-
The Wicked Boy
- The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $17.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Early in the morning of Monday, July 8, 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes and his 12-year-old brother, Nattie, set out from their small, yellow-brick terraced house in East London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbors, and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool.
Over the next 10 days, Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents' valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate from the building. When the police were finally called to investigate, the discovery they made sent the press into a frenzy of horror and alarm, and Robert and Nattie were swept up in a criminal trial that echoed the outrageous plots of the penny dreadful novels that Robert loved to read.
In The Wicked Boy, Kate Summerscale has uncovered a fascinating true story of murder and morality. It is not just a meticulous examination of a shocking Victorian case but also a compelling account of its aftermath and of man's capacity to overcome the past.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Burned Alive
- A Shocking True Story of Betrayal, Kidnapping, and Murder
- By: Kieran Crowley
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beautiful, bubbly, 20-year-old Kim Antonakos was returning to her New York City apartment after a night of clubbing with a friend. A business major with wild black hair, long polished fingernails, and a new Honda her loving father had bought her, Kim took good care of herself and looked forward to a bright future. But on her way home in the early morning darkness of that Ash Wednesday, Kim was abducted - and her mysterious kidnappers would be the last people to see her alive. Kim's father, wealthy computer executive Tommy Antonakos, launched a widespread search for his daughter.
-
-
Well written..Great narrator...Sad, sad story
- By JBT3 on 02-01-19
By: Kieran Crowley
-
The Secrets of Hartwood Hall
- A Novel
- By: Katie Lumsden
- Narrated by: Olivia Vinall
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1852 and Margaret Lennox, a young widow, attempts to escape the shadows of her past by taking a position as governess to an only child, Louis, at an isolated country house in the west of England. But Margaret soon starts to feel that something isn’t quite right. There are strange figures in the dark, tensions between servants, and an abandoned east wing. Even stranger is the local gossip surrounding Mrs. Eversham, Louis’s widowed mother, who is deeply distrusted in the village.
-
-
ugh
- By CFrame on 04-20-23
By: Katie Lumsden
-
American Murder Houses
- A Coast-to-Coast Tour of the Most Notorious Houses of Homicide
- By: Steve Lehto
- Narrated by: Barry Press
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a colonial manse in New England to a small-town home in Iowa to a Beverly Hills mansion, these residences have taken on a life of their own, gaining everything from local lore and gossip to national - and even global - infamy. Here, writer Steve Lehto recounts the stories behind the houses where Lizzie Borden supposedly gave her stepmother "40 whacks", where the real Amityville Horror was first unleashed by gunfire, and where the demented acts of the Manson Family horrified a nation.
-
-
Engaging and engrossing stories.
- By Lila Fowler on 09-14-16
By: Steve Lehto
-
A Midwife’s Tale
- The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812
- By: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on the diaries of one woman in 18th-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier. Between 1785 and 1812, a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine.
-
-
drew me in
- By Dis Carded on 12-22-17
-
A Killing in Amish Country: Sex, Betrayal, and a Cold-blooded Murder
- By: Gregg Olsen, Rebecca Morris, Linda Castillo - foreward
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirty-year-old Barbara Weaver was content to live as the Amish have for centuries - without modern convenience - but her husband, Eli, wanted a life beyond horses and buggies. Soon he gave in to the temptation of technology and found ways to go Online and meet women. When Barbara was found dead, shot in the chest at close range, all eyes were on Eli... and his mistress, a conservative Mennonite named Barb Raber. Barb drove Eli to appointments in her car. She gave him everything he asked for: a laptop, rides to his favorite fishing and hunting spots, and sex.
-
-
Solid True Crime novel
- By justin on 06-05-18
By: Gregg Olsen, and others
-
House of Evil
- The Indiana Torture Slaying
- By: John Dean
- Narrated by: John Glouchevitch
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the heart of Indianapolis in the mid-1960s, through a twist of fate and fortune, a pretty young girl came to live with a 37-year-old mother and her seven children. What began as a temporary childcare arrangement between Sylvia Likens's parents and Gertrude Baniszewski turned into a crime that would haunt cops, prosecutors, and a community for decades to come. When police found Sylvia's emaciated body, with a chilling message carved into her flesh, they knew that she had suffered tremendously before her death.
-
-
Horrific
- By Karri on 05-29-18
By: John Dean
-
Burned Alive
- A Shocking True Story of Betrayal, Kidnapping, and Murder
- By: Kieran Crowley
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beautiful, bubbly, 20-year-old Kim Antonakos was returning to her New York City apartment after a night of clubbing with a friend. A business major with wild black hair, long polished fingernails, and a new Honda her loving father had bought her, Kim took good care of herself and looked forward to a bright future. But on her way home in the early morning darkness of that Ash Wednesday, Kim was abducted - and her mysterious kidnappers would be the last people to see her alive. Kim's father, wealthy computer executive Tommy Antonakos, launched a widespread search for his daughter.
