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This book offers an inside look at over 30 interesting and unusual episodes that shaped the history of the Gem State.

The frontier towns of Idaho were populated by some of the toughest and most dangerous characters in the West. Serial killer Lyda Lewis poisoned her unsuspecting husbands to cash in on their life insurance. The Eddy and Splawn families created counterfeit U.S. gold pieces. And "Diamondfield" Jack Davis, a notorious killer, even shot a child's dog. From Butch Cassidy to George Levy, Harry Orchard to Caleb Lyon, read about the most notorious desperados in the history of the Gem State. Through these astonishing true stories, Outlaw Tales of Idaho introduces you to a state you thought you know--and a West wilder than you even imagined.

Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Idaho History features fourteen short profiles of notorious bad guys, perpetrators of mischief, visionary if misunderstood thinkers, and other colorful antiheroes from the history of the Gem State. It reveals the dark side of some well-known and even revered characters from Idaho’s past—both part-time Jerks and others who were Jerks through and through. They include:Ezra Pound, native Idahoan and celebrated poet, who followed the slippery slope of socialism into full-on fascism, became a sycophant of Hitler and Mussolini, and eventually stood trial in the US for treason.Lyda Shaw, Idaho’s most notorious serial killer, whose marry-and-bury modus operandi enabled her to make a literal killing on her late husbands’ life insurance policies.Caleb Lyon, the second territorial governor of Idaho, who used his social prominence and political connections to make a very comfortable living (sometimes shored up with his own embezzled funds), dodging any of the actual duties that came with his political appointments, and doing precious little else.

From President Cleveland’s alleged love child to the UFO highway, Idaho Myths and Legends of makes history fun and pulls back the curtain on some of the Gem State’s most fascinating and compelling stories.