Pegasus Crime – serie

This true crime odyssey explores a forgotten, astonishing chapter of American history, leading the reader from a free-love community in upstate New York to the shocking assassination of President James Garfield.It was heaven on earth—and, some whispered, the devil’s garden. Thousands came by trains and carriages to see this new Eden, carved from hundreds of acres of wild woodland. They marveled at orchards bursting with fruit, thick herds of Ayrshire cattle and Cotswold sheep, and whizzing mills. They gaped at the people who lived in this place—especially the women, with their queer cropped hair and shamelessly short skirts. The men and women of this strange outpost worked and slept together—without sin, they claimed. From 1848 to 1881, a small utopian colony in upstate New York—the Oneida Community—was known for its shocking sexual practices, from open marriage and free love to the sexual training of young boys by older women. And in 1881, a one-time member of the Oneida Community—Charles Julius Guiteau—assassinated President James Garfield in a brutal crime that shook America to its core. An Assassin in Utopia is the first book that weaves together these explosive stories in a tale of utopian experiments, political machinations, and murder. This deeply researched narrative—by bestselling author Susan Wels—tells the true, interlocking stories of the Oneida Community and its radical founder, John Humphrey Noyes; his idol, the eccentric newspaper publisher Horace Greeley (founder of the New Yorker and the New York Tribune); and the gloomy, indecisive President James Garfield—who was assassinated after his first six months in office. Juxtaposed to their stories is the odd tale of Garfield’s assassin, the demented Charles Julius Guiteau, who was connected to all of them in extraordinary, surprising ways. Against a vivid backdrop of ambition, hucksterism, epidemics, and spectacle, the book’s interwoven stories fuse together in the climactic murder of President Garfield in 1881—at the same time as the Oneida Community collapsed. Colorful and compelling, An Assassin in Utopia is a page-turning odyssey through America’s nineteenth-century cultural and political landscape.

In this gripping and electric novel, the grim horrors of Nazis in America collides with the manufacturing of the suburban dream—by a brilliant new voice in crime fiction. An Oprah Daily Best Thriller of 2025On a fall night in 1954, in working-class Lindenhurst, Long Island, a woman goes alone to a bar filled with German speakers who’ve finished their shifts at different jobs—some at a groundbreaking new project run by a man named Leavitt. They are gathered to listen to the first game of the World Series between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians at the Polo Grounds. The game would make the history books because of “The Catch” at the outfield wall by Willie Mays. But Lindenhurst's new chief of police, Paul Beirne, can't think about baseball. Still struggling with the demons from his time as a POW in Japan during the war, he gets the call that a woman's mutilated body is found in a field north of Lindenhurst, near where a new cemetery is being constructed to accommodate the growing suburbs. There hasn’t been a murder in the village in decades, and on top of this horrific crime, there is a suspicious accident on the railroad tracks. Paul turns to his friend Doc, a Holocaust survivor and who, like Paul, suffers from the horrors of his past. But Paul has personal horrors, too, that are outside the purview of war. Or so he thinks. In stark contrast to the whitewashed ideal Leavitt and others in Lindenhurst are trying to create, an evil as taken root in Lindenhurst. What Paul and Doc uncover will lead Paul to another murder, one committed two decades before, as past and present, family and world war, collide in this intense and thrilling debut from a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer.

The thrilling story of a brazen, uncatchable jewel thief who roamed the homes of Dallas high society—and a window into the dark secrets lurking beneath the surface of the Swinging Sixties.As a string of high profile jewel thefts went unsolved during the Swinging Sixties, the press dubbed the elusive thief "the King of Diamonds" because he eluded police and the FBI for more than a decade.Like Cary Grant in "To Catch a Thief," the King was so bold that he tip-toed into the homes of millionaires while they were watching television, or hosting parties. He hid in their closets. And dared to smoke a cigarette while they were sleeping not far away. Rena Pederson, then a young reporter withUPI, started following the elusive thief while she managed the night desk. With gymnastic skill, this thief climbed trees or crawled across rooftops to get into sprawling mansions. He took jewels from heiresses, oil kings, corporate CEOs. These were not just some of the richest people in Texas; they were some of the richest people of their time. Scotland Yard and Interpol were on the look-out. But the thief was never caught and the jewels never recovered. To follow the tracks of the thief, Rena has interviewed more than two hundred people, from veteran cops to strippers. She went to pawn shops, Las Vegas casinos, and a Mafia hangout—and discovered that beneath the glittering façade of Dallas debutante parties was a world of sex trafficking, illegal gambling, and political graft. When one of the leading suspects was found dead in highly unusual circumstances, the story darkened. High society crashed head-first into Mickey Spillane. The odd psychological aspects of the The King of Diamonds give us different kind of crime story. Detectives were stumped: Why did the thief break into houses when his targets were inside, increasing the risk of being captured? Why did he hide in their closets? Many times, he was so close he could hear their breathing as they slept. As one socialite put it, “It was a very peculiar business.”