-
-
Well written..Great narrator...Sad, sad story
- By JBT3 on 02-01-19
By: Kieran Crowley
-
The Secrets of Hartwood Hall
- A Novel
- By: Katie Lumsden
- Narrated by: Olivia Vinall
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1852 and Margaret Lennox, a young widow, attempts to escape the shadows of her past by taking a position as governess to an only child, Louis, at an isolated country house in the west of England. But Margaret soon starts to feel that something isn’t quite right. There are strange figures in the dark, tensions between servants, and an abandoned east wing. Even stranger is the local gossip surrounding Mrs. Eversham, Louis’s widowed mother, who is deeply distrusted in the village.
-
-
ugh
- By CFrame on 04-20-23
By: Katie Lumsden
-
American Murder Houses
- A Coast-to-Coast Tour of the Most Notorious Houses of Homicide
- By: Steve Lehto
- Narrated by: Barry Press
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a colonial manse in New England to a small-town home in Iowa to a Beverly Hills mansion, these residences have taken on a life of their own, gaining everything from local lore and gossip to national - and even global - infamy. Here, writer Steve Lehto recounts the stories behind the houses where Lizzie Borden supposedly gave her stepmother "40 whacks", where the real Amityville Horror was first unleashed by gunfire, and where the demented acts of the Manson Family horrified a nation.
-
-
Engaging and engrossing stories.
- By Lila Fowler on 09-14-16
By: Steve Lehto
-
A Midwife’s Tale
- The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812
- By: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on the diaries of one woman in 18th-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier. Between 1785 and 1812, a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine.
-
-
drew me in
- By Dis Carded on 12-22-17
-
A Killing in Amish Country: Sex, Betrayal, and a Cold-blooded Murder
- By: Gregg Olsen, Rebecca Morris, Linda Castillo - foreward
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirty-year-old Barbara Weaver was content to live as the Amish have for centuries - without modern convenience - but her husband, Eli, wanted a life beyond horses and buggies. Soon he gave in to the temptation of technology and found ways to go Online and meet women. When Barbara was found dead, shot in the chest at close range, all eyes were on Eli... and his mistress, a conservative Mennonite named Barb Raber. Barb drove Eli to appointments in her car. She gave him everything he asked for: a laptop, rides to his favorite fishing and hunting spots, and sex.
-
-
Solid True Crime novel
- By justin on 06-05-18
By: Gregg Olsen, and others
-
House of Evil
- The Indiana Torture Slaying
- By: John Dean
- Narrated by: John Glouchevitch
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the heart of Indianapolis in the mid-1960s, through a twist of fate and fortune, a pretty young girl came to live with a 37-year-old mother and her seven children. What began as a temporary childcare arrangement between Sylvia Likens's parents and Gertrude Baniszewski turned into a crime that would haunt cops, prosecutors, and a community for decades to come. When police found Sylvia's emaciated body, with a chilling message carved into her flesh, they knew that she had suffered tremendously before her death.
-
-
Horrific
- By Karri on 05-29-18
By: John Dean
-
The Michigan Murders
- The True Story of the Ypsilanti Ripper's Reign of Terror
- By: Edward Keyes
- Narrated by: Pete Cross
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1967, during the time of peace, free love, and hitchhiking, 19-year-old Mary Terese Fleszar was last seen walking home to her apartment in Ypsilanti, Michigan. One month later, her naked body stabbed over 30 times and missing both feet and a forearm was discovered on an abandoned farm. A year later, the body of 20-year-old Joan Schell was found, similarly violated. Over the next two years, five more bodies of female students were uncovered around the area.
-
-
Give It Some Time
- By Thomas on 08-16-18
By: Edward Keyes
-
The Haunting of Alma Fielding
- A True Ghost Story
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: David Morrissey
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1938. In the suburbs of the city, a young housewife has become the eye in a storm of chaos. In Alma Fielding’s modest home, china flies off the shelves and eggs fly through the air; stolen jewelry appears on her fingers, white mice crawl out of her handbag, beetles appear from under her gloves; in the middle of a car journey, a turtle materializes on her lap. The culprit is incorporeal. As Alma cannot call the police, she calls the papers instead.
-
-
Repetition made it tedious and boring.
- By L. Keith on 05-17-21
By: Kate Summerscale
-
The Princes in the Tower
- Solving History's Greatest Cold Case
- By: Philippa Langley
- Narrated by: Philippa Langley
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philippa Langley reveals the findings of a remarkable new research initiative: ‘The Missing Princes Project'. In the summer of 1483, Edward V (aged 12) and his brother Richard Duke of York (aged 9), disappeared from the Tower of London. For over 500 years, history has judged that they were murdered on the orders of their uncle Richard III. Following years of intensive research in UK, American and European archives, astonishing new archival discoveries have been uncovered that change what we know about the fate of the Princes in the Tower.
