Every hero has an origin story where he slays the monsters and gets the girl. Mine is a cautionary tale. I am the monster, and I watch the woman I love die over and over again. I was born an orphan and a legend with my first breath. My silver spoon was replaced with an iron blade, and my wealth with a bounty on my head. I lived in the shadows, lurking amongst the bastards and the beggars with no moral compass to guide me as I stumbled through life, carrying the heavy burden of my past in secrecy. The few who dared to speak my name knew me as Justus Beiste – just beast. I was untamable and bowed to no man or God, ruled only by my desires. But the one thing I craved most, I could never have, for fear she too would fall victim to my curse. This isn’t a love story. This is a tragedy played out in endless acts, spanning countless lives. Still, I would follow her across centuries, my soul tethered to hers, protecting her from those who came before us, until I succumbed to bloodlust and broke our ties or bonded us together forever.

The serenity of America's heartland was shattered on the morning of April 19, 1995, when a massive explosion leveled one side of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. In this riviting and revealing biography of Timothy McVeigh, the author explores McVeigh's childhood, his education, military service, and his efforts to find meaning in his life. Photo insert.

It was huge, a ferocious carnivore capable of catching deer and elk with its long trunk and crushing them in its giant grinders. It lived right there in the Hudson River Valley. And no place else in the world had anything to match it. Such were the thoughts about the first complete mastodon skeleton excavated in 1801, before dinosaurs were discovered and the notion of geologic time acquired currency. Oregon- based natural historian Semonin traces the evangelical beliefs, Englightenment thought, and Indian myths about the extinct creatures from 1705 through US independence. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

From pre-Columbian legends to modern-day eyewitness accounts, this comprehensive guide covers the history, sightings and lore surrounding the most mysterious monsters in America—including Bigfoot, the Jersey Devil, and more. Bigfoot, the chupacabra, and thunderbirds aren’t just figments of our overactive imaginations—according to thousands of eyewitnesses, they exist, in every corner of the United States. Throughout America’s history, shocked onlookers have seen unbelievable creatures of every stripe—from sea serpents to apelike beings, giant bats to monkeymen—in every region. Author, investigator, and creature expert Linda S. Godfrey brings the same fearless reporting she lent to Real Wolfmen to this essential guide, using historical record, present-day news reports, and eyewitness interviews to examine this hidden menagerie of America’s homegrown beasts.

With specially commissioned essays by veteran chroniclers such as Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin, this collection spotlights 40 profiles of history's most celebrated and notorious Americans: the corrupt, greedy, power-mad, and vicious betrayers of the dreams of fair play and equal opportunity.

Monsters are here to stay.--Christopher James Blythe "Journal of Religion and Popular Culture"

FROM SOCIAL OUTCAST TO NECROPHILE AND MURDERER -- HIS APPALLING CRIMES STUNNED AN ERA. San Francisco, the 1920s. In an age when nightmares were relegated to the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and distant tales of the Whitechapel murders, a real-life monster terrorized America. His acts of butchery have proved him one of history's fiercest madmen. As an infant, Earle Leonard Nelson possessed the power to unsettle his elders. As a child he was unnaturally obsessed with the Bible; before he reached puberty, he had an insatiable, aberrant sex drive. By his teens, even Earle's own family had reason to fear him. But no one in the bone-chilling winter of 1926 could have predicted that his degeneracy would erupt in a sixteen-month frenzy of savage rape, barbaric murder, and unimaginable defilement -- deeds that would become the hallmarks of one of the most notorious fiends of the twentieth century, whose blood-lust would not be equaled until the likes of Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer. Drawing on the "gruesome, awesome, compelling reporting" (Ann Rule) that is his trademark, Harold Schechter takes a dark journey into the mind of an unrepentant sadist -- and brilliantly lays bare the myth of innocence that shrouded a bygone era.