*Shortlisted for the 2026 ALCS Gold Dagger for Nonfiction* *Honoree of the Midland Authors Award for Nonfiction* *Winner of the 2025 Best in Indiana Journalism Award*The haunting account of the Delphi Murders, a double-murder case that has held an unrelenting grip on the American heartland for over six years. On February 13, 2017, two teenage friends went for a walk in the woods just outside the small city of Delphi, Indiana. They should have been safe — but Liberty German and Abigail Williams never made it home. The next day, searchers found their bodies in a clearing. The two girls had been brutally murdered. Incredibly, in the final moments of her life, Liberty somehow managed to capture a video of the man who would soon murder her and her friend. This blurry recording showed a man lumbering toward the girls and then gruffly commanding them to go “down the hill.” A fascinated public obsessed over those clues. Speculation about the killer’s identity ran rampant on social media. Meanwhile, a sprawling law enforcement investigation led to some of the darkest corners of the heartland. Still, the case remained unsolved for years. Everything changed in October 2022 when authorities announced the arrest of Delphi resident Richard Allen. But as the case began to make its way through the justice system, many began to question whether the small community had what it took to prosecute the case. They also wondered whether or not the police had even arrested the right man. Investigators, officials, prosecutors, and the defense attorneys found themselves stuck in an unprecedented firestorm of online controversy and subterfuge, with so-called internet sleuths hyping up conspiracy theories and trading leaks. Now, Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee, the investigative team behind a series of bombshell reports on the case have put forth the only definitive account of the entire investigation. Shadow of the Bridge: The Delphi Murders and the Dark Side of the American Heartland goes deeper and offers more detail than what was shared on the popular Murder Sheet podcast, answering many of the questions that have haunted so many since the deaths of Libby and Abby. Most importantly, in working closely with the German and Williams families, Cain and Greenlee tell the stories of who these two warm, bright, and promising girls were to all who cared for them. With rigorous research and captivating prose, Shadow of the Bridge is a powerful narrative of a complicated, twisting story of tragedy and a community's determination to see justice.

A police detective in Hong Kong races to solve a vicious murder, while the city around him teeters on the brink of destruction.Hong Kong is a city ablaze—its streets filled with protesters, its government in crisis, its people torn between rage and fear of what defiance might cost. At the center stands Superintendent Killian Tong, once a rising star in the police, now disgraced and haunted by a tragic accident at a protest. Exiled to a remote post, Killian is called back when a dismembered body is uncovered in a landfill. The gruesome murder could be his path to redemption—if he can withstand mounting pressure from superiors desperate to bury the truth, and the even more dangerous fractures within his own family. His beloved younger sister Jun refuses to speak to him, devoting herself to the protest movement. Once inseparable, the siblings now face each other across barricades, Jun’s fierce commitment pulling her closer to arrest and ruin. As Killian follows the murder trail into Hong Kong’s highest corridors of power, he must confront not only the city’s corruption, but the searing question at his heart: When politics ignites a family war, can love survive the flames? City on Fire is both a taut thriller and a deeply human story of loyalty, betrayal, and the search for redemption in a city under siege.

"Grady cannot be pigeonholed. Shadows on Sidewalks defies classification."—Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review A cinematic and propulsive thriller from the author of Six Days Of The Condor and American Sky.Bob Dylan once declared that "Sex and politics and murder is the way to go if you want to get people's attention," and readers won't be able to look away from Shadows on Sidewalks, the new erotic thriller from James Grady. James Traven returns home to his small Montana town in autumn 2024 to care for his mother after a devasting fall. He quickly finds himself trapped in a life-threatening web of lies and lust. With the clock ticking, Traven must save the savvy and beautiful Lana LaBuff from almost-certain murder. Complicating things is her monstrous husband and the fact that their only ally is Cody, the mysterious former Marine who runs the local gun shop and regularly ghosts on ordinary life. Fresh and fast-paced, Shadows on Sidewalks takes us on a roller coaster ride through old age, racism, anger, sorrow, lust, and love. From the click of a cocked pistol to the distress signal—an "S.O.S."—emitted as James and Lana fight amidst a swirl of personal and political struggles, James Grady demonstratses his mastery of the noir form and shines a light on the modern condition.