You don't have to be a ghoul to enjoy graveyards. Visiting the final resting places of well-known personalities and historical figures is as much a celebration of lives fascinatingly (or self- destructively) led as it is an illuminating look into the past. Authors Patricia and Jonathan Brooks unearth nearly a thousand intriguing characters whose legacies live on beyond the grave. Inside this volume you'll find detailed obituaries and sepulchral photographs, as well as useful data on cemetery locations and visiting hours; availability of maps, tours, walks, and special events; and original homesteads and museums - plus tasty lunch spots! - located nearby.

From award winning criminologist R. Barri Flowers and the bestselling author of Murder at the Pencil Factory and The Sex Slave Murders, comes a powerful new historical true crime short, Murder of the Banker’s Daughter: The Killing of Marion Parker. On December 15, 1927, 12-year-old Marion Parker, daughter of a prominent banker was brazenly abducted from her junior high school in Los Angeles, California in a bizarre ransom scheme. Two days later, the girl’s dismembered remains were left behind by a brutal killer, destroying a family and unnerving the entire city. This caused pandemonium as the perpetrator managed to evade immediate capture, leading to a manhunt by authorities unlike any in recent memory. The horror of the crime was reminiscent of one 14 years earlier involving 13-year-old Mary Phagan, who was murdered at a pencil factory in Atlanta, and 5 years later when the 20-month-old son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh was abducted from the family’s New Jersey home and brutally slain. The killer of Marion Parker was identified as former bank messenger William Edward Hickman, a 19-year-old with a score to settle and an appetite for killing. The career criminal’s capture, trial, and ultimate fate captured the public’s imagination, while putting attention on the age-old vulnerability of children in this country targeted by child predators and the often tragic consequences that rings true to this day. Included with the story are bonus excerpts of R. Barri Flowers' bestselling true crime shorts, Murder at the Pencil Factory and Mass Murder in the Sky, as well as an excerpt of the author’s international bestselling true crime book, The Sex Slave Murders.

In her first book, We Are Surely Blessed, Ann Williams focused on her parents, Leslie and Esther Johnson. They watch as their five older children grow to adulthood, marry and start their own familys while the two younger children continue their education. They pulled together during the Great Depression, WW I, and saw two of their sons serve in the army during WW II. It is now 1949. In The Passage of Time you will see their dream of having a large family, materialize. Each of the families has settled in the farming area around Guss, Iowa. Follow them as they prosper with their own dreams and watch their children go forward. Share with them the beginning of life and the loss of life, as sudden sadness engulfs them. Join Esther and Leslie as they celebrate their 50th Anniversary. They continue to share the love of the land, the pride in their family, and the country in which they were born. They continue to hold their faith in God. There is a feeling that someone is always watching over them and He will walk with them for the rest of their lives. Follow their youngest daughter as she and her husband and two sons leave the Iowa farm lands and settle in San Jose, California.

From R. Barri Flowers, award-winning criminologist and the bestselling author of Murdered by the King of Western Swing, Murder at the Pencil Factory, Murder of the Doctor’s Wife, and Murder During the Chicago World’s Fair, comes the riveting historical true crime short, Murder of the Horse Trainer’s Rival: The Bitter Breakup of Buddy Jacobson and the Model. On August 6, 1978, firefighters discovered the charred remains of a body inside a wooden crate, set ablaze in an empty lot in the Bronx, New York. The male decedent had been worked over, stabbed, and shot multiple times. The victim was identified as John “Jack” Tupper, a restaurateur, age thirty-four. His killer turned out to be forty-eight-year-old Howard “Buddy” Jacobson, who at one time was the country’s leading Thoroughbred horse trainer. The shocking act of violence was the result of a classic love triangle turned deadly. The woman caught between the two men was an attractive twenty-three-year-old fashion model and cover girl named Melanie Cain, who had recently started living with Tupper in his 84th Street penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She had previously lived in the adjoining suite with Jacobson for a number of years before moving out. After being convicted of Tupper’s murder in 1980, Buddy Jacobson made a daring escape from custody, fleeing across the country to California with his new girlfriend, a twenty-two-year-old model named Audrey Barrett. The convicted murderer stayed on the lamb for several weeks before being captured to carry out his sentence for the death of Jack Tupper. The stunning tale of Jacobson’s meteoric rise and fall in horse training, and subsequent romantic involvement with someone less than half his age ending up in a tragic crime of passion, had all the makings of an ill-fated contemporary melodrama, except that it occurred on a real-life stage as a sad true event. Bonus material includes a complete and gripping historical true crime short, Murder of the Banker’s Daughter: The Killing of Marion Parker, and excerpts from the author’s bestselling true crime anthologies, Murder Chronicles: A Collection of Chilling True Crime Tales, and The Dreadful Acts of Jack the Ripper and Other True Tales of Serial Murder and Prostitutes.