and drunken pirate crewmen. But none is as impressive and memorable as the former servant and newly minted pirate Captain Devlin—unless it's the one man he once served on board a British man-of-war, a man now sworn to kill him.

Boston Riots

Boston Riots
Author: Jack Tager
Publisher: UPNE
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781555534615

The fascinating story of Boston's violent past is told for the first time in this history of the city's riots, from the food shortage uprisings in the 18th century to the anti-busing riots of the 20th century.