-
-
Narrator
- By The Rev. Craig on 12-07-23
By: Philippa Langley
-
All That Is Wicked
- A Gilded-Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind
- By: Kate Winkler Dawson
- Narrated by: Kate Winkler Dawson
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edward Rulloff was a brilliant yet utterly amoral murderer—some have called him a “Victorian-era Hannibal Lecter”—whose crimes spanned decades and whose victims were chosen out of revenge, out of envy, and sometimes out of necessity.
-
-
PLEASE STOP The Politicizing of Everything
- By Anonymous on 10-15-22
-
Tutankhamun and the Tomb That Changed the World
- By: Bob Brier PhD
- Narrated by: Christopher Douyard
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is often thought that the story of Tutankhamun ended when the thousands of items discovered by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon were transported to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and put on display. But there is far more to the story. Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the World explores the 100 years of research on Tutankhamun that have taken place since the tomb's discovery, from the several objects in the tomb made of meteoritic iron that came from outer space to new evidence that shows that Tutankhamun may actually have been a warrior who went into battle.
-
-
Excellent book; performance stumbles
- By Sarah on 03-27-23
By: Bob Brier PhD
-
Don’t Go There
- The Mystery of Dyatlov Pass
- By: Svetlana Oss
- Narrated by: Chloe Cannon
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nine wholesome university students mountaineering in the Urals go missing, and are later uncovered from the snows of a bleak forest's edge in the Siberian Taiga, in a series of grisly discoveries. Why were the climbers wearing no boots? Why were stout branches of the forest pines singed to a height of 30 feet? What were the mysterious markings in the bark of nearby trees? What was so-called "overwhelming force" that was capable of breaking eight ribs in a single blow without bruises?
-
-
Finally a Russian view of the tragedy!
- By Jimmyjoejangles on 12-09-21
By: Svetlana Oss
-
Hell's Princess
- The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the pantheon of serial killers, Belle Gunness stands alone. She was the rarest of female psychopaths, a woman who engaged in wholesale slaughter, partly out of greed but mostly for the sheer joy of it. Between 1902 and 1908, she lured a succession of unsuspecting victims to her Indiana “murder farm". Some were hired hands. Others were well-to-do bachelors. All of them vanished without a trace.
-
-
Can a book about a serial killer be entertaining?
- By Lori Hanson on 05-08-18
By: Harold Schechter
-
Brothers York
- A Royal Tragedy
- By: Thomas Penn
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 23 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Brothers York is the story of three remarkable brothers, two of whom were crowned kings of England and the other an heir presumptive, whose antagonism was fueled by the mistrust and vendettas of the age that brought their family to power. The house of York should have been the dynasty that the Tudors became. Its tragedy was that it devoured itself.
-
-
Absorbing detail
- By Tad Davis on 08-06-20
By: Thomas Penn
-
Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane
- A True Story of Victorian Law and Disorder
- By: Paul Thomas Murphy
- Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On April 26, 1871, a police constable walking one of London's remotest beats stumbled upon a brutalized young woman kneeling on a muddy road - gashes were cloven into her skull, her left cheek was slashed open and smashed in, her right eye was destroyed, and above it a chunk of the temporal bone had been bashed out. The policeman gaped in horror as the woman held out her hand before collapsing into the mud, muttering, "Let me die", and slipping into a coma. Five days later she died, her identity still unknown.
-
-
Interesting
- By Spider-Ham on 10-08-21
-
Butcher's Work
- True Crime Tales of American Murder and Madness
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America.
-
-
Another necessary work by Schector
- By Brandon on 12-27-22
By: Harold Schechter
-
The Devil's Gentleman
- Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Roland Molineux enjoyed good looks, status, and fortune - hardly the qualities of a prime suspect in a series of shocking, merciless cyanide killings. Molineux's subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials and a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation. Bringing to life Manhattan's Gilded Age, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal proceedings.
-
-
A Book Without an Accompanying Wiki Page Is Always A Treat
- By Carolina on 02-27-17
By: Harold Schechter
-
The Devil in the White City
- Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds.
-
-
A Rich Read!
- By D on 09-18-03
By: Erik Larson
Related to this topic
-
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
- The Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection. At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.
-
-
Tragic Murder at dawn of detective bureau
- By Kindle Customer on 08-20-14
By: Kate Summerscale
-
Butcher's Work
- True Crime Tales of American Murder and Madness
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America.
-
-
Another necessary work by Schector
- By Brandon on 12-27-22
By: Harold Schechter
-
Psycho USA
- Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the horrifying annals of American crime, the infamous names of brutal killers such as Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, and Berkowitz are writ large in the imaginations of a public both horrified and hypnotized by their monstrous, murderous acts. But for every celebrity psychopath who's gotten ink for spilling blood, there's a bevy of all-but-forgotten homicidal fiends studding the bloody margins of US history.
-
-
True crime enthusiast's dream
- By Athelsten on 08-24-17
By: Harold Schechter
-
The Invention of Murder
- How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime
- By: Judith Flanders
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 19 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama - even into puppet shows and performing-dog acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other - the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P. D. James and Patricia Cornwell.
