In 1946, years before the phrase "serial murder" was coined, a masked killer terrorized the town of Texarkana on the Texas-Arkansas border. Striking five times within a ten-week period, always at night, the prowler claimed six lives and left three other victims wounded. Survivors told police that their assailant was a man, but could supply little else. A local newspaper dubbed him the Phantom Killer, and it stuck. Other reporters called the faceless predator the "Moonlight Murderer," though the lunar cycle had nothing to do with the crimes. Texarkana's phantom was not America's first serial slayer; he certainly was not the worst, either in body count or sheer brutality. But he has left a crimson mark on history as one of those who got away. Like the elusive Axeman of New Orleans, Cleveland's Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, and San Francisco's Zodiac Killer, the Phantom Killer left a haunting mystery behind. This is the definitive story of that mystery.

THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 'I was a very vulnerable young woman with three small children. I was lost ... Pat Quirke tried to come in and control everything' Bobby Ryan's disappearance in rural Tipperary in June 2011 mystified all who knew him. The truck-driver and part-time DJ (known as Mr Moonlight) was an easy-going fellow with no enemies. Or so everyone thought. When Ryan's body was found 22 months later on the farm of Mary Lowry, the wealthy young widow he had been seeing, it was clear that he had met a violent end. And the most likely person to have brought about that end? Pat Quirke, the man who had 'discovered' the body - Mary Lowry's brother-in-law, financial advisor, tenant and one-time lover. Following the longest running murder trial in Irish criminal history Quirke was convicted of murder in May 2019. Getting to that day had taken years of exhaustive work by gardaí. The Murder of Mr Moonlight is the definitive account of their investigation as well as the compelling story of how an innocent man paid the price for another man's obsessions. __________ 'Absolutely compulsive reading ... a page-turner' Eamon Dunphy '[An] excellent book that shows all the colours of the story that intrigued the nation' Irish Daily Mail 'Well-researched and highly readable ... Fegan proves her journalistic mettle, delivering forensic detail in accessible language ... Anyone who followed the trial will not be disappointed by Fegan's book' Business Post

"Prohibition ended on December 5, 1933, and Steubenville hoped that its reputation as "Little Chicago" would end with it. That hope was short-lived when, eight weeks later, the Phantom Killer made his midnight debut. Under the glow of a full moon, in the mill yards of Steubenville's Wheeling Steel Plant, the killer ambushed a rail worker, shooting him five times. The Steubenville Police Department, Jefferson County Sheriff's Department and Wheeling Steel Mill Police joined forces in the New Year to find the Phantom before he took another victim. The strongest of millworkers on the midnight shift began to arm themselves, wondering who would be next. As the investigation wore on, Steubenville was once again thrust into the national spotlight as the Phantom's reign of terror continued. Local historian Susan M. Guy delves into one of the city's most infamous crimes"--Back cover.

Military wife, mom, and professional organizer Ellie Avery returns in her fourth cozy mystery, in which she stumbles across two dead bodies in her new neighborhood, and discovers that murder is a clear and present danger.

Would you try to save your son from a death sentence if he tried to murder you in your own bed? In Murder by Moonlight, Vincent Zandri's cunning detective Dick Moonlight returns with his toughest case yet: proving an open-and-shut murder investigation isn't over at all. Joan Parker is the last woman private eye Dick Moonlight would ever expect to see in his Albany office. From the right side of the tracks-neighboring Bethlehem-she bears her upper class upbringing as effortlessly as a string of pearls. She also bears a scar running down her head and face-a brutal reminder of the ax attack that took the life of her husband. Her twenty-one-year-old son, Christopher, now sits in jail charged with the crime. According to the official report-based on Joan's answers to police when they arrived at the house and found her barely alive-she identified Christopher as the culprit. But sitting in Moonlight's office, she reveals that she has no recollection of the event, yet is certain of one thing: Christopher didn't do it. Moonlight knows a thing or two about being nearly dead. And he also knows the tragedy of the police jumping to the wrong conclusions-a past case of a falsely accused client still haunts him-so he agrees to take the job and get to the truth of what happened that day. At first the trail of clues-from the crime scene to Joan's original accusation-keeps the finger pointed at Christopher. But soon Moonlight turns up something he never expected, something more sinister than anything he's ever come up against. Vincent Zandri's latest Dick Moonlight PI thriller, Murder by Moonlight is a fast-paced, whip-smart tale of a guy who can't always remember getting into trouble-and can't seem to stay out of it. For fans of Robert B. Parker, Michael Connelly, Ace Atkins, Brett Battles, Don Winslow, and more comes an unputdownable mystery based on a true story that's sure to keep you up all night...in a good way.

Dr. Michael Fuentes had been looking forward to a quiet week at home in Moonlight Basin, Montana, visiting with friends. But a chance encounter with a woman at the Bozeman airport bar changed all that. Now it's up to retired detective A.C. LaFleur to find out what has put them all in mortal danger.And he's quickly running out of time.

The salacious and scandalous murders of a series of couples on Texarkana's "lovers lanes" in seemingly idyllic post-WWII America created a media maelstrom and cast a pall of fear over an entire region. What is even more surprising is that the case has remained cold for decades. Combining archival research and investigative journalism, Pulitzer Prize nominated historian James Presley reveals evidence that provides crucial keys to unlocking this decades-old puzzle.Dubbed "the Phantom murders" by the press, these grisly crimes took place in an America before dial telephones, DNA science, and criminal profiling. Even pre-television, print and radio media stirred emotions to a fever pitch. The Phantom Killer, exhaustively researched, is the only definitive nonfiction book on the case, and includes details from an unpublished account by a survivor, and rare, never-before-published photographs.Although the case lives on today on television, the Internet, a revived fictional movie and even an off-Broadway play, with so much of the investigation shrouded in mystery since 1946, rumors and fractured facts have distorted the reality. Now, for the first time, a careful examination of the archival record, personal interviews, and stubborn fact checking come together to produce new insights and revelations on the old slayings.