-
-
Excellent, awesome and educational!
- By Janalyn on 03-14-20
By: Judith Flanders
-
Duel with the Devil
- The True Story of How Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Teamed Up to Take on America's First Sensational Murder Mystery
- By: Paul Collins
- Narrated by: Mark Peckham
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the closing days of 1799, the United States was still a young republic, its uncertain future contested by the two major political parties of the day: the well-moneyed Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the populist Republicans, led by Aaron Burr. The two finest lawyers in New York, Burr and Hamilton were bitter rivals both in and out of the courtroom, and as the next election approached - with Manhattan likely to be the swing district on which the presidency would hinge - their animosity reached a fever pitch.
-
-
The Trial of the Century
- By Jean on 09-06-15
By: Paul Collins
-
The Battered Body Beneath the Flagstones, and Other Victorian Scandals
- By: Michelle Morgan
- Narrated by: Anne Dover
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A grisly book dedicated to the crimes, perversions and outrages of Victorian England, covering high-profile offences - such as the murder of actor William Terriss, whose stabbing at the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre in 1897 filled the front pages for many weeks - as well as lesser-known transgressions that scandalised the Victorian era. The tales include murders and violent crimes but also feature scandals that merely amused the Victorians.
-
-
Doesn’t question it’s sources enough
- By Emily Stoneking on 11-27-18
By: Michelle Morgan
-
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
- The Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection. At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.
-
-
Tragic Murder at dawn of detective bureau
- By Kindle Customer on 08-20-14
By: Kate Summerscale
-
Butcher's Work
- True Crime Tales of American Murder and Madness
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America.
-
-
Another necessary work by Schector
- By Brandon on 12-27-22
By: Harold Schechter
-
Psycho USA
- Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the horrifying annals of American crime, the infamous names of brutal killers such as Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, and Berkowitz are writ large in the imaginations of a public both horrified and hypnotized by their monstrous, murderous acts. But for every celebrity psychopath who's gotten ink for spilling blood, there's a bevy of all-but-forgotten homicidal fiends studding the bloody margins of US history.
-
-
True crime enthusiast's dream
- By Athelsten on 08-24-17
By: Harold Schechter
-
The Invention of Murder
- How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime
- By: Judith Flanders
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 19 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama - even into puppet shows and performing-dog acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other - the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P. D. James and Patricia Cornwell.
-
-
Excellent, awesome and educational!
- By Janalyn on 03-14-20
By: Judith Flanders
-
Duel with the Devil
- The True Story of How Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Teamed Up to Take on America's First Sensational Murder Mystery
- By: Paul Collins
- Narrated by: Mark Peckham
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the closing days of 1799, the United States was still a young republic, its uncertain future contested by the two major political parties of the day: the well-moneyed Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the populist Republicans, led by Aaron Burr. The two finest lawyers in New York, Burr and Hamilton were bitter rivals both in and out of the courtroom, and as the next election approached - with Manhattan likely to be the swing district on which the presidency would hinge - their animosity reached a fever pitch.
-
-
The Trial of the Century
- By Jean on 09-06-15
By: Paul Collins
-
The Battered Body Beneath the Flagstones, and Other Victorian Scandals
- By: Michelle Morgan
- Narrated by: Anne Dover
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A grisly book dedicated to the crimes, perversions and outrages of Victorian England, covering high-profile offences - such as the murder of actor William Terriss, whose stabbing at the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre in 1897 filled the front pages for many weeks - as well as lesser-known transgressions that scandalised the Victorian era. The tales include murders and violent crimes but also feature scandals that merely amused the Victorians.
-
-
Doesn’t question it’s sources enough
- By Emily Stoneking on 11-27-18
By: Michelle Morgan
-
Murder, Misadventure and Miserable Ends
- By: Dr. Catie Gilchrist
- Narrated by: Emma Grant Williams
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most of us today rarely see a dead body. In 19th-century Sydney, when health was precarious and workplaces and the busy city streets were often dangerous, witnessing a death was rather common. And any death that was sudden or suspicious would be investigated by the coroner. Henry Shiell was the Sydney city coroner from 1866 to 1889. In the course of his unusually long career, he delved into the lives, loves, crimes, homes, and workplaces of colonial Sydneysiders.
-
-
very interesting and enlightening
- By Barbara J Allison on 08-29-19
-
Witness to Nuremberg
- The Many Lives of the Man Who Translated at the Nazi War Trials
- By: W. Richard Sonnenfeldt
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this gripping memoir by the chief American interpreter at the Nuremberg trials, Richard Sonnenfeldt recounts a remarkable life. By age 22 he had fought in the Battle of the Bulge and helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp, when he was appointed chief interpreter for the American prosecution of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.
During his service, he spent pretrial time with Hermann Göering as well as other top Nazi leaders.
-
-
So much more than expected
- By Kathy on 03-23-12
-
Last Woman Hanged
- The Terrible True Story of Louisa Collins
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In January 1889, Louisa Collins, a 41-year-old mother of 10 children, became the first woman hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol and the last woman hanged in New South Wales. Both of Louisa's husbands had died suddenly and the Crown, convinced that Louisa poisoned them with arsenic, put her on trial an extraordinary four times in order to get a conviction, to the horror of many in the legal community. Louisa protested her innocence until the end.
-
-
Enlightening, entertaining and exceptionally done
- By Karol Heim on 02-09-24
-
The Great Shame
- And the Triumph of the Irish in the English-Speaking World
- By: Thomas Keneally
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 35 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Keneally, the Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler’s List, is universally praised for crafting smooth narratives from authentic historical events. With The Great Shame, he turns his insightful eye toward the Irish struggle through the 19h century. In sharp contrast to much of Europe, Ireland was a terrible place to be during the 1800s. Many of the nation’s finest people set sail for America and Canada.
-
-
First read
- By WGrubb on 04-08-16
By: Thomas Keneally
-
Death in the Air
- The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City
- By: Kate Winkler Dawson
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A real-life thriller in the vein of The Devil in the White City, Kate Winkler Dawson's debut, Death in the Air, is a gripping, historical narrative of a serial killer, an environmental disaster, and an iconic city struggling to regain its footing. In winter 1952, London automobiles and thousands of coal-burning hearths belched particulate matter into the air. But the smog that descended on December fifth of 1952 was different; it was a type that held the city hostage for five long days.
-
-
Interesting
- By irene on 11-27-17
-
The Complete Jack the Ripper
- By: Donald Rumbelow
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Laying out all the evidence in the most comprehensive summary ever written about the Ripper, this book, by a London police officer and crime authority, has subjected every theory - including those that have emerged in recent years-to the same deep scrutiny. The author also examines the mythology surrounding the case and provides some fascinating insights into the portrayal of the Ripper on stage and screen and on the printed page. More seriously, he also examines the horrifying parallel crimes of the Düsseldorf Ripper and the Yorkshire Ripper.
-
-
catch the facts if you can
- By Alexandra on 11-17-19
By: Donald Rumbelow
-
Naples '44
- By: Norman Lewis
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Naples '44 is an unflinching autobiographical account of a year in Naples after the armistice and Allied landings in Sorrento in 1943. Working as a British counterintelligence officer under the Allied occupation, Lewis documents the rich pageant of life in the city and its surrounding areas. There is suffering and squalor: Criminal gangs are on the rise, along with typhus and black market commerce, and the female population is forced into part-time prostitution. But there is farce and humor, too, witnessed in the Roman uncle paid handsomely simply to appear at funerals.
-
-
Sharply observed, beautifully written, and deeply humane
- By cw on 11-13-23
By: Norman Lewis
-
American Brutus
- John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies
- By: Michael Kauffman
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 21 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In American Brutus, popular historian Michael W. Kauffman delivers a history that reads more like a best-selling novel. This definitive masterwork dispels commonly held myths and reveals the truth about John Wilkes Booth. Luring Southern sympathizers into a “noble” presidential kidnapping, Booth stunned his puzzled pawns by murdering Lincoln. From Booth’s early life and acting career to his escape and death, this meticulously researched book re-examines it all using a wealth of primary sources.
-
-
informative
- By Sue Ogle on 11-27-20
By: Michael Kauffman
-
Hanns and Rudolf
- The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz
- By: Thomas Harding
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
May 1945: In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss' capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day.
-
-
I Read This Marvelous Book...
- By Douglas on 01-04-14
By: Thomas Harding
-
Black Diamonds
- The Downfall of an Aristocratic Dynasty and the Fifty Years That Changed England
- By: Catherine Bailey
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the sixth Earl Fitzwilliam died in 1902, he left behind the second largest estate in 20th-century England, valued at more than three billion dollars in today's money - a lifeline to the tens of thousands of people who worked either in the family's coal mines or on their expansive estate. The earl also left behind four sons, and the family line seemed assured. But was it?
-
-
Could use a good editor...
- By Phyllis on 04-30-18
By: Catherine Bailey
-
The Colony
- The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles on Molokai
- By: John Tayman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1866, 12 men and women and one small child were forced aboard a leaky schooner and cast away to a natural prison on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Two weeks later, a dozen others were exiled, and then 40 more, and then 100 more. Tracked by bounty hunters and torn screaming from their families, the luckless were loaded into shipboard cattle stalls and abandoned in a lawless place where brutality held sway. Many did not have leprosy, and most of those who did were not contagious.
-
-
Interesting
- By Matt on 10-31-06
By: John Tayman
-
Midnight in Peking
- How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China
- By: Paul French
- Narrated by: Erik Singer
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Peking in 1937 is a heady mix of privilege and scandal, opulence and opium dens, rumors and superstition. The Japanese are encircling the city, and the discovery of Pamela Werner's body sends a shiver through already nervous Peking. Is it the work of a madman? One of the ruthless Japanese soldiers now surrounding the city? With the suspect list growing and clues sparse, two detectives - one British and one Chinese - race against the clock to solve the crime before the Japanese invade and Peking as they know it is gone forever.
-
-
When history can be stranger than fiction
- By Jeremy on 01-04-13
By: Paul French
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
- The Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection. At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.
-
-
Tragic Murder at dawn of detective bureau
- By Kindle Customer on 08-20-14
By: Kate Summerscale
-
Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace
- The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Headstrong, high-spirited, and already widowed, Isabella Walker became Mrs. Henry Robinson at age 31 in 1844. Isabella chose to record her innermost thoughts - and especially her infatuation with a married Dr. Edward Lane - in her diary. One day Henry chanced on the diary and, broaching its privacy, read Isabella's entries. Aghast at his wife's perceived infidelity, Henry petitioned for divorce on the grounds of adultery. The trial would be a cause célèbre, threatening the foundations of Victorian society.
-
-
Wonderful Insight Into Victorian Culture
- By Dracolichking on 01-31-13
By: Kate Summerscale
-
The Peepshow
- The Murders at Rillington Place
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Nicola Walker
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this riveting true story, Kate Summerscale mines the archives to uncover the lives of Christie’s victims, the tabloid frenzy that their deaths inspired, and the truth about what happened inside the house. What she finds sheds fascinating light on the origins of our fixation with true crime—and suggests a new solution to one of the most notorious cases of the century.
By: Kate Summerscale
-
The Haunting of Alma Fielding
- A True Ghost Story
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: David Morrissey
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1938. In the suburbs of the city, a young housewife has become the eye in a storm of chaos. In Alma Fielding’s modest home, china flies off the shelves and eggs fly through the air; stolen jewelry appears on her fingers, white mice crawl out of her handbag, beetles appear from under her gloves; in the middle of a car journey, a turtle materializes on her lap. The culprit is incorporeal. As Alma cannot call the police, she calls the papers instead.
-
-
Repetition made it tedious and boring.
- By L. Keith on 05-17-21
By: Kate Summerscale
-
The Devil's Gentleman
- Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Roland Molineux enjoyed good looks, status, and fortune - hardly the qualities of a prime suspect in a series of shocking, merciless cyanide killings. Molineux's subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials and a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation. Bringing to life Manhattan's Gilded Age, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal proceedings.
-
-
A Book Without an Accompanying Wiki Page Is Always A Treat
- By Carolina on 02-27-17
By: Harold Schechter
-
Breaking Point
- By: Suzy Spencer
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While her husband Rusty, a NASA engineer, was at work, Andrea Yates filled the family bathtub with water and systematically drowned their children, ages six months to seven years.
-
-
Just OK
- By Rebecca on 10-21-16
By: Suzy Spencer
-
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
- The Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection. At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.
-
-
Tragic Murder at dawn of detective bureau
- By Kindle Customer on 08-20-14
By: Kate Summerscale
-
Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace
- The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Headstrong, high-spirited, and already widowed, Isabella Walker became Mrs. Henry Robinson at age 31 in 1844. Isabella chose to record her innermost thoughts - and especially her infatuation with a married Dr. Edward Lane - in her diary. One day Henry chanced on the diary and, broaching its privacy, read Isabella's entries. Aghast at his wife's perceived infidelity, Henry petitioned for divorce on the grounds of adultery. The trial would be a cause célèbre, threatening the foundations of Victorian society.
-
-
Wonderful Insight Into Victorian Culture
- By Dracolichking on 01-31-13
By: Kate Summerscale
-
The Peepshow
- The Murders at Rillington Place
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Nicola Walker
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this riveting true story, Kate Summerscale mines the archives to uncover the lives of Christie’s victims, the tabloid frenzy that their deaths inspired, and the truth about what happened inside the house. What she finds sheds fascinating light on the origins of our fixation with true crime—and suggests a new solution to one of the most notorious cases of the century.
By: Kate Summerscale
-
The Haunting of Alma Fielding
- A True Ghost Story
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: David Morrissey
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1938. In the suburbs of the city, a young housewife has become the eye in a storm of chaos. In Alma Fielding’s modest home, china flies off the shelves and eggs fly through the air; stolen jewelry appears on her fingers, white mice crawl out of her handbag, beetles appear from under her gloves; in the middle of a car journey, a turtle materializes on her lap. The culprit is incorporeal. As Alma cannot call the police, she calls the papers instead.
-
-
Repetition made it tedious and boring.
- By L. Keith on 05-17-21
By: Kate Summerscale
-
The Devil's Gentleman
- Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Roland Molineux enjoyed good looks, status, and fortune - hardly the qualities of a prime suspect in a series of shocking, merciless cyanide killings. Molineux's subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials and a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation. Bringing to life Manhattan's Gilded Age, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal proceedings.
-
-
A Book Without an Accompanying Wiki Page Is Always A Treat
- By Carolina on 02-27-17
By: Harold Schechter
-
Breaking Point
- By: Suzy Spencer
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While her husband Rusty, a NASA engineer, was at work, Andrea Yates filled the family bathtub with water and systematically drowned their children, ages six months to seven years.
-
-
Just OK
- By Rebecca on 10-21-16
By: Suzy Spencer
-
The Iowa Murders
- A Shocking True Crime Story
- By: Rod Kackley
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 2 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Someone you know or even love is the person who will kill you. Usually, that’s true. But that is not what happened in 2018 to two college students in Iowa. Two young women who had everything to live for, were killed by two men with nothing to lose. Completely random attacks. Neither case had anything else in common except they both shocked the nation and even the world. What’s worse, being murdered by a loved one or a stranger who jumps out of the bushes when you are most vulnerable? Previously published as We’ll Find You and Let’s Do Murder, The Iowa Murders tells the shocking true...
-
-
Bland, Autobot, Dragging Plot
- By Rindy on 07-08-24
By: Rod Kackley
-
The Victorian City
- Everyday Life in Dickens' London
- By: Judith Flanders
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Judith Flanders, one of Britain's foremost social historians, explores the world portrayed so vividly in Dickens' novels, showing life on the streets of London in colorful, fascinating detail. From the moment Charles Dickens, the century's best-loved English novelist and London's greatest observer, arrived in the city in 1822, he obsessively walked its streets, recording its pleasures, curiosities, and cruelties.
-
-
UNFORTUNATLY DISAPPOINTED, IS NOT INTERESTING
- By Count B on 02-04-18
By: Judith Flanders
-
A Murder in Searcy
- By: Deana Nall, Mike S. Allen
- Narrated by: Amanda Dolan
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the morning of September 26, 1974, the body of Fern Cowen Rodgers was discovered on the floor of her home in Searcy, Arkansas. The 68-year-old socialite was murdered, sometime in the night, by two bullets fired into her head.
-
-
Gripping, realistic crime story
- By Adh on 03-22-22
By: Deana Nall, and others
-
Wasted
- By: Suzy Spencer
- Narrated by: Nikki Zakocs
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1995, Austin, Texas was rocked by the brutal murder of Regina Hartwell. Even though Regina's body was burned beyond recognition, police had two suspects within days. One was the beautiful ex-cheerleader who was the object of Regina's desire. The other was a man who would take the fall for murder . . . In this new edition of her bestselling book Wasted, true crime master Suzy Spencer chronicles a fatal love triangle as three lives are driven out of control by sexual desire, drugs, and shocking childhood demons.
-
-
Couldn’t get through it
- By Cari on 10-11-24
By: Suzy Spencer
-
The Axeman of New Orleans
- The True Story
- By: Miriam C. Davis
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1910 to 1919, New Orleans suffered at the hands of its very own Jack the Ripper-style killer while two innocent men nearly paid for one of his crimes with their lives. The story has been the subject of websites, short stories, collections of true crime, novels, a graphic novel, and the FX television series American Horror Story. But the real story of the Axeman of New Orleans has never been written - until now.
-
-
Narrator Sabatier
- By Dawn on 10-10-21
By: Miriam C. Davis
-
Murdered Innocents
- By: Corey Mitchell
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a December night in Austin, Texas, teenagers Jennifer Harbison and Eliza Thomas closed up the yogurt store where they worked. The girls were joined by Jennifer's younger sister, Sarah, and her friend Amy Ayers. Less than an hour later, all four girls were dead - tragic victims of an apparent fire. Until it was discovered that the girls had been bound and gagged, sexually assaulted, and shot execution style.
-
-
Great book!
- By txammug on 05-02-18
By: Corey Mitchell
-
Don’t Go There
- The Mystery of Dyatlov Pass
- By: Svetlana Oss
- Narrated by: Chloe Cannon
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nine wholesome university students mountaineering in the Urals go missing, and are later uncovered from the snows of a bleak forest's edge in the Siberian Taiga, in a series of grisly discoveries. Why were the climbers wearing no boots? Why were stout branches of the forest pines singed to a height of 30 feet? What were the mysterious markings in the bark of nearby trees? What was so-called "overwhelming force" that was capable of breaking eight ribs in a single blow without bruises?
-
-
Finally a Russian view of the tragedy!
- By Jimmyjoejangles on 12-09-21
By: Svetlana Oss
-
Buried Memories
- The Bloody Crimes and Execution of the Texas Black Widow
- By: Irene Pence
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1985. Gun Barrel City, Texas. Police searching for missing Fire Department captain Jimmy Don Beets dug inside a wishing well in the neatly tended garden of Beets's wife, forty-eight-year-old Betty Lou Beets. Not only did they find his body, but they also found the body of Betty Lou's fourth husband, Doyle Wayne Barker. It wasn't long before investigators unearthed the terrible truth. As Betty Lou's sordid past emerged, so did her chilling trail of marital violence.
-
-
Betty Lou Beets
- By JayJay on 06-09-18
By: Irene Pence
-
Dark Archives
- A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin
- By: Megan Rosenbloom
- Narrated by: Justis Bolding
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On bookshelves around the world, surrounded by ordinary books bound in paper and leather, rest other volumes of a distinctly strange and grisly sort: those bound in human skin. Would you know one if you held it in your hand? In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy - the practice of binding books in this most intimate covering.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Abbey Pflegl on 11-21-21
By: Megan Rosenbloom
-
The Shadow of Death
- The Hunt for the Connecticut River Valley Killer
- By: Philip E. Ginsburg
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 15 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the mid-1980s, someone stabbed six women to death in the Connecticut River Valley on the border between New Hampshire and Vermont. The murderer remains at large and the total number of his victims is unknown. In this brilliant work of true crime reportage, New York Times-bestselling author Philip E. Ginsburg provides fascinating insights into the groundbreaking forensic methods used to track the killer and paints indelible portraits of the lives he cut so tragically short.
-
-
Ending..
- By BillnTay on 09-13-23
-
The Worst Hard Time
- The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: Jacob York
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Timothy Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, he does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes.
-
-
Excellent history ruined by Egan's bias & cynicism
- By Nathan on 03-21-23
By: Timothy Egan
-
Fiend
- The Shocking True Story of America's Youngest Serial Killer
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When 14-year-old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874, a nightmarish reign of terror over an unsuspecting city came to an end. "The Boston Boy Fiend" was imprisoned at last. But the complex questions sparked by his ghastly crime spree - the hows and whys of vicious juvenile crime - were as relevant in the so-called Age of Innocence as they are today.
-
-
Graphic descriptions of child torture
- By mobius_spider on 11-13-20
By: Harold Schechter
What listeners say about The Wicked Boy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 06-11-19
A Complex Story
At times this book is very slow and seems overly complex. However, it was worth getting to the final chapter.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Celina Wisdom
- 06-06-24
The narrator was VERY good.
Very complicated compelling story. At a time when women couldn’t hold a job outside the home and children had no rights.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Reader in New Mexico
- 08-08-17
Full of Surprises
As in her book about Mr. Wicher, K. Summerscale challenged many of my assumptions about how people lived, their attitudes and what they believed in the pre-WWII British Empire. I am amazed by the evident capacity for kindness and understanding practised by many Victorians for even the most wretched of their fellows.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- R. Daneel
- 06-25-17
Depiction of Life and Times Not Just the Crime
What did you love best about The Wicked Boy?
Summerscale provides an excellent picture of the life and times surrounding the story, not just a narrative of the crime, arrest and trial. She takes us into the heart of London and shows us who lived there and how they lived, thrived, and died.
What other book might you compare The Wicked Boy to and why?
Batavia's Graveyard by Mike Dash.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jamie
- 03-15-19
Great book!
Very interesting, it's like glimpsing into the past. The author did an excellent job in her research and telling of this boys story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Winston's mom
- 04-05-19
Interesting story but...
Too many tangents and it seemed overly long due to extraneous stories. It should be pared down a little and it would be better.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rebecca
- 04-24-17
The author did outstanding research
The narrator was wonderful, giving a flavor of life in England. The author did an outstanding job of research into this time period in history and into the life of Robert Coombes.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- rita
- 02-18-19
The kind of book you’re glad to have listened to.
Excellent narration. Fantastic historical work of non-fiction. Kudos to the author and narrator. I enjoyed it!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kevin Potter
- 02-16-19
Interesting biography that left me with questions
As is my wont, I'm far less demanding about the narrator for non-fiction. She has a pleasant, understandable voice with a bit a variance in voices when reading dialogue. I have no complaints.
It took me some time to come to terms with the reality that this book is not, in fact, a true crime book. This is a biography.
Now, in the early sections of the book there is a large focus on Robert Coombs's crime and the aftermath of it. This section is straight reporting, full of facts and details of the crime, it's discovery, the trial, and after.
I found all the details about subsidiary characters a bit detracting, but at the same time it all added depth to the sum of Coombs's life.
In the end, with all the information we have here, I'm left with a LOT of questions about Coombs and what really happened. As a child, he very much came off as a psychotic sociopath.
Yet, by all accounts he eventually grew into a healthy, productive member of society and even seems a bit altruistic.
Unfortunately, there aren't likely any answers to be found to my questions.
In the end, this book was fascinating and in some ways challenges a lot of assumptions. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in true crime, particularly if you'd like to see an account from the same time period as Jack the Ripper but with a very different (and much more positive) ending.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Withacy
- 02-04-19
A Historical “True Crime” with So Much More
This wasn’t just about a murder and the trial that followed. The author went so far beyond, and followed what happened for the rest of the Wicked Boy’s life, which was an eye opener. It truly informed how the reader sees the crime and the boy who at the center of the story.
There was what might be considered extraneous information about characters who might have crossed paths with him, but I was fascinated by their stories, and was glad they were included. Very goal oriented readers might call this padding. I certainly will not. I listened straight through, and highly recommend this book to others.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
12 people found this helpful